Mission Endure 89: Garden 2024

2024 has been a very interesting year in our garden. I have really had some mixed results with growing our favorite fruit and vegetables. We spent January, February, and March in California and I thought it would be a great opportunity to grow some of our own Lettuce, Peppers, and Tomatoes out there so we could have fresh food and save some money. The day after we arrived I planted our favorite Lettuce, and a few days later I planted our Peppers and Tomatoes. I thought we might not get a harvest of Peppers or Tomatoes, but we would probably have enough time to harvest lots of Lettuce while we were there. I was up for an experiment, so we planted.

After 2 and a half months we never had anything grow. Our Lettuce was less than an inch tall when we called it quits. I am not quite sure what happened, but the weather was in the 60s most days, and I think everything I planted likes the weather a bit warmer. I thought at least the Lettuce would grow in cool weather, but nothing grew.

When we returned to the Midwest in March it was still cold, so I started my indoor garden and took good care of my plants. But, after a month nothing had grown. I have been growing indoors since 2019 and used the exact procedures I always have, but nothing grew. After a month I decided that maybe the problem was with my soil. So, I decided to try some different soil and planted again on April 16th and 20th. Boom, I got instant growth. I replanted everything and as an experiment I used the original soil in two pots of lettuce and then planted everything else in a new type of soil. The original soil didn’t grow anything again, but the additional soil did well.

I ended up planting Parris Island Coz Romaine Lettuce, Beefsteak and Roma Tomatoes, Jalapenos, Sweet Peppers, Cucumbers, Bush Beans, Pole Beans, and lots of Marigolds. We were planning to keep the Lettuce and one of two of each of the others indoors and transplant the rest outside in our backyard garden. Here are the results:

The tail of two soils. Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce all planted the same day using two different soils.

After a month, I discarded the soil that wasn’t working and replanted the two containers on the right with new Parris Island Cos seeds.

Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce

The Parris Island Coz has grown a lot, but is not very well organized. They are a couple of weeks away from harvest, and they should look more like traditional Romaine Lettuce before I start to harvest them. I ordered these seeds from Baker Creek. I have great success with Baker Creek seeds, except for Parris Island Cos. I seem to have better luck with Johnny’s Parris Island Cos. When my Baker Creek seeds are gone, I will order from Johnny’s next time. I do succession planting with my indoor garden. When I start harvesting from my indoor garden I normally plant replacements. So, yesterday I got an early start and planted more Parris Island Cos.

These are only about 2 or 3 days old and are growing quickly.

Here is what the indoor Tomatoes look like:

Roma and Beefsteak Tomatoes

These are both Baker Creek tomatoes. The ones on the left are Martino’s Roma Tomato. I have had great luck with growing them indoors. They get 5-10 fruit on them and they are small fruit, but they consistently produce well. The tomatoes on the right are Classic Beefsteak. I have never grown them before. They have produced well outdoors and I hope they will do well indoors as a backup to the outdoor garden.

Here are some photos of how everything is going in our outdoor garden:

In this photo I wanted to highlight growing Sweet Potatoes in Fabric Bags. I have always wanted to grow a ton of Sweet Potatoes, but I have never been successful. This is my latest try. I bought Sweet Potato Slips from Stark Brothers Nursery. They were expensive, but I plan to grow slips from our harvest for next year, so hopefully they will be cost-effective. The two small trees in bottom right are a Peach Tree and a Cherry Tree I started growing last year from Cherry and Peach pits. They were an experiment that I don’t know how it will turn out until one day when we harvest peaches and cherry’s from them. We will see how they grow. I plan to get more of them started this year.

We have three squares of Strawberries growing and we have harvested them about five times already this year. We probably get around a quart of Strawberries for each harvest. They have enough Strawberries coming for another couple of harvests.

When we got back home from California we had left a couple of Potatoes out on the kitchen table. They sprouted while we were gone, so we cut them up and planted each of the sprouts. We have been trying to grow Potatoes for a couple of years and haven’t gotten much. This year I put in a couple of corrugated metal raised bed planters from Northern Tool and these seem to be growing well. The stems had gotten so long that whenever I water them they bend over. I hope the Potatoes haven’t spent all of their energy building nice stems and fail to produce some good sized tubers. It would be nice to have a pantry with some great Sweet Potatoes and Potatoes in them this year.

The Potatoes are growing like crazy.

We have two raised beds with Blue Lake Bush Beans, Classic Beefsteak Tomatoes, Martino’s Roma Tomatoes, Cucumbers, and Marigolds in them. We saved seeds from last year’s Bush Bean crop and used them this year. These were all started indoors and transplanted outside about two weeks ago. They are growing nicely.

This photo has a couple of assorted squares in them. The center bottom square has Rattlesnake Pole Beans that we got from Baker Creek last year and they grew well. We saved a few of the seeds to plant this year. They grow like crazy and will be up the trellis and all over the place and produce tons of beautiful green and purple green beans. We have some Craig’s Grande Jalapenos in the left side of the same square. They grow pretty well also. In the back center square we have two Martino’s Roma Tomatoes growing with some California Wonder Sweet Pepper.

And then to top it all off we have a Craig’s Grande Jalapeno and some Marigolds growing in front of the Potatoes.

That sums up where we are at with our garden in 2024. So far it has been a strange gardening year. Here is one last photo of our outdoor garden. Over on the right hand side is a small woodpile we use for our outdoor campfire pit. As we start harvesting I will post some new photos and videos. Happy gardening to you all. :