It’s a look back at what worked and what didn’t in the ’23 garden!
I share the successes & failures from my Ohio garden- what worked well and what I would have changed.
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00:00 Intro
00:30 What Worked- more hügelkultur
02:28 What Worked- more poop
03:42 What Worked- garden layout/accessibility
04:29 What Worked- more trellises
05:12 What Worked- less cleanup
07:31 What Worked- more winter sowing
08:29 What Worked- variety performance
08:47 What Didn’t Work- not planning for weather
10:09 What Didn’t Work- doing all of the things
12:16 What Didn’t Happen- improving cold weather infrastructure
13:02 What Didn’t Happen- mushroom production
#zone6gardening #ohiogardening
Good morning everybody as we’re getting ready to jump into the 2024 gardening season I thought now might be a good time to revisit what worked well and not so well in my 2023 Ohio Garden so my successes and failures from the 23 gardening season now this topic was a suggestion from one
Of you lovely viewers so thank you for that now let’s jump right into the successes the first big win for 23 more hugle culture and not just hugle culture but I’ve developed a hybrid method of Hogle culture trench composting that has worked really really well for us now I started building traditional Hogle
Culture beds several years ago and I loved this method they’re an excellent solution for poor quality soil and poor drainage areas but over the last couple of years my tactic has morphed into more this hybrid approach so kind of a combination of trench composting and hugle culture I dig trenches first I
Like to make them about 3 to 4 feet deep and wide and I either dig by hand or in this case at my parents where we’re making a lot of hugle culture beds my husband was able to borrow a tractor and dig the trenches and I basically just
Fill them up over the course of a year or so I always start with largest chunks of wood ideally wood that has started to break down already but then on top of that I toss basically anything that one would put in the compost smaller Woody debris kitchen scraps spent plants from
The garden sticks leaves grass clippings hay or straw shredded newspaper Etc again this is typically over the course of a full year so I might dig the trenches in the spring put down the wood right away and then over the course of the Season throw all of our composted
Material in it then the following spring spring I like to add a layer of manure if I have some on hand and then I backfill with that original dirt that I took out of the trench and then as soon as I’m done back filling I can plant I
Usually either opt for fruits and vegetables or if I’m not quite ready to plant my cash crops there yet I’ll just do a cover crop for the time being this has worked beautifully and I’m constantly scoping out places where I can dig more of these trenches for hugle
Composting gardening world is one of the few worlds where more poop is considered a win but if you’ve seen some of my other videos especially those on improving clay soil you may already know that manure is one of my all-time favorite soil amendments and fertilizers in the
Past I’ve typically used cow manure and a small amount of chicken manure because that’s what we were able to get access to but in 23 I started diversifying adding sheep and rabbit to the mix and constantly seeking out reliable sources for for clean manure now I’ll try not to
Wax poetic about poop but it really has made a nearly miraculous difference in my garden Nature’s perfect soil amendment it feeds the soil microbiome which in turn feeds my plants more efficiently it improves soil structure encourages the presence of Critters like earthworms and more my preference is to
Add a heaping helping each spring but at the very least I try to always add it to any new garden beds I’m creating now unfortunately it seems to be increasingly difficult to find sources of clean manure or manure from animals who have not been fed hay or put out to
Pasture in areas where persistent herbicides have been used so finding ways to Source more clean manure and figuring out ways to keep more of my own animals to supply my own poop is a big win now if you really pressed me for what I felt the biggest win of the 23
Gardening season was I’d probably have to pick changing the layout and accessibility of the garden when we initially fenced in the garden only one entry point was built in and I didn’t have the foresight to make sure it was wide enough to easily accommodate my wheelbarrow and garden Wagon so early in
23 I made some changes to the layout swinging the fencing out and expanding the garden and adding this nice large gate this one relatively small change made such a difference now related to this other win was adding more of these cattle panel trellises I originally only
Had these two and added two more in early 23 these arches are so easy to make and so versatile the more of them I add the more stuff I find to grow up them the nice thing about growing vertically like this is you get a lot of production in a little footprint which
