The 2026 Garden

We cut back on the 2026 garden for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is the yield is declining every year.

Mid-morning picture taken before the sun has come over the house, facing west.

That yellow tree was planted shortly after we moved in. The garden is in the back of the house facing west, and the sun sets through that gap between the trees, mostly on to the left, which is south. Very conservatively I think it’s reduced the amount of direct sunlight on the garden by at least 30%.

For our 2025 garden we’re growing basil, Oregon Spring tomatoes, and cucumbers. We just harvested the first ripe tomatoes. The basil has been doing fine. We’ve also gotten a decent numbers of cucumbers from two plants, though the cucumbers are now mostly done for the year. To be fair, we started a little late this year, so that could be contributing to the somewhat late harvest.

Going forward, I think we’ll continue with a more limited garden, at least so long as we eat the output. If I get excited or have extra time available maybe we’ll try growing something in the front of the house on a limited scale — there’s not much space without tearing up the yard. Alternately we’ll go all-in, pull out a few shrubs, and tuck a long skinny greenhouse up against the front of the house.

On the other hand — we have a big yard for suburbia, so as I age I may also decide the yard is plenty of work as is. One of our older neighbors moved out a few years ago and he said at the time that the yard and house was too much for him to maintain. We’ll see how it goes.

2024 Container Garden Recap

2024 was our worst year ever by total yield or by EarthBox by quite a bit. This year we grew four boxes of tomatoes (8 plants), one box of cucumbers (4 plants), one split box of zucchini and tomatillos (one of each), and one box of basil (4 plants).

Typically we get around 20 pounds per tomato plant — around 40 pounds per EarthBox. Not this year:

One box (four plants) Cucumbers: 27.9 pounds. Not a terrible year for cucumbers. They maintained good shape and taste deep into the harvest season.

One box (two plants) Black Krim Tomatoes: 14.6 pounds

One box (two plants) Oregon Spring Tomatoes: 12.6 pounds

Two boxes (four plants) Roma Tomatoes: 22.2 pounds

1/2 box (1 plant) Zucchini: 6.7 pounds

1/2 box (1 plant) Tomatillo: 3.3 pounds

87.3 pounds total.

We also grew one box of basil, and as usual the box produced way more than we could consume. At the end of every season it gets distributed around the neighborhood before the cold damages it too much.

We’re in the Seattle area. Almost everyone I talked to said they were having a bad year for tomatoes, so I don’t think it was just us. We did have one Roma die outright, which is the first tomato plant we’ve had die in over ten years of gardening. On average the yield this year was about 1/3rd of what we’ve seen historically.

The other “problem” was that we bought the last zucchini plant labeled as Tromboncino from the nursery. It turned out it was a “regular” zucchini plant, so it flopped all over the Tomatillo, rather than vining and staying out of the way like it was supposed to. There were no winners in that competition for space and light.

The flip side is 80 pounds of produce is a lot of stuff. We processed the tomatoes into sauce and froze dinner-sized portions. Both the downstairs chest freezer and the upstairs freezer are packed solid with vegetables.

Going forward, it may be we need to cycle out potting soil and replace it with fresh. It may also be that 2024 is closer to the new normal as the large trees around our lot continue to encroach on good sun for the garden.

I think overall it was a combination of relative lack of attention, bad weather, and bad luck (mislabeled pant and the dead tomato plant).

We’ll try again next year.

The Reduced Footprint 2024 Container Garden

In a typical year we have twelve active EarthBoxes. The yield is usually around 250 pounds of produce. We have plenty of frozen vegetables in the freezer, so this year we have seven boxes:

The picture is facing east — the sun is just clearing the house and striking the cages and the tops of the tomato plants.

Front row (L-R): box of two Romas, box of two Romas, box of two Oregon Spring. There’s going to be one more box to the right containing basil — I didn’t like what I saw when I went shopping for basil this morning.

2nd row (L-R): Box of Black Krim tomatoes. Under the right-hand trellis are Marketmore cucumbers.

Back left: A box with one tomatillo (Verde) and one zucchini. We purchased the zucchini as a Tromboncino (we got the last one!) but it now has all the appearances of a “regular” zucchini plant.

North of Seattle it’s been very mild bordering on “too cold for basil”. Hopefully over the next few weeks we see some real growth.

2023 Container Garden Recap

Our patio container garden had a “solid” year all-around: 173.1 pounds of produce from 9 EarthBoxes. Which comes to about 6 pounds per square foot of container space. The trees in and around the garden continue to expand, at some point soon we may need to go to fewer boxes and smaller (determinate) plants.

Here’s how everything did:

Cucumbers: 1 box, 4 plants, 34.6 pounds. We grew “Marketmore” cucumber plants. The cucumbers started early and stayed productive until late. This was a relatively good year for “attractive and straight” fruit too.

