I’ve written about it a few other times, but it’s been a difficult gardening year for us. Weeds, pests, weather, and poor decisions have all contributed to struggles with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squash, and pumpkins. Thankfully, one of the vegetables we’ve been able to grow has been potatoes.
After receiving some rotten potato starts in 2025 and the healthy ones rotting in the soil instead of growing, we were intentional about how we grew them this year. All the potatoes came from Urban Farmer and arrived in perfect condition. We also decided to grow them in bags this year, which I wrote about in a previous post. This is by far the best decision we made for our garden this year. The bags were easy to plant in, could be maneuvered throughout the garden as needed, and the plants took off in all but one of the bags.
We harvested our first potatoes in early August when we pulled a bag of Red Norlands. We pulled them a bit early and probably could have gotten a bigger yield had we left them to grow a couple more weeks, but they tasted great and were firm with smooth skins. We got two meals out of the first batch.
German Butterballs, Adirondack Blues, and Red Norlands
Afterward, we were committed to leaving the potatoes in the soil until we were 100 percent certain that they were ready. We ultimately waited until this past Monday (Labor Day) to harvest another batch of them, and we pulled them from 10 bags, harvesting some of each variety we grew – Red Norland, Adirondack Blue, and German Butterball. We got roughly 10 pounds or so and gave some to our neighbors, but we still have a lot to eat. Plus, we have eight bags left to harvest. We’ve already tried some of the Adirondack Blues, and they were also delicious.
Potatoes Are My Favorite Vegetable to Grow
Successfully growing potatoes this year reminded me of why I love growing them so much. They’re relatively easy to grow compared to other vegetables, especially when grown in bags. They’re also fun to watch grow since the green “stalks” grow super tall and develop beautiful flowers. The most fun part is harvesting. We can lift the bags to make them easier to access so that we aren’t bending down so far. Diving into the soil to find the potatoes feels like searching for treasure, and when you think that you’ve found all the potatoes from one bag only to find a straggler, it’s an amazing feeling.
Our potatoes may have been successful this year, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t room for improvement next year. We had 20 bags, but it would have been better if we had another 10 or 20. We planted five potato pieces in each bag, and some of the bags felt a bit crowded. If we only had three pieces in each bag, I think we would have had an even better yield.
Two other ways that we can improve are having more soil in each and applying fertilizer again after the initial application. This year, each bag was about three-quarters full, but if we can top each bag off so that the soil is flush with the top, it will better protect the plants from the sun and help them grow more. We added a scoop of a balanced fertilizer when we planted the starts, but I never went back to fertilize the bags again. That would have certainly helped.
We had a blast growing potatoes this year and can’t wait to grow them again next year. We’ll likely try to grow more bags to have a better yield. We’ve even discussed giving Magz’s parents a couple of grow bags full of soil and starts next year so that they can grow potatoes next year. If you grew potatoes this year, how have yours been doing?
I know I’ve been writing less gardening content as the year has gone on, which has been both intentional and unintentional. Unintentional in that my plan was always to maintain a steady flow of gardening posts all year, and intentional in that the garden has been a bit of a letdown this year. I’m going to go over some of the ways that 2026 has been a disappointing gardening year, but instead of focusing solely on the negative, I will wrap it up with all the ways we’re going to improve things for next year so that we’re looking forward to 2027.
Things That Went Wrong
Fencing
Starting with the things that have gone wrong is the fencing. Although it worked better than last year’s mesh fence, the construction/snow fencing we used this year couldn’t stand up to rabbit bites. Almost immediately, rabbits bit holes into the fencing that were just big enough for them to squeeze their bodies through. We tried to repair these holes, but the rabbits quickly adapted by chewing new holes. We gave up after a while.
Crop Rotation
Everyone always talks about the soil benefits of rotating crops on an annual basis. Rotating the various plants puts nutrients back into the soil that are pulled by other crops. I’m sure this happens, but for us, a number of the plants that we rotated from last year’s garden didn’t grow well. Our tomatoes, pumpkins, and squash didn’t grow in their new beds, yet we have healthy tomato and pumpkin plants in the beds they grew in last year. I understand the long-term importance of rotating crops, but it’s disappointing to see vegetables fail when they were so successful in a different location last year.
