Since I slacked a bit at the end of last year with blog updates, I thought it would be best to review the 2024 growing season as a whole.

Overall, it was a great growing season, especially with the cost of food being what it is. The fresh veggies are always great to have and the cost of them seems to continue to sky-rocket in the stores. We were also happy to be able to share quite a bit again this year with family and friends.

As usual, we anticipate some changes for the 2025 growing season. There are a few veggies we realize we just don’t eat enough of so we should either pare down on how much we are growing, or change it to something that we feel we will eat more of.

Our staple veggies that we know we will eat a lot of are beets, carrots, cucumber, garlic, onions, peppers, potatoes, squash and tomatoes. For the most part, all those plants did really well, with the exception of the peppers but that was our issue for planting them and thinking they would grow above the cucumber vines.

We also love broccoli and cauliflower, but are almost at the point of cutting those from the garden. They haven’t produced well the last few years, perhaps because of where they are planted. They are also a battle every year with the cabbage moth, but I think I have a plan for that this year. Despite the poor showing, they are veggies we really love, so we will try them again with some major tweaks.

They will go into a new home with the hopes that it is a better location for them to thrive. We will also build a PVC frame around them that we will put a tight weave netting around to keep the moths out. I am done going out every day for months looking for the little egg clutches and/or the caterpillars that are the same colour as the leaves. Usually I find them based on where the holes in the leaves are.

I will cut back on cabbage. I thought I would use more green cabbage, but I realized during the summer, that although I like a bit of cabbage in my salads, it is really just the red that I truly like. I will do at least a few heads of red this year for summer salads as well as some rotkohl in the fall. These will likely be planted closer to the broccoli and cauliflower so that the PVC frame and netting can also cover these so that the moths can get at any of the brassicas.

Surprisingly, the kale did not have issues with the cabbage moth. I am not sure if that is because it was up in a planter right by where we frequently sat, or just because of their location in the yard, but it was wonderful, whatever the reason. I will definitely be doing kale again. The only thing I battled with that was keeping up with how fast it grew and the spiders that liked to make a home amongst the leaves. That is easy enough to manage…I think.

The lettuce that I attempted to grow in the planter this year, did not do well. Partly because of the dog. She liked to hop over that planter early in the growing season. She is not the most graceful dog, and quite a few times ended up with a paw in the planter, which as you can guess, crushed some of my lettuce. On top of that, the first heat wave had them all bolting.

We eat a lot of salads so I really want to get some lettuce growing to mix in with the kale. I will be giving this another go and see if we can get some good lettuce harvests this coming year. If not, then I will add some new herbs next year to those beds and try the lettuce down in the larger beds.

Although our numbers for celery were down this year, that is because I planted a lot less plants. The good news was that we actually had some nice thick stalks this year instead of spindly little things. We will be growing celery again this year, but sticking with only a few plants.

I tried leeks this year and was very happy with the outcome. I didn’t plant a lot, just enough for a large batch of potato leek soup. It was perfect! I will be putting those in again this year for the same purpose.

Our onions were ok. We had a lot of them, but we seem to struggle with any sort of size on them. They are often smaller onions, just slightly bigger than shallots. I will be planting more this year, but may try something different in how I grow them. I am thinking of mulching a bunch of the straw in with the soil to create a looser soil that shouldn’t pack down too much. Perhaps by providing them more space, they will grow bigger.

We grew so many tomatoes, but I am not sure what I did with them all! We definitely gave a lot away, but I think I will need to do a little more preserving this year. I definitely missed doing as much preserving as I usually do, due to the busy fall I had teaching. I’ve already gone through all my frozen tomatoes, and am almost out of my dehydrated tomatoes. Though, that is because I LOVE sourdough bagels with sundried tomato, herbs and asiago. My goodness, I think I could live on those. So more dehydrated tomatoes are needed.

One change for the tomatoes though, is that we will not bother with the big beef. We realize we actually don’t love those tomatoes. We rarely use them because they are just too juicy. We both prefer the sweetie tomatoes (cherry) or the romas. They both have good flavour but don’t make everything soggy.

Both the butternut and zucchini squash plants were very happy this year. We only put one zucchini plant in and I still almost couldn’t keep up with it. Luckily I needed some relish and was able to use up quite a few zucchini making a larger batch for canning. We will always have a zucchini plant, but definitely only 1.

The butternut squash was the best yet. We had a lot of great sized squash come off this year. I will be notifying family and friends early this year not to buy any in the fall if our plants are producing again this year they way they did last year. I still have 4 squash sitting on my dining room table, which I look forward to roasting throughout the rest of winter and into summer. Luckily they are a great storage vegetable with a long shelf life.

Moving onto our fruit, we were once again provided with an abundance of delicious strawberries, both everbearing and wild. We ate a lot, and I froze a lot to make some delicious jam…which unfortunately would not set for me so has become a compote that we have put on waffles and ice cream instead. I have a few more frozen bags so will try again, perhaps draining some of the juice away before trying to make the jam.

The cantaloupes are definitely going to be a staple. We had another great year of delicious melons, though they were about a month later than last year. Many things were. It didn’t matter though, they were amazing once again.

I think I am going to scrap the watermelon for a few years. I have tried 3 times now and have been unsuccessful. During the summer, they aren’t overly expensive to buy if we really want one. I think I like cantaloupe better anyways, so it’s not that big of a deal not to have the watermelon growing.

Our herbs were great this year, with the oregano, thyme and tarragon all coming back. They all seem to be very well established in the planter now, so I anticipate them coming back in the spring.

The rosemary was once again brought into the house for the winter, and is growing into quite a large plant, so I am excited to see how big it gets this summer. It may need to go into a different planter this year, but we will see.

For 2025, I plant to put peas into the garden again this year. It has been a few years now since we have had them, and I would like snow or snap peas growing. They are such a nice snack and go well in salads and stir-fry’s. We are also looking at trying peanuts in the garden as well. We always like to try something new, and I think that will be the option for this year.

Overall, it was a great year, and I am already looking forward to our 2025 growing season! As I took my Christmas tree down, I put up one of the greenhouses, ready for our canna lilies to get started. They should be going into their pots this weekend, the seeds having soaked for about a week now, with little sprouts forming.