Maybe it's because we started a big renovation project on the house in late June which took up almost all of our time for about a month. By the time the project reached a pausing point, the weather had turned hot and dry. Then the grasshoppers came. They ate pretty much everything that was still alive.
But the garden must have been productive with certain things. For example in my post titled "Now What?" I had a picture of the squashes and cantaloupes that were all ready at the same time. We ended up with so many cantaloupes ripe at once that I'm sad and embarrassed to say that most of them went to waste.
So did we grow much of a garden in 2025? Let me think back on it.
- We harvested several nice onions this year, a few yellow squash and a few snow peas (I let most of them go to seed). I could have harvested lettuce if I had just picked it but I don't thnk I picked a single leaf from any of the plants and eventually they all bolted.
- We had hundreds of Tommy Toe and San Marzano tomatoes and while I canned several pints of juice and whole/diced tomatoes, most of them rotted on the vine.
The Cherokee Purple tomatoes were loaded, but we ate very few of them because the skins were tough from being punctured by stink bugs. I'm guessing that about 99% of them went to waste. - The cucumber vines loved the cattle panel trellis and made an unbelievable number of cucumbers. Unfortunately, the vines got really thick (again) and I discovered a nest of very aggressive looking red wasps in the vines so I was afraid to pick the cucumbers. Probably 99% of them went to waste.
- We made three nice little cabbages, which I harvested and then let ruin in the refrigerator.
- We made a nice little crop of Kandy Korn (Corn?) and I froze maybe two (maybe three) dozen ears on the cob. The rest of them ruined in the refrigerator (although in my defense, the ones that ruined were all way less than perfect ears).
- And after a late start on my bell peppers, we did end up with some really nice plants that were loaded down by the end of the summer. I chopped up enough to fill a one gallon freezer bag, and picked many more...which I then let ruin in the refrigerator. Many more ruined on the plants in late fall.
- The ground cherry plants were absolutely loaded. I ate a few of them when I was out working in the garden, and while I found them to have an interesting flavor, I'm not sure yet if I like them. But I'll probably have more next year because literally hundreds of them dropped off the vines onto the ground below and I never cleaned them up.
- The blackberries set lots of fruit, but I'm not sure they were pollinated very well because some of them were kind of an unappatizing brownish yellow color in places. Most of the berries went to waste. I did pick a few berries, but most of those ruined in the refrigerator.
- I finally got four Cayenne pepper plants started and by late summer they were absolutely loaded with peppers. But they ran out of time and never had a chance to get fully ripe, so they all went to waste.
- I planted some summer cover crops in the south part of the garden because the soil there is still not very good. (It was a diverse mix with Buckwheat, Sorghum Sudangrass, sunflowers, squash, purple hull peas and okra.) Most of them did really well in the spring, and I was pleased that the Sorghum Sudangrass even survived into the fall.
- The nasturtiums were gorgeous last year. That was actually the first time I've ever had any luck growing them.And the zinnias and petunias were really showing off by mid-summer - and again taking over, which was something I said I wasn't going to allow to happen.
Looking back at that list there are two things that stand out:
- First, the garden did produce lots of food.
- Second, the food mostly went to waste because of me.
It also makes me realize that I always focus on the failures. But boy did I have some big ones in 2025!
- Peppers - I could not for the life of me get my pepper seeds to germinate this year. I tried and tried and tried. I tried pre-sprouting the seeds in a plastic baggy with a damp paper towel. I evenutally got one sprout, but when I planted it in the pot, it never came up.
I wondered if my pepper seeds had gone bad from being stored in a place where they got very hot the summer before. I bought more seeds and planted again - and still, I couldn't get any plants to come up.
By May I think it was, I had only managed to get three pitiful little bananna pepper plants started. I bought some TAM Jalapeno and regular Jalapeno plants from the feed store, but I couldn't even get them to grow (although in my defense, the plants had been in their little six-packs for way too long and were probably stunted as a result...that's my story and I'm stickin' to it).
Eventually I ordered more Jupiter Bell Pepper seeds from Walmart and was able to get them to grow (see above). But I cannot believe that I didn't make one single Jalapeno this year. I was so excited to make more of the refrigerator Jalapenos, but it was not to be I guess. - Okra - Can you believe it??? I could NOT grow Okra this year!!!! Now that's really pitiful, isn't it! I managed to eventually get about a dozen plants and I harvested enough for a couple of meals. But boy, oh boy, I'm hanging my head in shame on this one. If a person can't grow okra, they're not much of a gardener!