Squash
Our 2025 garden was incredible when it came to squash. We harvested a lot of yellow summer squash, green zucchinis, patty pans, and eggplant. This year, we harvested around a dozen total. If we had only a couple of plants, this number would be fine; however, we had more than 20 plants in the garden. This was very disappointing.
Grass/Weeds
Perhaps the biggest issue of all and what can be blamed for most things not going right is grass regrowing in the garden. We thought we had the problem licked before we started planting this year, but by mid-June, it was already back with a vengeance. And it wasn’t just grass. We have these really tall weeds that have popped up everywhere in the garden. They’re really easy to pull, thankfully, but there’s no stopping them once they start. The grass/weeds caused issues for our tomatoes and peppers, and it was a general nuisance given how easily it took over all areas of the garden.
Life Distractions
This category isn’t directly related to the garden, but the results of it led to me not devoting as much time or attention to the garden as I wanted to. Back in May, I had an unexpected and awful visit from my mom and stepdad. The encounter and everything that followed created big-time ripples for more than a month, and it distracted me. I wasn’t focused on weeding as much as I needed to be, didn’t fertilize with any consistency, and even cut corners with watering. Even though I didn’t have control over the situation that led to the distractions, I shouldn’t have let the distractions affect me the way they did.
Things That Went Right
Fencing
But not everything has been bad with our garden this year, and even our fence has had some positives. There are two key positives. One is that apart from rabbits, the fence did a great job of keeping animals out of the garden. As long as the fence stays upright and at its full height, other animals have been kept out. The other positive is that the fence stayed in good enough condition that we can reuse it next year. Last year’s fence got so torn up that we knew we’d need to replace it this year. Apart from a few small tears, the only damage to our fence is the holes rabbits chewed in it. It’s great to know that we don’t have to find an entirely new fence solution for next year’s garden.
Seed Starting and Transplanting
We had amazing success with starting seeds and transplanting the starts out into the garden. There were only 2 varieties that failed to germinate: Mexican Sweet Gherkin cucumbers and the Turk’s Turban winter squash. Everything else germinated well, either inside or in the garden, and did well once they were transplanted into the garden. These positives will be applied to next year’s garden to have continued success.
Sunflowers
We successfully grew sunflowers for the first time in our gardening life. Previous attempts ended in animals getting to them before the heads could develop. This year, though, they’ve grown exceptionally well. Our Mammoth sunflowers are between 6 and 10 feet tall with huge, 10-inch heads. We also have a short, Teddy Bear variety that has grown smaller but fuzzier heads. We grew a third variety, but neither of us can remember its name, but it’s a medium-height variety with smaller, traditionally shaped heads. We love being able to look out the windows and see the sunflowers standing tall and vibrant.
Corn & Beans
For the second straight year, we’ve had good success with corn. All of the varieties grew, even though some didn’t reach full height and failed to produce ears. Part of this had to do with the weeds that grew in that bed. But the ones that did reach full height grew decent-sized ears. The next step will be growing larger, fuller ears.
This year was the first time that we’ve had a great bean harvest. All of the varieties we grew did well, and we’ve even been able to pick shelling beans for the first time ever. We currently have a few Mason jars on the kitchen window sill that contain dry beans we grew.
Grow Bags
We grew our potatoes in grow bags this year and have done very well, with us already pulling potatoes from 2 of the bags. We’re certainly going to grow potatoes in them again next year. We’re also likely to grow other plants in them next year, such as peppers. We’ve had struggles with peppers in the garden this year, but the 4 plants we have in a bag are thriving.
What We’re Improving
So, we’re clearly not satisfied with where our garden is and have found areas of improvement for 2027. One area we’re focusing on is the fence. I’ve mentioned that we’re going to stick with the fence we’ve used this year. However, we’re going to improve it by buying 18-inch or 24-inch chicken wire fencing to attach to the bottom of the existing fence. This will provide an added layer of security against rabbits that are less likely to be able to chew through metal. It’s not exactly a foolproof plan, but it’s better than what we currently have.
We’re attempting to permanently address the grass and weed situation with tarps. We’ve had success killing small sections of grass in the garden with cardboard sheets, and so far, the grass hasn’t grown back in those areas. We’re doubling down on this idea by using large, 12’x20′ tarps to kill the grass in entire beds. We’ve started this process in our squash bed, which was one of the most affected by weeds this year. We haven’t checked its progress yet, but we’re confident that it could finally allow us to get ahead of the grass and weeds. If it works, we’re going to buy additional tarps for the rest of the beds.
