First let me say Welcome to all! I hope you feel encouraged by this diary to share photos, anecdotes, garden experiences and anything else you’d like in the comments.
The SE South Dakota growing season was a lesson in extremes. Obviously, the green skies, haboob and large hail exemplified our interesting weather, but that wasn’t all. Last winter was exceptionally warm, until April, when the weather gods decided we needed a very cold spring. Which led into an almost normal summer, temp wise. The rain gods have been frowning on our area for a while and that had a significant impact on my garden. The previous winter was very low on snow, only one major snow storm early on. The drought continues through to today, which the drought monitor confirms.
US Drought Monitor Map
The drought was so enduring, that I actually took video of my garden when it rained. It was an event, y’all. We did get nine inches of snow yesterday and I learned to use a snowblower after some drama.
Successes
Peppers. I know pepper plants like to be friends, so generally I will plan a patch of pepper plants close together. Yet, I wanted the hot peppers to do even better this year, so I put my hot peppers in a single row so each plant would get more sun. I was overloaded in hot peppers. The Peruvian Purple and the B. Mulata hot peppers were decently early too, giving me hot peppers by early August. Up north, that’s amazing!
Melons. The drought presented quite a challenge, but watermelon (and tomatoes) do well with less water a bit before harvest. Watered down maters, blech. I grew the melons in a new area of lawn I had just converted to garden a few weeks before transplanting. They took off and provided melons throughout August and early September. I also tasted the best cantaloup I have ever had, a Madhu. I had two seeds left from seeds I bought years ago. And finally got a fruit. Another success was better garden planning, so that smaller melons like Madhu didn’t get lost and over-ripe before I found them.
Dahlias. This year I waited until the day before a hard frost (instead of a light frost) before digging up my dahlia tubers. Wow, much better tuber production! Pretty pleased. Now let’s see if I can get them through the winter storage months. Godspeed my fat lil tuber babies.
The Seed Giveaway/Exchange. You all were so nice, almost everyone followed my process, which made it FAR EASIER than I anticipated. It’s the military in me. Define the mission clearly, execute. Only one person went dark and never gave me an address nor responded to my efforts to reach out. I will have a few more seeds come spring if anyone else wants to do a similar thing then.
Lady bugs, bees and cicada killer wasps (harmless to us). I have a nurturing habitat for each. I have a ridiculous amount of bee video; they are everywhere. I plant a lot of bee cocaine, borage.
Peaches! In South Dakota. My little four year old Flat Wonderful peach tree gave us fruit for the very first time and did she show OUT. Birds got a few, but we got the most, almost a hundred! And yes, they were the most amazing peaches I have ever had in my entire life.
Failures
Dahlia seeds. I managed to harvest a few seeds last year, and got three little dahlia plants, one from my precious Labyrinth. Of the three hybrid dahlias, two survived transplant. Of the two left, none gave me a bloom before frost. Just a sad bud each. So I brought them inside. Where they died. I need to dig and see if they made any tubers for me to try to plant.
Ok, I dug and they have the cutest little tubers. Just left them to see if they get any bigger.
Sugar Rush Stripey Pepper. These seeds were allegedly purchased from Finland, from the original breeder. Allegedly. They had none of the promised stripes, they ripened to look like a paler version of the parent plant, the regular old Sugar Rush Peach. Only one germinated of the five I planted.
Much disappoint.
Cherry trees. The people who had the house before us planted a cherry tree right before selling the house. One. I *assumed* for three years that maybe the tree was too young or something else was going on because we got no cherries. Yeah, noob me. Did some research and apparently research was something the previous owners did not do because I needed a second pollinator tree. Planted that tree in 2020 as a yr old whip. This spring got some blooms on both trees...excitement builds...and then we had a late deep freeze that killed all opportunity to get any damn cherries. At least this wasn’t my fault. If I could control the weather, I would not push the LATE DEEP FREEZE button.
Tobacco. Not a complete failure, I grew it and it was healthy. Tobacco in South Dakota! But the plants are supposed to be five to six feet tall, not a foot tall. Alternating tobacco and sunflower plants did not work, as the sunflower grew faster and shaded out the tobacco. No, I don’t smoke.
Squirrels, birds and grasshoppers. In a drought, critters look for greener pastures and water sources when the usual have dried out. I’ve seen a huge squirrel in the neighborhood for years, but it never stopped at my garden. Until this year. And grasshoppers chomped on my green beans and dahlia buds. F*%#$%&*^&*$.
Help with critters? I use Surround to combat codling moths and I have organza/tulle bags I’ll put around some fruit next year, that’ll help the birds too, but squirrels? What do y’all do? Does the cayenne pepper garlic spray help? I plant garlic around my tulips and that keeps the bunnies away. And the grasshoppers OMG. Drought brings the locusts!
Opportunities
I practice high intensity gardening. Meaning I plant my lovelies far closer together than is recommended so I can pack more into the space I have. I want to grow all of the things. I want to try all of the varieties. I would rather have 40 heirloom tomato varieties, one plant each, that gives me five tomatoes each variety, than have 20 plants that give me fifteen tomatoes each variety. Variety over volume, a luxury I treasure. This type of gardening works well if you plant in patches or squares. Single rows are more challenging. However, a few items do better and I can keep better track of what I have if planted in rows. So I do yet another draft of my garden in my graphing notebook. That’s fun, at least.
Squash Vine Borer management. In 2021, I busted my ass and tested out every single possible SVB control I had researched. I was actually able to harvest some gorgeous C.Maxima cultivars, which are the favorite of the SVB and SVB moth. 2021 was the BEST winter squash year I have ever had. It. Was. Glorious. For 2022, I deployed all the tricks except the most time consuming help, skipping going out every night -for weeks- and picking the sumbitch eggs off off every plant with a duct-tape hand. Instead of doing that 20 times, I only did that twice in 2022. I also backed off the b.t. application. I still had a decent harvest, but my C.Maxima and C.Pepo cultivars took a hit. I learned a valuable lesson. Gotta get out there and get those eggs on the regular. Maybe I’ll try every other day next year. If anyone wants SVB info, just ask. I also have a lot of info about my SVB fight on you tube. I can also pick up a diary next May/June and do a deep dive if it helps anyone. There is a LOT of info.
Article (mine): SVB Info
Storing dahlia tubers. Yes, I have read the tips, watched the videos. Getting that temp and humidity correct up here in the frigid north is such a challenge. Dahlias are worth it, but the stress! And the tubers are so spendy! So this year, I bought some seeds and if my tubers don’t survive storage, well, too bad. I’ll hopefully have many surprises at bloom time from the seeds. But definitely need to start the seeds earlier.
Dahlia tubers make a wallet sad.
A hearty happy Thank You to Malarky Matt for the red canna, Kiwidee for the spices and Strawbale and Colocat for the seeds! ALL Y’all are blessings!
A recipe for those of you who want something delicious and nutritive that uses a lot of the fall root veggies. Sweet Potato Lentil Soup
Your Turn — What are some opportunities for your next growing and landscaping year?