Saves room in the garden this also makes for healthier plants because you’re getting them up off the ground and improving air circulation and in my opinion it makes for a more visually interesting and aesthetically pleasing garden and provides little pockets of shade to take R bite under during the
Hottest months of the summer I’m already planning where I can put more for this year another win less Garden Cleanup in the fall more benefits for the garden less work for me a win all around I used to spend a significant amount of time and energy cleaning up the vegetable
Garden in the fall so getting rid of every last plant and scrap of plant debris making sure that the beds were pristine and there was nothing left so I would basically have a blank slate come the spring over the years I came to realize the critical importance of
Leaving the soil covered so I transitioned my methods to using cover crops leaf mulch sometimes hay or straw to cover all of my beds in the fall I also change to cutting plants off at ground level to leave the roots in the soil rather than yanking plants out
Roots and all now this year kind of is a happy accident it was really out of necessity I did not have the time to get out here and clean this year I left a lot more stuff in place than I ever have but I’m actually really digging the way
This has worked out leaving sunflowers and my milet cover crop in the garden has attracted droves of birds providing food and shelter for them during these cruddy winter months my fall brassicas look a little worse for the wear but I’m still harvesting greens and have plenty
Of greens to feed my chickens as well ditto on the chickweed it’s acting as a green mulch in the garden and I can pull it up and feed it to my chickens as needed they love it come spring I’ll likely just smother a lot of this out with cardboard and
Mulch I hate cleaning up tomatoes so I’ve left this planting here kind of as an experiment I did clean up the rest of my tomato plants will I have a Million tomato volunteer seedlings in the spring probably will the vines rot away and make for easier clean up come spring
Maybe can I just plant beans or cucumbers or some other Vining crop and let them climb up this trellis without doing any cleanup I don’t know but we’ll find out I do have areas where I cleaned out summer plantings and either planted cover crop or did a layer of leaf mulch
And I’m sure I will continue to use this method as well because this is very beneficial for the soil but in general I’m really feeling like less clean up is more in my garden another success in the garden was more herbs from Winter sewing
So 2 years ago I tried my hand at winter sewing but I did mostly vegetables and had mixed results but last year I decided I was going to focus on winter sewing herbs so on January 7th I started Italian parsley German chamomile marshmallow comrey valaran giant Solomon
Seal soap wart Flanders Poppy and skull cap now again I had some mixed results but the herbs that seem to respond the best to Winter sewing included the chamomile and this is actually the second year that I winter sewed chamomile and it seems to respond better to Winter sewing than other methods of
Planting that I’ve tried I was also really happy with the poppies soap wart Valyrian comfrey Rue and marshmallow I’m planning on testing out more herbs this year as well which reminds me I have to get those winter sewings started and of course I had some big wins in terms of
Varieties that performed well in the garden this past year in spite of a pretty cruddy growing season be sure to check those out in this video now D on to the failures now I had what I would consider two big major failures in the garden last year and the first was
Not planning adequately for weather challenges it’s always anyone’s guess as to what the the Ohio weather is going to do any given year but it seemed like this past year was uh particularly all over the place we had hot and dry early followed by a weirdly cool early summer
Combined with lots and lots of extremely overcast Skies from Wildfire smoke followed by an extremely hot and dry late summer into early fall we had drought conditions it just was not not real pretty I muddled by in the early season as best I could but really screwed up my fall plantings when I
Should have been doubling down on shade cloth and drip irrigation instead I just kept delaying plantings hoping the weather would cool down a bit I waited so long that for the first time in a long time I didn’t get any fall cauliflower or broccoli my plants just
Did not have enough time to form heads before the days got too short and cold I’ve already learned that I have much better SU success with early and late cool season crops by regularly relying on Frost cloth I suppose I have to learn not to hesitate to reach for the shade
Cloth either my other big fail for 2023 was I did exactly what I warned against doing in this video trying to do all of the things all the time left me so burnt out that I could do none of the things my physical and mental health took such
A toll that I was basically forced out of the game my sister-in-law shared a sentiment with me that really hit home in this regard and I’m paraphrasing but essentially the idea is instead of asking ourselves if we have been productive enough to earn a rest we need
