Garden update 2012 and plans for next year...Return to Eden gardening

I know it's been a while since posting.  Our schedule has been pretty hectic with baseball and now football, along with a garden explosion. 

I have to say on the garden front, it has been a wonderful year.  Our plants did exceptionally well and bugs have been at a minimum.  I'm sure I should be knocking wood about now.  The squash, cucumbers and potatoes are all done and harvested.  Potatoes were just dug up this week.  While I haven't planted potatoes in almost 7 years, I thought I had done better with yeild in the past.  It's hard to say.  I do know that our ground here is terribly rocky and I tried something new this year with the potatoes.  After planting, I used straw to "mulch" the potatoes instead of hilling them with dirt, or in my case rock!    The potatoes are really nicely round and not like they grew amongst rocks.  Just wish I had more...  I planted 2 varieties, red new potaotes and Yukon golds.  The yukon never worked out, only a few plants came up, while the red went wild.   Next year I think I'll do the straw mulch again, just getting it on the plants earlier.

Next year I plan on doing a modified Return to Eden garden.  I know they say DON'T TILL but I'm going to till anyway.  I think the previous owner had farmed the back field and grew potatoes.  I found a tag in our garage from a 50# bag of potatoes, so that lead me to believe that he may have planted them.  And the field has a definate "roll" to it.  And my neighbor told me a few days ago that he plowed his field before planting his clover crop that there were hardly any rocks.  Not like our other garden areas.  So, I want to see if there are less rocks too and I need to flatten out the plot.

I have my broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels in now and that will be the last crop this year.  I'm already planning next years garden and marked off the new 60 x 60 garden.  Maybe this time I'll have enough room!