well there is a good chance of frost tomorrow night and the only thing left in the garden is a few green tomatoes on the one plant out of 7 that did well this year so i will be picking those tomorrow then working on putting the garden to bed for the winter. so it is time for an end of season update.
of 7 tomato plants only 1 did well this year and that plant was the only one that was in a tomato cage that i built this year all the others were cages i reused from last year. they were stored outside all winter i had thought that the -10 F + cold we get here would kill any diseases from the year before but i was wrong i am pretty sure that is the cause because as that 7th pant got really big and a couple branches reached out and touched the resounding tomato cages those branches got sickly and i had to trim them off to keep the entire plant from getting sick.
i started my bell pepper plants and all my tomatoes except 1 from seed one of the tomatoes that died was a 4" pot from local nursery this years tomatoes did OK starting out but i started the seeds in my basement and it was to cold for the peppers and i kept them to moist and they got root rot. only 1 of the plants ended up surviving being transplanted and it was severely set back so bad in fact i only got 3 green peppers off of it just a week or so ago and it took all season for it to grow big enough to make those. but you learn by doing be better next year.
potatoes did very well this year i got two full cat litter buckets of potatoes plus enough to replant for next year. with this system you replant your potatoes for next year as your digging this years crop up and they overwinter in the ground. at least that is the plan i do not know of anyone who has tried that in my growing zone so we shall see in the spring.
cucumbers were late but did well planted good old fashioned straight 8 cucumbers
beans did not do that well got a couple of small servings that was about it i planted pole beans this year because i did not have room for bush beans and the bugs ate them and what the bugs did not eat did not grow well. also they got a late start because we had a cool spring after a quick warm snap so the seed sat in the ground for over two weeks after i planted it it was almost first of June before it finally came up and that sets a plant back hard when that happens
my onions got crowded out by my potatoes this year i went with sets this year next year i think i will go with onion plants perhaps they will do better.
this is just a learning experience and you have to remember that the spring before last for 1/4 of it and this spring for the rest this spot was lawn. it takes a few years to build good soil even with this method.
it is not like the gardens in the park were master gardeners from the county extension had been overseeing the amending of the soil for the last 20 years were everything grew gangbusters especially the weeds lol.