To be asking if we are rested enough to produce or perform at the level that we are happy with and I was not I just kept working and producing because there’s always so much to-do that to-do list as a gardener and a member of society and a
Mother and a wife just never ever ends but I felt like I just couldn’t stop because I had too much to do and I don’t like to digress much away from the topic of gardening here but I felt like I wanted to share this because it really
Was an intrinsic part of my gardening experience this year and I have a suspicion that there’s a lot of you out there that may fall into the same boat and I just want you to know that it’s okay to rest even if you have a million
Things to do in the garden sometimes the rest is more important than the work it’s going to take a lot for me to change it’s going to be something that I always have to be working on because I’m not very good at relaxing but after what
I went through this past year I don’t want to get to that point again and I don’t want gardening to become something that I dread something that’s a drudgery so finding a little more balance in the the future is a big goal for me now
Those were the big fails from 23 on my part but I did have two other what I would consider disappointments from the 23 gardening season those were projects that I really really wanted to get done and just did not even make any Headway on and the first was improving my cold
Weather infrastructure especially because up until now it’s been so mild here in Ohio that I could have had a lot of stuff still still producing in the garden in January unfortunately this Frost cover that you see over my carrots was the extent of the cold weather
Protection that I got done this year but my dream is to revamp my Greenhouse so I can actually use it into the winter months as well as adding semi-permanent cold frames to my raised beds and utilizing low tunnels more effectively for my inground plantings eventually I’d
Love to add a big Greenhouse or high High tunnels to the mix but that’s a goal for the future I also had Big Dreams for my outdoor mushroom producing plans this past year I wanted to build a bed for growing wine caps as well as trying out some shiitake and oyster
Mushrooms in inoculated logs and unfortunately none of that happened to help ease my disappointment I’m trying several indoor mushroom growing projects I’ve got a shroom Tech mushroom bag going right now and I’m going to be trying out north spore’s new automated Boomer bin with blue oysters and Chestnut mushrooms very soon but I’m
Hoping to give outdoor fungi production a real go in 2024 so that wraps up my successes and failures from the 23 gardening season and I’d love to hear from you what worked well in your garden and what will you be changing for next year and what
Did you learn drop a line in the comments below and let me know and if you enjoyed today’s video please please consider subscribing to my Channel growfully with Jenna thanks for watching and I’ll see you next time
26 Comments
Continued from your seed starting video of last season… 😉
I popped on over here and see this Jump Start stand on your store. I'll definitely consider it.
Omg are those collards??!
I def messed up my fall garden. I have a shade cloth this year and def will plant earlier
Wonderful hints and tips…Thank you for sharing.
I plan to think for more long term and try to grow the right foods and a bigger variety to help sustain me more during the winter months. Thanks for being vulnerable, Jenna. I had a similar experience this year and I turned to food as solace and comfort. But this is new year. Thanks for another great video!
You are guilty of trying! You need to scale back and enjoy what you do. Being a mother a wife and a home maker takes a lot of time. (((HUGS)))) rest young gardener.
I really enjoyed this video. I’m expanding my garden space this winter.. planning to plant even more flowers next year to attract all the pollinators. This past season I had some successes and fails as well. The biggest success was the zinnias that grew over 5 feet tall in pretty heavy clay soil. It had been amended slightly but happy to see those thrive in the bed with the least amount of effort. Another win was using all of our Fall leaves for the first time as winter mulch. One thing I hope to improve is planting Fall cover crops and not waiting until it’s too late to get started. Thanks for all of your tips.❤
Didn't hit burn-out until this very month, but it got its teeth into me.
When I started gardening, after the first year/summer which was some leeks and some tomatoes, I was keen to know which specific type and variety of everything we liked the best, so my seed "library" (an overly grand word! It's a seed stash and it's over-full!) consisted of more seeds than we'd ever plant before we got to the end of the seeds' practical shelf lives. Even today, I have seed packets which were packed for 2013—and I'm silly-crazy-eager-willing to try to get cucumber seeds from 2013 to germinate.
I never say impossible, and I never say, "I *can't*" even when I ought to know better, and I have only rarely listened to my body.
