Dzen Garden Season One Wrap-Up
Although my garden season officially ended in mid-October and my plot is all cleared out and plowed over at this point, I somehow still end up passing by almost everyday when I’m out on a walk—I miss you Dzen Garden! Is it spring yet?
I knew I would love having a garden, but I really loved having a garden. Everyone has been asking me if I’m planning to do it again next year and the answer is very much yes. I have a feeling this will end up being the first of many gardening seasons for me. Part of me is even toying with the idea of getting a full plot next year (I did a half plot this time around) so I can devote more space to flowers…because the flowers were kind of my favorite part. Well, and the tomatoes—I love tomatoes.
So how did it go? Overall, I’m pretty pleased with my first go at gardening. It wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t expect it to be, and I think I had a healthy mix of successes and failures.
While certain crops didn’t flourish the way I expected them to (I’m looking at you, cucumbers and eggplant), others made up for it (kale, tomatoes, herbs, and zinnias were great for me), and although I can’t be sure, I have a few ideas to what may have gone wrong so I can experiment next year.
Lessons From My First Year Gardening:
Get compost. I debated it early on in the season but I really wish I had gone for it. Next year I’m placing my order early.
Fertilize more. I fertilized some, but I should have been more consistent, especially at the beginning of the season. A friend told me she swears by compost tea so that’s something I’m going to look into.
Water more—especially when it’s super hot out. I should have paid less attention to YouTube videos and gardening articles and just trusted my instincts, because I think I definitely under-watered, especially in July when we had a long stretch of really hot days.
There will be bugs, expect them, and prepare for them.
Be strategic with garden plot organization. I was pretty good with this for the most part and I even did some companion planting that worked out well (I credit the marigolds for keeping my tomato plants pest-free), but next year I need to consider a few other factors too, like planting crops that need row cover for bug protection next to each other, being cognizant of how tall certain plants are going to get to make sure they aren’t shading others, planting crops that need to be trellised next to each other, and etc.
When a crop is at its peak, don’t wait—harvest! My basil plants were doing incredible for the majority of the summer…until they got downy mildew and died. I wish I had harvested like crazy in mid-summer when they were thriving and made tons of pesto to freeze, but I just assumed that the basil would produce like that all summer…and it didn’t. Which brings me to my next lesson…
Something can be doing amazing one day and then be on the brink of death the next. Bugs, disease, intense weather, there are a lot of factors that can take a crop out and it was wild to watch the plants fluctuate all summer long.
Know the lifespan of your plants. While some will produce all summer, some have a much shorter season. For instance, next year I plan to succession plant cilantro because now I know that it only really produces for 6 weeks or so before it goes to seed. I also now know that a chunk of space will open up after I harvest my onions, so I can plan for some late-season crops to go in their place, like radishes or beets.
Expect to weed a ton at first but then less later on. The weeding was constant in May and June but it thankfully became a lot less intense once summer was in full swing.
Don’t grow things you won’t actually use. I like Swiss chard…but I never cook with it, so my poor Swiss chard plants just sadly stared at me all summer while I harvested everything else around them.
I haven’t done a whole lot of planning for my 2021 plot yet, but I did make a list of what I’d like to grow based on what did well this year and a few things I wish I had grown:
To Grow Next Year:
Veggies: Tomato (I need some more big guys next year, what are your favorite varieties?), Green Pepper, Jalapeno, Cucumber, Green Beans, Kale, Eggplant, Zucchini, Summer Squash, Radish, Beets, Leeks, Onions (I want to do way more next year, having homegrown onions was amazing)
Herbs: Basil, Chives, Parsley, Cilantro, Chamomile, Dill, Rosemary, Lavender, Lemon Balm
Flowers: Zinnias, Dahlias, Cosmos, Eucalyptus (I am so glad I randomly picked this up from the garden center this year, I had no idea if you could grow eucalyptus in my zone but it did great!), Blue Cornflower, Lisianthus, and China Aster—but I recently bought Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden book so there may be some revisions to this list once I dig in and start reading.
During a year that was disruptive in every way and full of so many unknowns and so much uncertainty, the garden was my happy place, my daily moment of zen (or, you know, Dzen), and my own little world to retreat to away from the news and the virus and everything else. I’ve been wanting to start one for such a long time and this turned out to be the perfect year for it.
✌🏻❤️🌿
p.s. My amazing “Plants” sweatshirt is from Valley Cruise Press.