We’re likely going back to where everything grew in 2025, with the only exception possibly being the corn and beans, which grew really well in their bed this year. Our tomatoes, melons, and pumpkins are all going back to their previous beds, and we’re going to work to make the squash bed from this year more nutrient-rich.
Even though it’s been a disappointing year for gardening, we still have plenty of reasons to look forward to 2027. We generally have an idea of what went wrong this year and feel confident that we can fix things. We’re going to appreciate and enjoy the fall and winter, but we’ll certainly be excited for next spring.
Peppers have proven to be the most frustrating vegetable to grow. We didn’t harvest any peppers last year despite growing several varieties. This year has been much of the same. I started a bunch of seeds inside and transferred them outside. They did decently for the first couple of weeks after being transplanted before inconsistent weather, grass, and pests took most of them down. This has been extra frustrating, because when we had a container garden in 2022, we successfully grew jalapeno and banana peppers. So, what has been going wrong, and what progress do I allude to in the title of this post?
I think the problems with our pepper plants can be separated into two categories: failure points that I had control over and ones that were out of my control. What was in my control is pretty obvious. Annoyingly, grass took over our garden this year despite spending time and money spraying everything with glyphosate last fall before winter arrived. When we planted this spring, the grass was dead but slowly came back until it took over everything. For a while, I tried to keep up with it, but I lost steam (and the battle). With grass at the base of the pepper plants, it allowed mildew and fungus to take root, and they soon died. The other part that was in my control was insects and pests. In early summer, I became overwhelmed by the garden and didn’t keep up with spraying for bugs. This led to insect problems throughout the garden, but especially for the peppers, where the plants soon had leaves and leaves with holes.
Then there’s the issue of weather. Pepper plants love heat and sunshine. However, Pennsylvania weather isn’t always the most cooperative, so we had a cool and wet spring, a week or so of really hot temperatures, and then a summer of average temperatures. It’s not something you can control, but it’s very frustrating when you don’t get the weather necessary for plants to thrive. Of the plants that were transplanted into the garden beds, we lost all but two of them, one bell pepper plant and one habanero plant.
The bell pepper plant didn’t grow very tall and remains only about 12 inches tall. This means that the leaves are barely above the ground and grass, and only one fruit is on the plant. The variety we’re growing will be red when fully ripe, but it’s still green, so who knows if it will mature to the point where it can be eaten. The habanero plant has been much better. It also isn’t very tall, but for hot pepper plants, this is okay. The plant has put three or four peppers on them. One had bug bites and bruises on it, I harvested one, a third one is close to being ripe, and there is at least one more on the plant. We haven’t eaten the picked one yet, but it’s so exciting that I finally was able to harvest a fully ripe hot pepper.
Our first habanero pepper.
That’s not all, though. About a month ago, I transplanted four gochugarju pepper plants into a grow bag, and they’ve taken off. All four are healthy, have grown to 24 inches tall, and have flowers and baby fruit on them. As long as we get normal weather in September, we’ll be able to harvest at least one of the peppers. So, why is this a big deal? I think anytime we work at something and have struggles, it’s always a reward to have a win. Whether it’s finally playing a riff you’ve spent months learning or you successfully cut dovetails, it’s an accomplishment to finally achieve something you’ve worked so hard to learn. For me, growing peppers in an otherwise tough year for gardening is a big win. It allows me to take the lessons I’ve learned this year and apply them moving forward.
Is there a plant that you struggle with? If so, what is it, and were you able to finally beat the struggles? I’d love to hear from you.
For the most part, our fence has done a really good job of keeping animals out of our garden. Last year’s garden and issues with rabbits, squirrels, deer, and potentially raccoons getting into it. The deer were the most destructive. They tore through the mesh fence we had, snapped our stakes, and ate corn and melons. Near the end of summer, we basically gave up on sections of the garden because we knew we couldn’t prevent them from getting in. To this point for this year’s garden, things have gone pretty well. We’ve had problems with rabbits getting in since they can chew through our plastic snow fencing, but they haven’t been too destructive. We don’t think we can prevent them from gaining access, so we just try to distract and deter them.