But in the past two years, I've had family stuff going on, personal health issues going on, and major veterinary issues to deal with and even more major, like federally major, veterinary bills to meet, and it has seemed never to let up—
…and although I've placed seed orders and received some of them, already, a big part of my brain is saying, "Do what your gardening neighbor does: just buy certain seeds, whatever's available at the drugstore/sundries store, seeds you find acceptable, and let the rest just hang for this season."
Just not getting the stimulation or rejuvenation the garden has provided in the past.
Huey, Dewey and Louie and Fred, I've felt, will have to find ways to amuse themselves.
The garden began to feel less like a refuge or a blessing, and more like an albatross.
I gave up worrying about tomato varieties in the sense that one household member chooses seeds by amusing or intriguing name, e.g., Oxheart tomatoes, Oxheart carrots, Filderkraut cabbage and has as the only additional criterion whether that crop will grow for us; a number of other foods' varieties or cultivars may also fall by the wayside, this season, and give way to very common, backyard green beans; old stand-by cucumbers, whatever carrot seeds are available at the corner hardware store…that kind of gardening the neighbors did back when I was a kid: green beans, carrots, tomatoes, cukes, some herbs and some flowers.
Finally got around to asking myself, "Why am I working from many varieties, downward to our few favorites? Why am I not growing old stand-by's as I knew them from my grandparents' garden, and adding in newer-to-us crops or varieties, the way so many other gardeners seem to do and very prudently, too?"
Oh, and one other thing I have historically not done, and that's take good advice when it's given me, so when himself urges me not to fret over what gets planted, or to be gentle with myself ("If you're tired, rest; if you need to sleep, take a nap or go to bed early; don't worry about so many tiny things," I thank him—and then forge ahead, doing what I've always done.
And now, I have three trays to fill with seed starting mixture, and to sow with cold-hardy things….,
Much gardening love from the southern shore of Lake Erie 😊💚💚💚💚💚😊
Your testimony about what worked and what didn't work was amazing! I'm glad that you took a much needed break. My garden isn't as big as yours is, but I really had a hard time last season and it wore me out mentally and physically. Hopefully I'll have better luck in the spring. Good luck with your harvest this year :).
Thank you for this video. I love that you found yourself overwhelmed (tested) and realized perfection isn’t an option. However, what you learned was priceless, you have gained wisdom. It was beautiful to hear how much you learned. May you be blessed in the new year with learning and the joy of success.
I alway pull the tomatoes, squash,pumpkin and cucumber plants….to keep the winter bugs away from nesting in the ground…..and yes I was burnt out by the end of the year….40 years of working for myself has caught up to me…and my garden…suffered….but this year is another year….the early April warmth of last year was a real problem….
I also experienced burn out this past season. I have decided to scale back and hopefully enjoy gardening again. I was so focused on production and abundant harvest for sustainability I overwhelmed myself and lost the love I had for gardening. I’m just now thinking about what changes I’d like to make this year. Burn out is real, I had never experienced it before. Thank you for your encouragement. I have been gardening in Ohio for years also and it was a difficult year for me too.
Great videls, Thanks, Are you aware that USDA in Ohio gives grants = FREE , Not a lot of paper work involved . Each county is different. We got a 36' x 48' but could have been larger. We did have to build it but not that hard to do. We are 75 and 78 years young. Just call your USDA office for more info. I'm not sure you need all the extra work . LOL Good luck to you
Well, Good Elf…that was an excellent video…much good info here. I have a Hugel pile going as well, and hope to plant in it this year. Oddly, I too felt worn out at the end of last year. I had attempted to do too much and ended the year a bit disheartened and burned out. I told my wife and daughter just last week, "I think we need to pull it in a little bit this year – refocus on what we really WANT and CAN grow effectively without turning our gardening from an enjoyable and productive endeavor and into a task that just became overwhelming." So, we are targeting a few crops we can really focus on and enjoy, without trying to plant an Amazon rain forest all at once …LOL I'm glad that I am not the only one that felt like I tried to tackle a marathon my legs could not finish! Like you, I think many of us juggle many things in life at the same time. At some point, something has to give. It was good of you to share that. It was very meaningful. Take care and carry on! You are a real asset to all of us who need all of the gardening wisdom we can get! Namarie! (Tolkein Elvish)
Wise words.
