2025 Gardening Lessons – Track Your Harvests
(Butternut squash and Sugarbaby Watermelon on the vine, protected from squirrels with the wire mesh and mini bamboo skewers and given extra heat with black plastic bags on the ground over the root area plus cardboard for weed suppression.
It isn’t pretty but it works for us. – grins))
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I like to harvest our vegetables and fruits when they’re ready (and sometimes before they’re ready). Because it is fun. And because…squirrels. (grins)
This means we’re harvesting a little bit at a time and that doesn’t seem like a lot but over the length of the growing season, that adds up.
This year, we tracked those mini harvests.
And we were both surprised at the total. We didn’t think we harvested much of anything. But we had. We simply hadn’t noticed it.
Track your harvests. Especially if you harvest daily.
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2025 Gardening Lessons – Warm The Soil More For Warmth-Loving Plants
Some plants like squash/courgettes, zucchini, and eggplant love the warmth.
In 2025, I put black plastic bags on the ground around the butternut squash plants and the zucchini plants when I moved them from the basement grow station to the great outdoors.
These plants did EXTREMELY well (for our garden).
I didn’t do this for the eggplant. And they did EXTREMELY poorly. They dropped leaves. They stopped growing. And that made them a target for insects.
The eggplants only started to flourish when the hot weather came. And in our neighborhood in 2025, that was way too late in the growing season.
In 2026, I plan to put the black plastic bags around the base of the eggplants also. This will heat up the soil, keeping the plants nice and toasty.
And I will remove the black plastic bags once the weather warms.
The black plastic bags will be put away and reused the next Spring.
I’m certain there are many more environmentally-savvy ways to heat the ground around plants, ways that don’t include plastic. And once I’ve researched that, I’ll likely switch to one of those ways.
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A Challenging Year Of Gardening
This year was a challenging one for gardening in my corner of the universe.
There was drought. And extreme winds. And a lot of insect and squirrel pressure.
The harvest was…okay. Because we grew a variety of vegetables. Some did poorly (like the tomatoes). But some did very well (like the zucchini i.e. courgettes and the raspberries).
It wasn’t anything to get super excited about.
But gardening still ‘paid’ back, not only in savings on vegetables (which are super expensive in the grocery stores) but also in serenity.
Wandering around the garden, listening to the birds and the bees, touching the soil and the plants calms me.
A recent research study claims that listening to bird song decreases the possibility of emotional depression. There are many studies around the benefits of connecting with the soil, how it grounds us (pun intended – grins).
My garden is a sanctuary in a trying world.
And that is priceless.
(smiles)
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Storing And Reusing Potting Soil
Potting/container soil can be quite costly. It is also bulky and an all around pain in the a$$ to buy.
The good news is…
Soil can be reused! For years!
I have two main ‘rules’ regarding container soil.
Soil that goes outside stays outside. There are a gazillion microbes and insects and insect eggs in healthy soil. You don’t want to bring those little creatures inside your home.
And
If the plants grown in it were diseased or pest-attacked or stunted in any way, that soil isn’t directly reused. It is either put in the compost bin for a refresh or I’ll use it to build up the ground in non-vegetable-growing areas.
All other soil is stored over the winter and reused the next year.
Last year I stored the outside soil in a huge cardboard box. Which would have worked well except…squirrels. They decided there must be something awesome in the box and clawed it to bits. (shakes head) The box barely held together.
This year, I saved the bags from any soil we purchased. These bags are extremely thick. I plan to close them with rubber/elastic bands and store them under the deck. And…I’ll hope for the best.
Many gardeners store their soil in the containers they used for growing or they use plastic totes/bins or garbage bins. Some even use old kiddie pools with a tarp placed over them.
The next year, I’ll ‘refresh’ the soil with a little bit of compost before I reuse it.
And I’m good to go. I’ve saved money, time AND hassle.
(smiles)
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Gardening – Saving Seeds
It is moving into Fall/Autumn in my part of the universe and it is time for some intense seed saving.
I like to save seeds as early as possible in the season because then I’m assured I’ll have seeds for next year and can relax a bit. But some plants like butternut squash can take all season for their seeds to ripen.
And we wish to ripen those seeds on the plant for as long as possible. That increases the probability those seeds will be viable as the plant has put maximum energy into creating them.
I save my seeds in cleaned-out plastic condiment containers, the type we get with take-out orders. I then put those condiments in old metal cookie/biscuit tins and store them in the cooler basement.