Carmen Peppers: 2 boxes, 12 plants, 16.0 pounds. We located the peppers in a relatively sunny/premium location. The plants grew taller than usual and we had fewer problems with bugs and most everything ripened. The basil is not getting its spot back.

Tromboncino Zucchini: 1 box, 2 plants, 18.6 pounds. It was a solid year for the zucchini as well. Mid-season we got this:

I think the hand pollinating helped (again). An old toothbrush is now a permanent part of the gardening tool kit.

Black Krim / Carbon Tomatoes: 1.5 boxes, 3 plants, 28.5 pounds. The three plants mostly intermingled and it wasn’t worth figuring out which was which. We grew two Black Krim but one of them didn’t do well at all and was dead by mid-September. I have no idea what caused it so hopefully it was just rough handling. Ten pounds per plant is fine, and the Black Krims tasted amazing, as usual.

Tigeralla Tomato: .5 box, 1 plant, 12.2 pounds. The Tigerally did “fine”. They ripened fairly late. It’s fun to have colorful tomatoes though this year they were pretty “meh”.

Oregon Spring Tomato: 1 box, 2 plants, 20.7 pounds. The Oregon Springs were a top performer again. They started early and the taste and yield were both very good. Highly recommended.

Roma Tomato: 2 boxes, 4 plants, 42.5 pounds. Romas always yield well for us, and even the unripe fruits all ripened after harvest.

We also grew four basil plants in one box in the middle of the garden. They produced way more than we could consume so the neighbors got a lot of our excess basil. The EarthBox directions call for six plants per box, but I think the yield winds up being about the same with a little more space per plant.

Finally, we had one box of 20 Fortex (pole) beans, yielding fistfuls of pods all summer.

Considering we didn’t pay a ton of attention to the garden it went pretty well.

Container Garden Update — September 24, 2023

The annual Seattle rains started yesterday afternoon. I wanted to stay relatively dry while harvesting, so I harvested all the Really Ripe Things last weekend and The Rest Of It yesterday morning.

A front view prior to last weekend’s harvest:

From the house side “back” of the garden:

The remaining peppers:

The “Ripe” harvest. It’s 9 pounds of peppers and 37 pounds of tomatoes, mostly Romas (20 pounds) and Black Krim (12 pounds):

Yesterday’s “Rest Of It Harvest”:

As for the under-ripe tomatoes — we’ve had good success the last few years by spreading them out on cooling racks near a heater vent in the kitchen and letting them ripen for 2-3 weeks. I think it’s the combination of air-flow and warmth that does the trick.

Finally, one straggler that I found doing the final clean-up:

It’s a nice discovered reward at the end of the process.

Container Garden Update — August 29,2023

We’ve had a long series of days mostly in the 70’s punctuated by a fairly warm weekend in the 80’s. The cucumbers and zucchini are basically “done”. The tomatoes plants got a big thinning and haircut — the indeterminants got topped, and the centers (side-branches) of all of the tomato plants were aggressively pruned. Any blooms or non-mature tomato fruits were trimmed off, there’s not enough time left in the growing season for those.

We gave the peppers the prime spot in the garden this year. It feels like the plants grew bigger than in most years, the yield will be greater and more peppers ripened, and we lost almost none to bugs and critters. Usually it’s much more “congested” than this, which may related to the bug attacks. We harvested around a third of the peppers after this picture:

The harvest:

The basil was kicked from the prime spot and moved to the center of the garden, where it’s done great. One of the six plants flopped over and was gifted around the neighborhood a few weeks ago. The other plants just filled in the space:

A “before” picture from inside the garden looking at the Krims and Tigerella:

Another “before” picture. (front L-R) – Roma, Roma, Oregon Spring tomato, 2 boxes of Carmen peppers:

After the haircut:

Starting this week is when we’ll see the tomato harvest really ramp up. We can use the upcoming long weekend partly for making tomato sauce for the freezer.

The weather has gone from sunny and 80 degrees to now a hard rain and 65 degrees. I’m guessing when the rain passes we’ll have some tomatoes to pick up off the ground, but still, it’s good we got the bulk of the pruning out of the way.

Container Garden Update — August 2, 2023. The Zucchini

Here in the Seattle area It’s been a dry summer and it’s also been relatively mild. The garden is doing fine, maybe developing a little more slowly than usual. We’ve harvested around 15 pounds of cucumbers, some early Oregon Spring tomatoes, Fortex (haricot vert / pole) beans, basil, and a few Tromboncino zucchini, including this one:

For reference, the table is 36″ in diameter. The fruit is 33″ long and weighs 4.3 pounds. I’m pretty sure this is a record for us. It may be that if left on the vine it would have gotten even larger, but it also might have started the transition to “yellow winter” squash, and that’s not what we had in mind.