Thank you so much for sharing.
🫂
Thank you for sharing both your successes and "failures". I think most gardeners take on a little too much. Tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini and kale were all successes for me. Brussels did not get enough sun so while they got about 4 feet tall, we never got any sprouts. I also got my fall garden in too late to get much of a harvest. I preserved a lot of food but like you by the time Thanksgiving hit I was just plain exhausted! Also I grew pumpkins in a tiny backyard and while the pumpkins were a success (15 of them) I pretty much ruined my back yard and any hopes for grass. I did a no-dig with cardboard and wood chips paths. I'm shocked to see the wood chips have all broke down and I'm going to need to redo all the paths again this year if I want to keep them weed free. Going to start peppers and broccoli in a couple weeks and everything else is waiting until mid March.
This hit hime for me especially the "failure"! Thank you for putting ot out there!! And all the grate info you share!!
Rest to work instead of working to rest. Got it. ❤ Thanks 🙏
Successes in 2023 – 1) Growing tomatoes and peppers in the high tunnel instead of the garden. They did so well with the filtered sun that my harvests were wonderful. 2) Seed starting indoors was a success. In fact, I had so many that I was able to sell some to offset the cost of the grow lights and trays. 3) Cover crops in the high tunnel and a section of the main garden. I pulled up the weed fabric in half the high tunnel and parts of the garden and planted cover crops for overwintering. They are doing fabulous. 4) Leaving spent crops in the garden to add nutrients back into the soil. This was a hard one for me as I too like to clean up everything at the end of the season. Next week I will come through and cut plants at the base and then compost everything in a hugelkultur bed that I'm building. 5) Soil Improvements – I was more diligent in 2023 with building the soil by adding spent hay, rabbit manure and organic amendments such as worm castings. Failures: 1) I did not supplemental water the main garden enough during the dryer parts of the summer. 2) winter squash & pumpkins – neither of these survived the squash bug pressure this year. I am plans in place for 2024 to help with this issue. 3) Blueberry failure – looks like I need to amend the soil and water more frequently to help my blueberry bushes get established. I lost all but one in 2024, but I'm not giving up. 4) Elderberry – underestimated the amount of water needed and all died. Will plant the starts in 1 gallon pots this year so that I can water them more easily and get them rooted well before transplanting into the elderberry patch. Thank you for all the suggestions!
Thanks for sharing your successes and failures for 2023. My greatest success was moving my garden from grow bags and pots to raised garden beds. I now have 10 it has been a game changer for me. My failure for early 2023 was starting my seeds at the wrong time. The projects I didn’t get done were setting up a rain catchment system and re-doing my compost bin and moving the rest of my pineapple plants from their pots into the ground. I started my garden in 2020, and each year, I keep growing it. I live in zone 9b SW Florida, so I garden year-round. I'm in my late 60's and I'm a one woman show. Last January, I planted 3 banana trees, 7 papaya trees, and a lemon tree. I was able to get a harvest from all my trees last year. I also have 20+ pineapple plants. If I knew, I would have loved gardening as much as I do, I would have started my garden when I was younger.
More machines to help with digging, hauling, watering ….. 2023 was a tough year for all of us garders …. but 2024 is here !! And a renewed gardening spirit and the onions are already started !!!😅😂😅😊
Dont work harder , work smarter …. every year i find new and better ways to do my work in the garden , and decrease the physical labor and increase the joy of growing.
Finally got my garden fence up, my asparagus patch planted and successfully grew tomatoes from seed!! Big wins ! Sadly didn’t manage to split my hostas like I wanted to fill out the edge of the yard but so grateful for what I did accomplish!
Jenna just saw this on linked in and thought of you! WVU professor emeritus and creator of ‘people’s tomato’ unveils final variety, makes limited seeds available for growers
Great little video…thank you ❤
I’m trying to find the Blue Lake Superior Bush Beans and have only came across Blue Lake SupremeBush bean. Is that the same? If you don’t mind me asking, where did you order your superior beans?