- Apples/Cherries/Peaches/Blueberries/Grapes - The Gala apple tree started off the year covered with blooms and I was so excited. But it got infected with Fire Blight and it's pretty much doomed I'm afraid. The Enterprise tree set a few apples this year, but they got worms in them so they shriveled up and fell off. The peach tree was loaded with peaches, but every single one of them fell off. The sour cherry had a few cherries on it, and I ate a few of them (very tart and good), but I think the birds got most of them. I ate a handful of fresh blueberries, but that was all the plants made. The grapes disappeared, either eaten by birds, or shriveled up and dropped off.
- Figs - I planted the fig tree in ground at the south end of the shop. It actually put on about a dozen figs, but they all fell off and then the grasshoppers ate every leaf on the plant. It put out new leaves in late fall, and I've put a wire cage full of leaves around it. Hopefully it will make it through the winter.
- Raspberries - Died.
- Jostaberry - Died.
- Pink Champagne Current - Almost Died. Currently on life support.
- Green Beans/Green Peas - I managed to get about two messes of beans and two messes of peas this year, but something wasn't to their liking and they just didn't grow very much.
- Lima Beans/Kidney Beans/Pinto Beans/Scarlet Runner Beans - What can I say about my beans...abysmal? Disaster? Very poor germination and essentialy zero harvest from the ones that did grow. The Scarlet Runner beans at least did try. They made lots of pretty red flowers that the hummingbirds really liked, but I guess it got too hot for them and they never set any beans.
- Potatoes - I harvested enough potatoes for a couple of meals. I was very disappointed about that.
- Pumpkins - I planted some pumpkin plants in the compost bays again this year, and they went wild. I was so excited, thinking I was going to get a bunch of pumpkins!
But just as they were getting ripe, two disasters. First, the groundhog (I think) found them, and started clawing and knawing trying to eat the ripening pumpkins. But even worse, the squash vine borers got into the base of the stem and the vines started to die.
After I started finding pumpkins on the ground (pulled off the vine by the groundhog), I went ahead and harvested them.
Unfortunately, only one of them had any pumpkin seeds mature enough to roast, and the rest of them weren't mature enough to cook. They all ended up in the compost pile. (Note the Cherokee Purple tomatoes on the left...speckled up with stink bug punctures. I think those all ended up in the compost as well.)
- Broccoli/Cauliflower - I harvested enough broccoli for a few meals and it was pretty good. But most of it bolted very early so I just left it for the insects.
And speaking of insects - last year was the most terrifying and depressing year ever. There were so few butterflies, even compared to 2024, when it felt like there were so few.
I kept looking for the Variegated Fritillary butterfly caterpillars in the garden - last year they were all over the Viola sp. growing in the walking rows. This year, the plants were there, but there were no caterpillars. I left the Cudweed for the American Lady butterflies, but it was summertime before I ever saw any sign of them on the plants.
My youngest daughter mentioned the Harambe theory when I was chatting with her this morning. When I told her I had never heard of it, she explained to me that Harambe was a male western lowland gorilla at the Cincinnati Zoo. In May 2016, a child fell into his enclosure and Harambe was shot and killed to save the child (even though apparently the gorilla wasn't showing any aggression to the child?). She then explained that the theory is that killing Harambe, "...split our timeline down the wrong way and that's why the world has gone to **** since then."
We just had our warmest December on record. It was 78.8° F on December 27th.
It was also our driest December on record. The County Judge issued a burn ban effective 8 am this morning.
So while I don't know if the killing of Harambe split time and sent us on a wrong path, I think we are on the wrong path, and we have put ourselves there - we've created a death spiral for life on earth as we know it.
It's like life exists in a giant bathtub full of water, and we humans have pulled the stopper. The water started gowing down, but the tub was so full and we were in boats on the top so we didn't even notice. As the water level got lower and some species got sucked down the drain, we told ourselves those really didn't matter - there was still plenty of water so there was nothing to worry about. But as the water level has gotten lower and lower, the suction at the drain is getting stronger and stronger, and most people are still just blissfully floating on top in their boat. My fear is that we're approaching the point now where if we don't take drastic action we're going to lose the life that sustains us all and nothing will be able to break free of the vortex of water swirling around the drain.
Maybe we've already passed that point.
Wow. Happy New Year, right???