Garden Summary

I decided that we need to keep better track of the details of our gardening in order to improve in the future. So this post is a summary of everything edible we've planted/grown since moving to Seattle.

Herbs

• Parsley: We bought flat-leaf Italian parsley starters at Lowe's in June and planted them in a large pot. They have grown like crazy, we can't even use enough to manage the plants well. Hoping to bring them indoors for winter. High yield.
• Thyme: We bought our thyme plant as a starter from the Farmer's Market in Madrona in June or July and planted it in a big pot. It has grown decently well this summer but in the past month the thyme leaves have turned yellow/white and we don't know why. Should probably look that up because we would have expected the plant to last through multiple years...maybe we shouldn't have left it outdoors through all the rain? Or been more careful about picking off all the flowers? High yield.
• Basil: We planted three starters in June that all ended up growing ok. One was shadowed by our tomato plants and never got very big. Actually, none of them got big enough for us to pick enough basil for pesto. Next year I'll try to give them more space in the sun, because I love making fresh pesto! They are still going strong into September. Medium yield.
• Rosemary: We have a huge bush that is growing our backyard like a weed...takes no maintenance whatsoever...High yield.
• Fennel: If we had moved here sooner, the fennel may have been under the vegetables category. However, I didn't even realize that the plant was fennel until it was huge, way bigger than you would want it to be for eating the bulb. So we've only just taken seeds from it this year. It grows like a weed with no maintenance. However, I learned that when drying the seeds, you don't need to let them dry on the plant, like many sources have stated. It works just as well to clip them and dry them in your house. High yield (for seeds). I also found out you can harvest the pollen and use that as a seasoning...but it sounds like a lot of work for little pay off. 

Fruits

• Strawberries: Brad wanted to try strawberries...so we bough three starters at Lowe's and planted them around our tomatoes in June. Not only was it too late, they also got quickly shadowed by the tomato plants. We only ate a few berries overall, especially since some of the ones that grew were eaten by bugs/birds/critters before we picked them. Overall disappointed and probably more trouble than they would be worth (unless we wanted to dedicate a lot of space to them). Very low yield.
• Apples: We 3 apple trees on our property. To our surprise, the apples were ripe in July and didn't last long. So many of them fell off unripe and rotted. Brad managed to pick enough to make two pies but we didn't get many more good ones beyond that. The trees are so tall, and lacking a ladder, I know we missed out on a lot of good fruit. Not sure how to better manage these for next year to increase our yield, besides investing in a ladder and paying attention in early July to get them before they fall. Low yield (that was edible anyway).
• Pears: We have 2 weird little pear trees (one that's taken over by the fennel that grows beneath it). We've had a lot of pears grow on it but they never seem to ripen. When we pick them hard, they seem to rot before they ripen. I don't even like pears that much, but hopefully Brad can figure out how to improve our yield on this guy. We've been attempting to pick them from August-September. Low yield overall. 
• Plums: We have two plum trees in our back yard. One is sickly and I believe it produced a single edible fruit. The other has had extreme success. Even without a ladder (the tree isn't that tall), we managed to eat more than our fill of plums from August until about September 8th or so when the last of them fell off. We probably ate a few that weren't ripe enough in August because we weren't sure when to pick them. But by the end of August they were delicious and sweet. Next year we will be even more vigilant (and hopefully have a ladder) to pick and preserve them somehow. High yield.

Vegetables

• Tomatoes (medium size red and yellow ones): We planted two starter plants in June and didn't start getting tomatoes until mid-August. We will definitely start them earlier next year and include a small cherry or grape variety. These plants got really big quickly, but the fruits haven't ripened quickly at all. I hope that there is still time for them all to get ripe since we wont have many more hot days this year. We had to tie them up to the plum tree to keep them standing, since they grew to over 6 feet high. It is probably best to not put anything else in the planter box with them, given the size. Medium yield (hoping for more!).
• Romaine lettuce: We planted two starter plants from Lowe's in July. They did well through Mid-August and we were able to eat the outer leaves as they grew for about a month. Yummy! Medium yield.
• Broccoli: We planted four broccoli starters from Lowe's in July. They have had the most trouble of any of the plants in terms of pests. First is was caterpillars. Green ones that were hard to see. We tried to pick them off every day but they ate up the leaves as they were growing. And ones the plants got a bit more mature and were starting to push up little heads of broccoli, the aphids came. Disgusting! There is no way to get them all off, even when you pick the head and rinse it. And now I've been finding leaves covered in snails. So far we've only eaten the main stock off of one plant, but we are hoping to eat the rest soon, in spite of the aphids. Our plan is to pick off the head, dip it in boiling water to get the aphids off, and then maybe steam the rest. What a hassle! The rest of the fall season will tell if the yield was worth all the work...(they also had such big leaves that they took up a lot of our valuable garden box space).
• Carrots: I planted carrots in July and again in early September. Both groups have sprouted, with more from the second planting I think. I'm trying to carefully thin the sprouts so we don't have them overcrowded once they get big (which was a problem back in Durham). Still waiting to see about the yield there!
• Russian Kale: I just planted 4 starters from City People's Garden Center, 3 in the garden box and one in a pot since there was no room. Hope they last for a long time through fall and early winter, given our mild climate.
• Spinach: Waiting to plant spinach from seed once we can free up space in one of the garden boxes. We have a variety that supposedly grows very fast and huge, so I am hopefully that even with a fall planting we will get a decent yield. 

Anyway, I am hoping that with some extra planning ahead of time we will be able to plant even more next spring. It has all been a valuable learning experience. Maybe next year I'll have the foresight to track more details of our planting adventures.