Vegetable Garden Progress Report

I find it interesting that when I tell people in Macon I'm planting a garden, many of them assume I'm referring to a vegetable garden. For some people, that's the only kind of gardening worth spending time on. So this post is for all my vegetable gardening friends.

Since this is my first serious attempt at vegetable gardening in many years (and first major attempt in Georgia), it's sort of like an experiment for me. I planted a little of everything to see what worked and what didn't. It's been two months now, so I thought it was a good time to take stock of my garden's progress.

My vegetable garden on April 30, May 16, and June 12.

What's worked:

1. Bush beans. We got our first crop of beans this week. They came out slightly fuzzy, but otherwise tasty.

Our first bush bean harvest.

2. Cherry tomatoes. One of my cherry tomato plants has reached 6-7 feet tall. The other is almost 5 feet. They're full of little green fruit. The 'Rutgers' are chugging along. I've been removing all side shoots and tying it up to our homemade trellis. Can't speak to the harvest yet, but it's certainly resulted in really large plants.

3.  The cage. The cage my husband built to keep furry pests out of my garden has remained sturdy and mostly in place in spite of our doubts. Now I can watch the deer grazing in my backyard without wondering if they're going to devour my beans. It's also prevented squirrels from unintentionally digging up my carrots (they continue to dig around the tomatoes, but those plants are sturdy enough that they're unaffected).

Our cage doesn't look like much, but it keeps the larger
pests out.

4. Naturally pest-free. I haven't had any noticeable disease or insect problems yet. I like to attribute some of my good fortune to my feathered friends; I give them seed, and they hang around to supplement their diet with insects. Also, the surrounding woods have given us an abundance of ladybugs to take care of any aphids that appear (I should know, the ladybugs were hibernating in my house over the winter). I attribute the lack of disease to the fresh soil mix I used and to the lack of nearby plants to introduce diseases (my vegetable bed is off in a corner by itself). Also, fewer insects=fewer diseases.

What needs improvement: 

1. Radishes. The radishes sprouted and matured but never really developed into edible radishes. Apparently they like a lot of water. I did not give them a lot of water.

2. Number of bean plants. I should have planted more beans. I will only get about one meal's worth of beans out of these plants (enough for me and my husband), and then they'll stop producing. I planted 8 bush bean plants this year. I'll probably do 16 next year, perhaps staggered (8 to start, 8 more 2 weeks later).

The bush beans and onions are competing for space.

What's still in progress:

Everything else looks healthy. The carrots, onions, okra, zinnia, sunflower, and bell pepper plants are growing slowly. The jalapeño plant has tiny fruit on it.

A couple of jalapenos are almost ready to pick.

If you have a vegetable garden, I'd love to hear about it! There are plenty of things I haven't tried yet--like squash and cucumbers. And I have yet to see whether I'll get a good crop from most of my plants, so I'm open to suggestions. What are you growing? What's worked? What hasn't?