I usually have a gazillion seeds. So I usually plant extra in the Spring because…I can and because that ensures at least some of them will be viable.
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A Gardener’s Learning Curve
Gardening is a skill. And as with any skill (including writing), there’s a learning curve.
The first vegetables I grew as an adult were tomatoes. And that was ALL I grew in that first year.
I needed the time to learn how to tend to the soil, how to water the tomato plants properly, how to stake them, how to attract pollinators, when to harvest their fruit and then their seeds, how to prepare the bed for the next year and so on.
I made mistakes. Some plants died. All plants grew…not terrifically. (sheepish grin) The harvest was…underwhelming.
I learned from those mistakes and the following year, the tomato growing went MUCH better.
So much better that I decided to grow green beans also.
And I made mistakes with those plants also.
I learned. I became a better gardener.
I added another type of vegetable to the garden. And the process repeated.
If this was your first year gardening and your harvest was underwhelming or completely nonexistent, know that is normal.
That is expected.
Your mistakes this year will make you a better gardener next year.
(smiles)
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Many Different Pollinators
This summer, we’ve had SO many bees, hornets and yellowjackets in our little part of the universe.
Every morning, flowers were absolutely covered with them. There were SO many different kinds of bees, ranging from the barely visible to the big ol’ bumblebees.
They were drawn to different types of flowers. And they were all working hard (when they weren’t taken naps), collecting pollen, ensuring seeds were rendered viable and fruit was set.
The bees were flourishing. As is our garden.
(smiles)
Ironically, I have only seen about one or two honeybees this year. If the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I had focused on only attracting them to our gardens, we and our plants would have been out of luck. The other bees saved our harvests.
Attract as many pollinators as you can. You never know who will show up!
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Seed Saving And Sharing
(The radish seeds, contained within these pods, are almost ready to harvest. They merely need to dry a bit.)
I reserve a part of the harvest for the wildlife.
The Mafia Squirrels will steal some cherry tomatoes. The birds will eat some raspberries. The slugs will devour some green beans.
That is the reality of gardening and is a part of the honor of sharing this wonderful planet with other lifeforms.
I also, however, reserve a part of the harvest for seeds.
I allow some plants, like radishes and spinach and others, to flower and then go to seed. This is a long process and I can’t use that garden space for anything else while it is happening.
But it is necessary to ensure there will be a harvest next year.
We saw during the early days of COVID that buying seeds is not always a reliable option. It was almost impossible to find lettuce seeds in my part of the world in 2020, for example.
If times get tough, seeds will be difficult to obtain again.
Plus saved seeds are usually more suited to our particular growing conditions. The plants that survived to give us those seeds thrived in our gardens.
Often, when we save seeds, we end up with WAY more seeds than we could ever possibly use.
I could convert the entire neighborhood to 100% spinach lawns with the seeds I’ve saved.
(grins)
I share my excess seeds with other gardeners in the area. It is an easy and free way to make their lives a little bit happier.
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Sharing The Harvest
The harvest from the backyard vegetable garden ramps up during the month of August. The plants are often producing more than the Dear Wonderful Hubby and I can consume.
We freeze much of the excess to enjoy during the winter months.
And we give some vegetables to neighbors.
We do this for a couple reasons.
The Dear Wonderful Hubby and I both love to feed people. It gives us joy. And it is one of our ways of showing love or caring.
We also know our backyard vegetable garden isn’t the prettiest back window view at certain times of year (like early Spring or late Fall/Autumn). It isn’t the perfect lawn many of our neighbors have.
And it sometimes smells. (sheepish grin) Compost can smell. Coffee grounds definitely smell. Aged manure smells.
Our neighbors tolerate that and we thank them by giving them some fresh vegetables.
But, mostly, we are showing them love.
(smiles)
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Nature And Balance
This planet is a wonderful place and when possible, nature likes to keep it in balance.
For example, we had A LOT of caterpillars this year, too much for the plants to handle.
And the plants didn’t have to handle the caterpillars because the hornets and the yellowjackets swooped in. They brought the caterpillars home to their nests to feed their offspring.
The birds, in turn, keep the hornet and yellowjacket population down.
We also had A LOT of pillbugs in our area of the world.
The little brown spiders moved in to keep their population in check.
With the climate changing, the Mafia Squirrels are now having THREE litters of babies every year. (In the past, they would have one litter.)
The hawks and the crows ensure we’re not overrun with squirrels.
This world is an amazing place. The more we learn about how it works, the more amazing it becomes.
(smiles)
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