2020 Garden

This year we decided to do a small tester garden because we live an hour away and wouldn't be able to be there often. It was an 18'x18' keyhole garden. We decided on a keyhole because it maximizes gardening space that is taken up by paths and it makes harvesting easier because you can harvest each bed from one central location.

CROPS

Japanese sweet potatoes

Sweet potatoes

Cherry tomatoes

Zucchini squash

Okra

Black turtle beans

Golden potatoes

Carrots

Corn

What worked, what didn't

We had a great okra and sweet potato harvest! The cherry tomatoes did well, too. Our corn produced some cobs, but there weren't enough plants to polinate them well. We initially had a problem with ants, which messed with our potato crop. The beans were a little slow, I think we planted them too late, but we will be using the beans we harvested for next year since they were heirloom seeds. Our squash plant produced one large squash before getting white powdery mold that we couldn't get rid of, so we just uprooted it. We got about 5 carrots, but I think it was an issue with the timing of our planting, as we got a later start and our well wasn't connected for a while after we started the garden. I think the best thing to plant would be sweet potatoes because they are easy to grow, you can eat the leaves and flowers, and the japanese ones are more resistant to diseases and pests.

Based on what we planted, we will definitely be doing sweet potatoes and okra next year and adding a lot more area to plant!

What is your favorite crop to plant?