Before we installed our fence this spring, we saw a lot of evidence of animals in our freshly tilled beds. There were deer hoof prints, lots of rabbit poop, prints that could have been from a dog, and few piles of unidentifiable poop. But because we have dogs in our neighborhood, didn’t have our fence up yet, and hadn’t planted anything, we didn’t think too much about it. Later, after the fence was up, we still had animals getting into our garden beds.
What Animals Do We Have in the Garden?
By far, the most common animal we have in the garden, besides birds, is a rabbit.
We Can’t Say “No” to Rabbits
We’ve had two rabbits who’ve been around our garden since spring. They’ve essentially made our yard their home, which we’re okay with. The two of them seem to live in a burrow at the back edge of our property and like to come out and explore our yard in the mornings and evenings. We absolutely love rabbits, as you know by the affection we have for our pet bunny, Mia. And even though Eastern Cottontails aren’t considered endangered, their habitats are always at risk due to urban sprawl and development, so we’re thrilled to offer them a space where they’re safe. They like to take refuge in a brush pile behind our garage as well as under a hibiscus bush we have at the side of our house. They’ve also gotten quite comfortable around us, which is cool but not all that good when it comes to getting them out of our garden. When we see them in the garden, we’ll go open the fence and go inside as well and try to calmly “guide” the rabbits toward the gate opening. Eventually it works, but there are times when they’ll run full speed at the fence, which isn’t fun. That last thing we want is for the rabbits to get hurt.
Even though our fence is much stronger than last year’s, it’s no match for rabbit teeth, which chew through it in record time. They’ve chewed small holes in the fence and know how to enter and exit each bed. We tried to deter them with Irish Spring soap and aluminum baking pans, but neither has worked. We also tried to repair the fence by installing a piece of pressure-treated wood over the holes, but they just chew new ones, so we aren’t doing much to address the issue this year. We do have plans to fix it for next year’s garden, though.
Once inside the garden, the rabbits aren’t too destructive. They used to chew on the young corn stalks but stopped after realizing they don’t like the taste. They also chewed down a couple young sunflower plants, some cucumbers, and a melon that was close to being ripe, but it hasn’t been too bad. It’s a small price to pay to keep wildlife around.
How High Can Deer Jump?
Our fence stands four feet above the ground. I know that deer can jump higher than this, but when combined with growing plants right up against the fence, I thought it’d be enough to keep them out. Then, when we saw hoof prints in the garden earlier this summer, I increased the height of the fence posts and ran twine around the perimeter of the garden, about two feet higher than the top of the fence. This idea came from our neighbor, and, in theory, it makes it impossible for deer to get into the fence other than at the gate. However, in spite of this, we saw a hoof print in the soil on Sunday. I thought it was a fresh one, but I’m not wondering if it was an old one that was covered by plants and grass. That would make me very happy. I think that as long as we grow corn and aren’t willing to put up an eight-foot fence, we’ll have to deal with them.
What Poop Is This?
Don’t worry. There will be no poop pictures in this blog post. For the second time this year, we have animal poop in our garden that I can’t identify. In spring, I thought the poop was some sort of a canine, perhaps a coyote, fox, or dog that got loose. We even saw canine footprints in the dirt. On Sunday, we saw two fresh piles in our garden. It was reminiscent of dog poop but slightly different in shape, and the color was odd. It confused both Magz and me, and we soon started researching what animal it could have been from. After looking into it, we still aren’t completely sure, but I think we’ve narrowed it down to a fox or a raccoon. This pile looks a bit like both animals’ poops, but because we can’t find any footprints, it’s hard to tell. Both animals are common in our area, and of the two, we’d prefer it to be a raccoon, but I’m unsure how it would have gotten in. Raccoons don’t jump like foxes do, and our fence was up, albeit down a bit, when the animal would have entered.
Either way, I never expected that a portion of gardening would consist of identifying unknown animal scat to figure out what animals are getting into our garden. Hopefully, this is a one-off, and it doesn’t continue. I think this will improve each year as we further address our fencing. Have you had animals get into your garden? If so, what animals were they and how did you deal with it?
I skipped a gardening update last week because there wasn’t much to write about. We were at a place where things were still growing but not ready to harvest yet, and there just wasn’t much to include in an update. Thankfully, things are different this week. Let’s dive in!
