I'm officially calling an end to the garden for the year.
I've learned a lot and had a great time this summer with everything! The end of the year totals were not too bad, but should of been much greater. A lot of produce went to waste from both pests and my own neglect. It seems that at the end of the summer when I was the busiest was when I needed to be out there every day harvesting and tending the garden. I had visions in the Spring of eating vegetables from the garden every day during the Summer, but that just wasn't the possible. Lesson learned...
At some point over the coming months I'm going to sit down and evaluate what worked and what didn't to hopefully improve my plan for next year. One thing that is for sure is I'll be scaling back a bit and not use the recommended square foot garden spacing as much. Plants like the peppers, for example, quickly became shaded out from the tomatoes. When I was forced to prune and remove some of them a few weeks back, they almost doubled in size. If the frost comes late and it remains warm I still may get some additional peppers from the new growth. Next year they'll get much more space between each plant and whatever gets planted near them....
This weekend I plan on ripping out everything and cleaning up the space for the fall/winter. By the looks of it it seems like a lot of work!
I'm really looking forward to putting this year's experience into practice next year!
