THINGS I LEARNED FROM MY 2020 GARDEN SEASON
2020 was a weird one for me - I didn’t do much planting due to changing jobs (from the corporate world to running my own business) and the general anxiety-filled life that we all had during the ongoing pandemic. I had grand garden plans that went to the wayside but a sudden wave of inspiration hit me mid-Summer. By the 1st of August I was out on the sunny, southwest side of our house in a fairly neglected area ripping up weeds (hot tip: wear long sleeves. Even in August. Just do it. Learn from my mistakes. Poison Ivy is not your friend), pulling vines off the AC unit, and leveling dirt. I had some broccoli, snap pea, cosmos, and pansy seeds that I wanted to just get in the ground and see what would grow this late in the season. Seeds end up being only a couple of cents each so I figured, whatever happens, happens. This was also a bit of a trial to see if this side of the house received enough direct sun throughout the summer day to allow these plants to grow.
The good:
I made little trellises out of bamboo stakes and garden twine for the vining snap peas to climb up. I had experience with these peas from earlier in the season in a container on my back patio and knew they were big climbers. They did very well and produced many peas for us to snack on.
The cosmos also took off vigorously, growing several feet tall and blooming like crazy through the early fall. I didn’t thin them out at all just to see what would happen and they were gorgeous! I need to provide more spacing between them and the other plants next time as well. They can handle a bit of a chill, which is nice to know.
I also got to learn a bit about netting and keeping critters away. The deer don’t tend to congregate in this area (it’s between two houses and there is a fence blocking it from the back yard, where they travel through the woods regularly and occasionally venture into our yard to nibble on things and give our cats some entertainment) but I put up some small netting, held into the air by the bamboo stakes and pinned into the ground using landscape pins. I made sure the netting was small enough for birds to not get into, fearing they might get stuck. No animals were harmed and I’d like to keep it that way.
Sunflowers are a real treat and grow wonderfully in our sunny front yard!
The not so good:
The pansies didn’t work at all. Not-a-one came up, probably due to the heat of August in Pittsburgh (and a bit of a 2020 drought).
The broccoli came up and made tiny little broccoli heads that I never ended up harvesting because I wanted to see just how big they would get. I think that was a waste of time because they didn’t grow much after October and probably should have been enjoyed for the mini broccoli they were.
The biggest takeaway: this would be a good spot for a fenced-in vegetable garden. It receives direct sunlight in the summer for ~6 hours, which isn’t amazing but it’s the best I can do in a tree-filled residential area. After going back and forth about the size, my husband and I decided to install a 6’ garden/deer fence in this area in December 2020 when we were replacing the fence into our backyard anyways. It would create a fun, new, usable area on this side of the house instead of just being another garden bed (which I have lots of and plan to add more of in 2021). The fence was installed over a few days in December and is made from standard-pressure treated pine posts and coated welded wire fence. Overall dimensions are about 11’ wide and 20’ deep, butting up against our house and backyard fence. I’ll go over the plans for the vegetable garden design in another post!
Overall 2020 was still a good gardening year. I started vinca from seed in the winter and those ended up growing well in my front yard. This came after using 2019 as a trial year for annuals aka going to the garden center and picking out a bunch of annuals (instead of going with one) and seeing what worked and lasted the longest. Vinca won. I also made a little more headway defining garden beds and planting a few more perennials in the backyard. Finally, the aforementioned drought taught me a lot about watering frequency to keep plants and new trees happy. Also, I received a mini greenhouse (it’s really a cold frame) from Gardners Supply and was able to harvest mini bell peppers until mid-December because it kept them protected from the elements. I’m definitely going to do more trials with the mini greenhouse in 2021!
Aug 6 2020 - vinca started from seed in Feb 2020 surrounded by a blue Delphinium, a Spirea bush in the background, and Sedum groundcover