Harvesting Corn & Potatoes
Yesterday afternoon, we spent an hour or so in the garden harvesting vegetables we’ve been waiting on, including corn and potatoes. Most of our corn has been growing very well. Two varieties are over 10 feet tall, two others are more than six feet tall, and the others are about four feet tall. All seem to be in line with expectations. The stalks have been in tassle for several weeks and have had ears growing for quite some time. But until yesterday, none of the ears were ready to be picked.
I believe we picked a half-dozen ears split between three or four varieties. There were two Painted Mountains, two Country Gentleman, and I think one each of the Luther Hill and Black Iroquois, Sweet Mexican varieties. The ears varied fairly widely in length, but they were pretty full ears. I think our favorite variety was the Country Gentleman, which is an heirloom from the late 18th century. It is sweet corn, but not nearly as sweet as our modern hybrids. It also doesn’t grow in rows like corn typically does. Instead, it is a shoepeg type, so the kernels grow in zig-zags. It’s beautiful.
Red Norland potatoes and corn harvest.
We also really enjoyed the Painted Mountain corn. This is a flint, or dent, corn, so it typically isn’t eaten fresh like this. Instead, it’s usually left to dry on the stalk and then ground into cornmeal. We decided to eat it fresh because we’re unlikely to grow enough ears to mill, but we didn’t want it to go to waste. Plus, it can still be eaten fresh, and we learned it’s absolutely delicious. It’s one of the best-tasting corn varieties we’ve ever had. The downside is that its texture is a bit off. It’s starchier and chewier than sweet corn usually is, but if you can get past that, the flavor is excellent.
We also pulled our first batch of potatoes yesterday but likely did so a couple of weeks early. Growing potatoes in bags has gone very well, with all but one bag growing very well. All the others are full of two-foot-tall plants, and most have flowers on them. Plus, some have started to die back, indicating that they’re close to being ready. Unfortunately, I was misled by some Reddit threads, and we pulled a bag of Red Norland potatoes a bit too early. The potatoes we did harvest look amazing. We have roughly a dozen appropriately sized, beautiful red-skinned potatoes. They’re firm and are going to be delicious. But we could also see on the roots a lot of places where new potatoes were starting to grow, so we likely lost out on the opportunity to grow another dozen potatoes. With the rest of the bags, we’re going to wait until the plants have completely died off before harvesting.
Melons Are Growing Well
In what has been a very weird year for gardening, from the inconsistent temperatures and rain to the Canadian wildfire smoke, our melons have been doing exceptionally well. This is odd, because growing melons in cooler climates like ours is difficult. We’ve tried growing them in the past, but they always failed to grow to their fullest size or lacked flavor. This year, for whatever reason, they’re doing well.
We’re growing three varieties of melons: Pride of Wisconsin (muskmelon), Montreal Market (muskmelon), and Cream of Saskatchewan (watermelon). I’m confident that we have at least one of each variety growing, with multiple fruit being close to volleyball size. None of these tend to produce huge melons, but if we get something around five pounds, I would be thrilled. I think it’s difficult to tell when melons are ready to be harvested, but by early September, we should be close.
Try Little Bing Tomatoes
The Little Bing tomato is one of the most highly anticipated things we’re growing this year. Not only is the name funny, but it’s also described as being one of the best-tasting cherry tomatoes the seed company employees have tasted. I started them inside and transplanted them into a small rectangular planter we have. After transplanting, the plants took off, and we’ve had dozens of blossoms and fruit for weeks. Thankfully, the tomatoes have started to turn red, and we were able to harvest the first ones yesterday. The seed company was 100 percent correct on the flavor. This tomato is very sweet, but not syrupy sweet. It also has a great tomato flavor without any of the “tinniness” that can happen. They’re not too big, but they can still be sliced. They may be the perfect cherry tomato.
Elsewhere in the Garden
We’ve also continued to pick beans, even though I thought they would have stopped growing by now. We’re still eating Cherokee Wax and Blue Lake Bush beans and even gave a quart of them to our neighbors last evening. Our shelling beans are also doing well. They have large pods, and the plants continue to look healthy.
Our other tomato plants are holding on, and the bulk of the tomatoes are starting to ripen. Our peppers are in a similar state. We are also finally starting to see some eggplants growing on the plans. Last year, we harvested a ton of them, but this year, they’ve been much slower to grow and develop.
