We had our first hard frost (and a low of 22 degrees!) earlier this week here in Flagstaff, which means our gardening season is effectively over.
I’d hung up some plastic sheeting last week to try to get my tomatoes to ripen while nighttime temps were flirting with the 30s, but lo and behold, nature had other plans. The plastic sheeting fell down while we were in Vegas, and that was it. It dropped down to the low 20s, and my lone three remaining vegetable plants — the tomatoes, pickling cucumbers and zucchini — all died off.
So, I wanted to take a second to recap my very first gardening season here in Flagstaff.
I honestly wasn’t expecting much at all. I mentioned it in my first post, but I decided to try a little bit of a lot of things to see what worked and what didn’t.
Like, truly. My expectations were SO incredibly low. I was shocked that my seeds germinated at all, let alone actually produced edible vegetables!
So, when I started harvesting actual food halfway through the summer, I was so, so happy. I mentioned it a bit in my previous posts, but Flagstaff weather is incredibly temperamental. We have scorching daytime highs, bone-chilling nighttime lows, early-spring drought, early-summer monsoonal rains… and a very short growing season. Couple that with my tiny side yard being surrounded by very tall walls? I was not optimistic.
But, not only did I actually get plants to sprout… I harvested actual edible vegetables!
WHAT WORKED
Zucchini. Squash has a pretty good reputation for growing well here in Flagstaff and my garden was quick to agree. My zucchini plant promptly took over my garden and kicked out three or four zucchinis a week starting in mid-August. We ate a LOT of summer squash — fire-roasted with parmesan, breaded and baked in the oven, hollowed out for stuffed boats, zoodled to serve with spicy peanut pasta, you name it — and I’ll definitely be planting zucchini again.
Pole beans. These were probably tied with zucchini for productivity. My pole beans rocketed up our trellis and dipped over into our neighbors yard (sorry Bill!) before we scooped them back over our fence and harvested them. We only planted eight plants and ended up with enough beans for a single serving with dinner. We sautéed them with some lemon juice and garlic, and they were delicious. Plus, the thick green pole bean plant leaves were really pretty to look at as they took off and covered up the thick wooden fence that separates us from our neighbors.
Spinach. Our spinach grew in quickly and was ready for harvest. I didn’t get to it soon enough (ugh, fire season) so a few of the plants bolted before I could pluck the leaves, but we did still get a decent haul. We cooked our spinach leaves down and used them in a pasta dish.
Beets. Our beets immediately took off! I had to pluck seedlings left and right to space out the plants. But, then when I went to harvest them… they were teeny tiny! I left them in the ground for two MONTHS longer than what my seed packet said, and they did grow and mature a little bit. I harvested them a few weeks ago, and will be using the beetroots for borshch.
Kale. My kale quickly developed aphids, but once those cleared up, I ended up with a beautiful hardy harvest. I sautéed the leaves down and cooked them into a dijon maple sweet potato and farro bowl.
WHAT MAYBE KIND OF ALMOST SORT OF WORKED
Carrots. Judging by my carrot greens, I figured I would have INCREDIBLE carrots. That… was not the case. Most of my carrots were little baby carrots, but they were still good! We peeled and grated our dozen or so carrots and ate them in salads. I think I’m going to try a deeper soil and more spacing next year to see if that helps.
Pickling cucumbers. I want to say our cucumber plant didn’t work, but we ended up with a single cucumber. I pickled it and it was delicious, so I’m going to say it kind of worked. I mentioned during my garden check-in that my cucumber plants never really took off. Well, one of the two ended up growing a bit, but heavy monsoonal rains kind of damaged the plant so a lot of the cucumbers died on the vine.
Tomatoes. We were SO CLOSE! But, nothing. We planted both Roma tomatoes and Brandywine Pink tomatoes at Ryan’s request. We planted the Roma plant in place of the bell pepper plant (see below). Our Roma plant never took off — likely due to a lack of sun since we placed it behind our spinach. The Brandywine Pink plant was doing great! …until the freeze. Pounds of unripe tomatoes gone in the snap of a finger. I don’t think I’ll give up on tomatoes yet, though. I think next year I’m going to try shorter-season varieties, and plant my tomatoes separately in potters so I can just drag them inside on chilly nights.
Snap peas. This one is on me, because I didn’t cover my garden with bird netting, so birds ate all my pea plants. By the time I replanted, it was too hot for these cold weather-loving little tendrils, and they promptly died. While I did end up with a few pea pods to snack on, I didn’t get too much out of these plants.
WHAT DID NOT WORK
Bell peppers. These suckers died before I could even transplant them into my garden, so I filled their planned spot with the aforementioned Roma tomato plant.
Yellow onions. I was less than optimistic about this one considering Yukon ate my onion seedlings while I had them under a grow light indoors before transplanting them, but sure enough. None of my onions developed.
Romaine lettuce. This one is also on me, because again: Birds. By the time I replanted, daytime temps were so hot that my romaine immediately bolted, and I didn’t get to harvest any of it. I’ll try again next year, with bird netting in place very, very early.
・・・
Anyway, that’s that! I already miss looking out my sliding glass door to see my pretty lush green vegetable garden, but I’m so excited I actually managed to grow some vegetables that were edible.
I’m looking forward to gardening again next year, and applying what I learned over the course of this past summer. I’m not sure, yet, what I plan to grow (other than giving tomatoes a second try) but I’ve got a few months to figure it out!
