2009 by most peoples account was not a great year for vegetable gardening. If you judge your gardens success by your tomato, pepper and eggplant harvested you were dissappointed. With the Late Blight disease deccimating our tomato crop and not enough heat and sunlight to turn the peppers red it was frustrating to say the least. More on the Late Blight later. There is not a lot we can do about the weather conditions other than planting crops that are more adapted to current conditions. That is where my gardening successes came in.

By mid-August I had pulled out all of my tomato plants and replanted the area to a new crop of green beans, zuccini, spinach, lettuce and swiss chard. I really didn't think that I had enough time for another crop of beans and zuccini and I was right, barely! Another week or so and I would of had it. The spinach, lettuce and chard were great! I even left the gate open eventually to let the deer finish off the chard.

Lettuce has such a short season that it is advisable to plant successive crops a few weeks apart during the season to ensure a steady supply. With the warm sunny weather lettuce will 'bolt' trying to go to seed and get milky and bitter. This past summer I was still picking from my first crop when the third crop was about ready!

Fall was nice enabling me to get a small crop of garlic planted. Maybe an early crop of young garlic shoots for an omlet?