Finally, our sunflowers are looking great, and one of the Teddy sunflower plants has grown a flowerhead. It’s stunning. I wasn’t sure if we’d ever see this happen. That’s all for this week’s update. Happy Gardening!
In this week’s gardening update, I’m mainly going to focus on a plant that was supposed to be a melon but is looking more like a pumpkin with each passing day. Additionally, I’ll go over some of the harvesting that we’ve done as well as what we’re seeing in the garden. Let’s dive in.
Is It a Melon or a Pumpkin?
One look at this picture, and it’s obviously a pumpkin, right? That’s what we’re thinking now too. The skin is giving off serious pumpkin vibes, and the stem is thick and curved much like a pumpkin. Heck, even the leaves look like pumpkin leaves. And I expect that by early September it should begin to turn orange. So why did we think it was a melon? The answer is simple: we didn’t plant any pumpkins in this bed this year. In this section of the bed, we planted three varieties of melons, and for most of the plant’s life, I thought it was a melon plant. I obviously wasn’t paying attention to the leaf shape, which looks nothing like a melon leaf. This begs the question of how do we have a pumpkin when we didn’t plant pumpkin seeds?
This pumpkin started out as a melon, or so we thought.
I think there are only two possibilities. One is that the envelope of Cream of Saskatchewan melon seeds we received actually had pumpkin seeds in it. I don’t think this is the case because I believe I would have noticed if the seeds looked like pumpkin seeds rather than watermelon seeds. Also, in this same row, we have several melon plants growing, so I’m confident we received and planted the proper seeds.
The other possibility is that this seed was left on the ground from last year and grew this spring. I’m confident this is what happened. We grew pumpkins in this bed last year, including a New England Sugar Pie variety, which is what this pumpkin looks like. There were a couple of pumpkins that deer started to eat, allowing seeds to fall on the ground. Then, this spring, I likely tilled them into the soil when I was turning it over, allowing this seed to germinate and grow. It’s similar to the rogue tomato plants we have in this same bed. Those are also growing well. I’m getting a kick out of how this happens, and we’re pretty happy with this pumpkin plant since the plants we’re intentionally growing aren’t doing all that well.
Squash, Beans, and First Tomato
We’re continuing to harvest summer squash, with the yellow crooknecks being ready to pick. We’ve also been picking more Costata Romanesca and Lebanese White Bush and have learned the importance of consistent watering and waiting until the vegetables are fully ripe before picking. One of our Costata Romanescas was firm for about 75 percent of its length before tapering to a soft section in the last 2 inches. We picked two Lebanese White Bushes. One was white and the other was a pale green. We learned that they need to be white before picking because it indicates full ripeness. We’re also starting to see the first patty pan squashes growing on the plants. Last year, these were our favorite summer squash to eat, so we’re really excited to be able to eat them again soon.
One thing I can’t figure out is why our winter squash have done nothing. We planted a couple varieties with multiple plants of each variety. Some of the plants have completely died off, while others haven’t taken off, and we haven’t seen any fruit development. It’s a similar story with our intentionally planted pumpkins. I’m unsure if this is the result of the intense heat wave we had in June or something else, but last year, our winter squash grew very well.
We continue to have an excellent year for beans. We’re picking a batch of them every couple of days and have been enjoying eating our fresh snap and wax beans. We’re also seeing pods on our shelling beans, which is really exciting.
Cherokee Wax, Blue Lake Bush, Iroquois Skunk Pole Beans
Finally, we harvested our first tomato last night. It was a cherry tomato was delicious. Our tomatoes have been kind of weird this year. The plants took off after being transplanted into the garden, but inconsistent watering, weed issues, and uneven temperatures led to some issues. At one point, it looked like most plants were going to die, but that’s no longer the case. There are a lot of tomatoes growing and starting to turn red, but the leaves are still brown and don’t look healthy. I’m choosing to focus on the positives in that we’re going to be able to harvest tomatoes from plants that don’t look great while thinking about ways to improve next year.