I wasn’t able to get a photogenic picture of it on the vine. The next picture shows what that looks like. (2014 photograph):

We like to grow the Tromboncino variety for a few reasons: We like the firm texture of the flesh. The seeds are all in the ball at the end, the rest of the zucchini is totally usable. The plants themselves are relatively mildew resistant, and because they can be trellised they work well with the fact that we’re gardening on a concrete patio.

Another picture of the “new” zucchini for fun, this time posing on a 4′ long table with the kitchen appliances and a vase full of tarragon:

The next post will have pictures things besides Tromboncino. By mid-August The Ripening should be in full swing.

Container Garden Update — July 2, 2023

It’s been a very mild summer. When I compare notes with people it feels like our garden is behind most everyone. The flip side to that is it’s the start of July and the lettuces and cool season herbs are still doing well.

A picture with a different angle, from the deck:

An overview from the front:

Something happened to the asparagus between last year and this year. About a third of the crowns either died off or (optimistically but unlikely) refused to come up. I don’t have an explanation for it — I’ve been adding compost every year and I didn’t do anything differently that I can think of. I may leave it alone next year and see what happens.

Instead of sad asparagus, here’s the first cucumber. Or the second, I didn’t see the one hiding on the right when I took the picture:

Romaine lettuce – “Slow Bolt Mix” from Territorial seed. I had the date that I seeded these written on a white board. The white board has since been erased by someone being helpful. I think it’s been 3-4 weeks? Bird netting to keep the squirrels from digging:

The basil. We originally started with one EarthBox and the basil did so well that it turned into this garden post many years later:

The Fortex beans:

The Tromboncino zucchini. We’ve harvested two decent-sized specimens so far. Pollinating the flowers with a toothbrush may be helping:

The indeterminant tomatoes (Black Krim and others) and the determinates to the left (Oregon Spring and Roma):

A closeup of the Oregon Spring tomatoes, which are always the earliest and most prolific. There are more than a few hiding:

The Carmen peppers:

Looking ahead – hopefully the weather does historically normal July / August things around here and the garden picks up. The trees around the property have grown to the point that we’re never going to see the harvests that when we first started gardening, but we should still be able to freeze plenty of veg to carry us through the winter months.

Container Garden Update — June 4, 2023

A few pictures of the garden in early June. North of Seattle that means that we’re still a month or more away from the first real harvests.

The first picture is an overview from the “front” , facing east.

Front Left – tomatoes (indeterminates are on the north/left, determinates in the front).

Front Right – Carmen peppers.

Back Left – Fortex beans and Tromboncino zuchinni.

Back Center – basil (hiding) and cucumber trellis.

Facing north:

Close-up of the Tromboncino zucchini. The Fortex beans are in the background:

The Marketmore cucumbers:

The Joi Choi. Planted on April 6, the bigger plants are ready to harvest. The tulle over the wire hoops seems to have kept the bugs out this time:

The frilly cilantro and dill that was planted on March 20. They’re sitting in a place where they get morning sun, then dappled sun after that. I think they’re going to bolt within the next two weeks regardless of care:

One nice thing about planting in pots is that they can be moved around depending upon the season and the demands of what’s been planted. The next picture has young leaf lettuce that is covered by bird netting. We have lots of squirrels and they’ll destroy any seedlings that aren’t protected from digging:

I’m still getting the hang of succession planting. I think I’m always waiting too long between plantings, and I try to start outdoors when it’s still cold and the cold nearly stops any growth or germination. This year I tried planting lettuce outside in early March and the it didn’t germinate at all, though that could have been because the seeds were a few years old. I think that I may need to start in February/March indoors, then move that group out into the cold frame in a “warm” spot, then continue with a new group every two weeks through April.

It sounds good in theory anyway.

The Hellebore

Today was going to be a few pictures of the lettuces and their new setup. The weather has had other ideas — it’s been cool or cold most of the last two weeks and the lettuces are refusing to germinate. Instead, a few pictures of the hellebores that live in the southwest corner of the backyard.

While I was buying potting soil at the big box store I saw these on the clearance rack at about 1/4 the normal retail price. I picked up three. It’s been wet but not super-duper cold. They’re recovering well from the neglect:

The biggest and longest-established:

I’m always a fan of “droopy” flowers:

Finally, one of the relatively newer plants that we’re really fond of. It’s the one variety where I know the name — “Silver Prince”:

The evergreen trees above and and around the hellebores mostly live not in our yard. The neighbors decided to clean up some of the low-hanging branches, so the hellebores should see more sun and (rain) water going forward. They’ve been slow to grow but I’m hopeful they’ll start doing better with a little attention in the form of compost or fertilizer and possibly some mulch to help retain water in July and August.