summer '08 reflections

buying seeds for this coming season reminded me that i never properly reflected on last season, so i'll fly through a quick recap.

winners for 2008 included:

• bush delicata, they grew like crazy! of course, having six plants helped.
  
• sungold & black plum tomotoes. now added to my new favorites.
  
• lipstick cayenne peppers and purple jalapenos.
  
• purple podded beans. a prolific as the green ones i bought but way tastier.
  

losers for 2008:

• cucumbers. they got completely blotted out by my peppers and delicata.
  
• beets, spinach, kohlrabi and chard, all totally failed!
  
• eggplant. first couple grew like gangbusters, then everything became stunted.
  
• early girl tomatoes, not early. long keepers, barely grew. green zebras, kept splitting!
  
• quarto di asto peppers, grew one, never ripened, never grew more.
  
• butternut squash and acorn squash, grew maybe four each and lost at least two of those chickens.
  
• melons, never grew larger than a tennis ball.
  
• basil, got swamped by the tomatoes.
  
• peas...were an afterthought and performs as such.
  

everything else performed marginally well. no massive infestations aside from bermuda grass and chickens. i didn't space my carrot planting out enough and i didn't harvest my parsnips before the ground froze. i let the cilantro and dill bolt too early, never planted my potatoes and didn't harvest my beans fast enough.

for this coming year i've avoided what failed, branched out a little and am hoping to learn from my mistakes and follow through on my plans in a timely manner.