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Many of you have been asking how our garden turned out, so we thought we’d do a final update video on what we were able to harvest in 2021. We also wanted to show you a sneak peek as we start preparing for our 2022 garden, so we’re bringing you along as we “unbox” a bunch of seed packets we ordered!
Before you watch today’s video, you can watch part one and part two to see how we built and planted the garden. I also created a list of everything we used in the videos, in case there is something you want to try out in your own gardening efforts. You can check out the full list here!
In 2021, we planted peppers, herbs, tomatoes and squash. Let’s take a look and see how it went!
Peppers
We planted several pepper plants, including green bell, jalapeño, alter ego and banana. We had mixed results from these, but all-in-all, we were pretty happy with our pepper harvest!
As we discussed in our earlier gardening videos, since we got such a late start in 2021, we weren’t able to grow anything from seeds. Some of the plants we transplanted into the garden did not thrive, and the “alter ego” pepper plants were definitely in that category. Each of the alter ego plants had one single pepper when they went into the ground, and they never really got bigger or grew any additional peppers.
We had one green bell pepper plant that produced a couple of really beautiful peppers. Unfortunately, after we harvested those, it started growing a couple of new peppers too late in the season to get very big, but we were happy either way.
Our best producing plant in the entire garden was actually the banana pepper plant!
That one plant probably produced 40 or so banana peppers. I was able to harvest them and slice and store in vinegar to use on salads.
Peppers are great to use in cooking and most of the pepper plants definitely seem to be pretty resilient, so we will definitely be growing a lot more of these in the future!
Herbs
Brian was excited to grow some fresh herbs in the garden. We planted everything from rosemary and sage to mint and parsley.
The mint plant started spreading out a lot and trying to take over the entire garden! We harvested a bunch of it and blended it up in the food processor. Then we stored it in ice cube trays in the freezer to use in future cooking.
We definitely won’t be planting mint in the square foot garden next time. It was great to have on hand, but it just wanted to spread out WAY too much.
As far as the other herbs, I think my favorite was the basil. Our basil plant grew nice and full and we were able to have fresh basil to cook with all summer!
As nice as it was to have all of the fresh herbs growing, in the future, we will definitely be a bit more selective with which herbs we grow. We want to focus more on ones that we actually use a lot in our cooking.
Tomatoes
Up next… tomatoes! Now, if you know Brian and I, you might be wondering why we grew SO many tomatoes. Neither of us really likes them. We like tomato products like sauce, ketchup, etc. and use plenty of canned diced tomatoes in our cooking, but we aren’t big fans of raw tomatoes in general.
We ended up with a LOT of tomato plants, partially because we got several for free from a local farmer’s market, so we thought it would be a good learning experience!
We planted four tomato plants across the north side of the garden with a trellis to help them climb.
Since we had more plants than we could fit in the square foot garden, we also added some planters on the deck. The ones in the garden did okay, but eventually a few of them started dying from some kind of disease.
Most of the ones we grew on the deck ended up cracked on the top. We think this might be from too much rain water, but we aren’t exactly sure. Either way, Brian’s dad ended up using most of the tomatoes in his salads!
The dogs were eager to try them out, but they did not get any. 🤣
The best tomato plants we actually had were the sun gold tomatoes. They are cherry tomatoes with a nice golden/orange color. They grew very quickly and kept popping up throughout the summer.
This year we are definitely going to cut back on the tomatoes. Brian really wants to grow some that would make a good sauce. We might also try to get more of the sun gold tomatoes or another cherry tomato since they seem to be easier to grow!
Squash
I’m not going to lie… we were not very successful with the squash plants. We planted a total of four plants and only ended up with ONE squash. Seriously… ONE total squash. 🤣
Our zucchini plant clearly needed more space. It ended up growing massive leaves and we thought it was going to do really well, but it never properly latched onto our lattice and by the time we realized, it was too late. The square foot gardening book says to plant “bush type” squash plants in nine squares… so clearly our one tiny square was not enough.
Our pride and joy was this beautiful Sugaretti squash! This plant did grow as a vine, but it attached itself to the fence instead of the lattice. It is very similar to a spaghetti squash, but it has a very beautiful striped pattern.
We cooked up the Sugaretti squash and it had an amazing, almost nutty flavor. We’ll definitely be planting this one again in 2022!
Final Thoughts On Our 2021 Garden
Even though we didn’t get a super bountiful harvest last year, we did learn a LOT and it was still fun to see what we could grow. Going into the 2022 gardening seasoning, I feel a bit overwhelmed, but also excited. Since we will be starting a lot earlier this year, I think we will have a lot more success.
Planning For Our 2022 Garden
One thing we learned in 2021 was the importance of planning your garden. We started in January this year by picking out seeds for the plants we want to grow! Instead of randomly picking up a bunch of plants that look nice, we will be able to start from seeds and really hone in on the things we know we’ll use in our cooking.
Watch the video to see more of our 2021 harvest and get a sneak peek at our 2022 garden as we unbox the seeds we ordered. Stay tuned for our next gardening video soon and be sure to comment on the video to let us know what you’ll be growing this year in your garden!
Products & Resources
PLEASE NOTE: If you choose to purchase any products through our Amazon links, we receive a small commission from each sale at NO extra cost to you. All proceeds go back into making more content.
OFFICIAL SQUARE FOOT GARDENING RESOURCES:
Square Foot Gardening Book, 3rd Edition
Square Foot Gardening Online Course
OTHER PRODUCTS FEATURED IN OUR GARDENING VIDEOS:
Seeds from SeedsNSuch.com
Twine/Sisal Rope (1/4 inch – we bought 100 ft worth)
4-Panel Tomato Towers
Oldcastle Planter Wall Blocks
2 in. x 6 in. x 8 ft. Premium S4S Cedar Lumber
ARROW 508 Genuine T50 1/2-Inch Staples
ARROW PowerShot 5700 Forward Action Staple Gun
Hardware Cloth 1/2 inch 19 Gauge Square (4 ft. tall)
Vigoro 3 ft. x 24 ft. 100% Natural Burlap Landscape Fabric
U-Post 5-Foot Fence Posts
Rubber Mallet w/ Wooden Handle
Nature’s Care Really Good Compost
ULINE Vermiculite (Grade 4)
Miracle-Gro Sphagnum Peat Moss, 8 qt.
Lambert Sphagnum Peat Moss, 3.8 cubic ft.
DIGZ High Performance Women’s Gardening Work Gloves
5 Gallon Bucket (3-Pack)
All Purpose Poly Tarp, 12 x 14-Foot, Blue
Check out our Amazon Page to see more of our favorite products!
Your garden looks fantastic! I hope to have one just like that one day. Thanks for the inspiration!