2024 gardening scorecard: abundant arugula
After twenty years of practice at growing vegetables around our house, the results of the 2024 gardening season suggest that the experience really has taught me something about cultivating a particular leafy green. Tomatoes, alas, remain an opportunity for continued learning.
(For your reference: my 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 and 2011 gardening grades.)
Arugula: A+
After a few years of this delicious, versatile green being a spring-only benefit, the seeds I sowed in September exceeded all expectations–even after multiple frosts that felled lesser plants. Better yet, I saw some arugula growing in the lawn next to this raised bed; if that self-sowing trend continues, in a few years I may be able to graze on my own lawn like a sheep.
Herbs: A
Basil was another pleasant surprise: I could have made pesto sauce almost every week. Parsley did great too, allowing me to make parsley-walnut pesto for the first time in a while, and I also had my first good season in years of growing thyme (in a raised bed that I inexpertly rebuilt after the old one rotted apart). Rosemary and mint did well for a stretch, but I didn’t take enough advantage of them before a dry spell took out both.
Peppers: A-
My wife’s decision a few years ago to augment the two raised beds I’d built with a wheeled planter in the driveway paid off again with a great crop of bell and jalapeño peppers that represented some of our most cost-effective gardening efforts.
Spinach: B-
This played a small second fiddle to arugula, with modest spring and fall crops that I could throw into pan sauces or use as a fancier-than-usual quesadilla filling–but not enough to make a salad out of.
Tomatoes: C-
Sigh. My luck was better with plum tomatoes than with slicing tomatoes, but once again I had an unfortunate lack of overlap between fruit starting to ripen, sufficient rain to propel that process, and my being around to eat the results.
Lettuce: D
I got a few sandwich fixings’ worth out the seed packet I planted… which is a not-awful rate of return considering what lettuce costs at a supermarket and how badly it can age in the fridge.
Beans: D-
I chalk this subpar outcome up to inattentive gardening. But it’s not like I didn’t have enough other plants to tend to over those summer months.
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