Cucumber Bitterness
One of the most disappointing vegetables this year has been our cucumbers. Like our tomatoes, the plants took off after being transplanted, but a combination of not remembering how far the Bushy variety spreads and not being able to see the vegetables below the leaves has made it difficult to pick the cucumbers at the ideal size. And the flavor of these cucumbers has been hit and miss. Some have been amazing and similar to the freshest-tasting cucumbers I’ve ever eaten. Others, though, have been bitter and not pleasant to eat. This was due to the heat wave we had in June since cucumbers are apparently very heat-sensitive and respond to it by developing thicker skins, which causes bitterness. We may take a year off from growing cucumbers next year because they’re a bit finicky and annoying to grow. But when we do grow them again, I want to find a variety that is less heat-sensitive because we tend to get one weeklong heatwave each summer.
Up Next
Do you have any experience with cucumbers being bitter? If so, do you have any tips for addressing the issue at this point in the summer?
Jeremy Clarkson’s Amazon Prime original Clarkson’s Farm is one of our favorite shows. The show provides a less-than-glamorous look at everything that goes into growing the food that Britain eats. And even though he is far from the average farmer, given his financial success in the entertainment and journalism industries, the show has been lauded by farmers across the globe. I wrote about the show in an earlier post, which I think is worth checking out, as it dives into everything that can be learned from the show. I’m revisiting the show in this post because it’s where we first learned about naming garden beds, or fields, in the case of a farmer.
In the first season (it may have even been the first episode), Jeremy invites Kaleb to the farm to have him become the farm manager. As a test, Jeremy asks Kaleb to go through the field names without looking at a map. This was the first time I had heard of a farmer naming fields. I worked on a dairy farm early in high school and don’t remember him ever referring to a field’s name. Granted, my job was mostly milking cows, but I think I would have heard him referring to a field by its name if he gave them names. The cows had names; the fields didn’t.
But I think naming fields is brilliant. When you have a bunch of fields in close proximity to each other, it can be really difficult coming up with directions for farm workers. Think about the last time you attempted to give directions solely off reference points instead of road names or route numbers. It isn’t easy. By naming the fields and using those names on a map of the farm, everyone can quickly identify the field’s location. Granted, using numbers or letters is equally efficient, but it does lack creativity and fun.
Last year, our garden consisted of 5 beds, and it was confusing trying to talk about the same bed if we weren’t standing outside looking at the garden. Saying “the bed behind the garden” worked because it was the only bed there, but it was a struggle anytime we needed to talk about the 4 beds beside each other on our second lot. So, this year, we wanted to come up with garden bed names to help us quickly identify which one we’re talking about when discussing seeds, plans, harvesting, etc.
These are the names we came up with:
Beer Talk – This is the bed we often hang out by and talk with our neighbor over a can, bottle, or glass of beer.
Oh, Deer – This bed was where we grew our corn last year. Deer got into the bed and ate a lot of our late-season corn. We aren’t growing corn there this year, but the name remains.
Bunny – This is a new bed for 2026. It’s where a lot of rabbits hung out before creating the garden bed. They still hang out in the yard and grass that surrounds the bed.
Swamp – This bed struggles with drainage. When we get a lot of rain in the spring, it’s the last bed to drain.
Rain Barrel – This bed is the one closest to our rain barrel, so this one makes a lot of sense.
Watch for That Pole! – An homage to the movie George of the Jungle, we found a cemented, hollowed-out metal pole in the middle of this bed last year. We think it may have been a clothesline pole in the past, and instead of removing it, the previous owners broke it off at the base.
Our garden bed names for the 2026 season.
Those are the 6 names. We may change them in future years, or we may keep them as they are. But it was a lot of fun figuring out creative names that fit the beds, and it’s a lot easier talking about specific beds now. Have you ever named your garden beds to make things a bit easier? If so, I’d love to hear the names you came up with.
In this week’s update, we finally harvested our first cucumbers from this year’s garden. We also picked more zucchini, our corn is producing ears, our melons are showing major growth, we harvested a bunch of beans, and more. Let’s dive in!
First Cucumber Harvest
Until last week, our cucumber plants were perplexing. As a refresher, we’re growing a variety called Bushy, which originally came from Russia and does well in cool climates. I started them from seeds and transplanted 4 plants into the garden, with 3 of them surviving. What has confused me about this cucumber is that the name Bushy implies a contained plant that doesn’t sprawl out. That hasn’t been the case, as the plants have vined out feet from the roots. Yesterday, I revisited the seed listing, and this variety still produces 5-foot vines, so they’re growing as expected.
Cucumber Harvest
The other thing that’s perplexed me about them is how long they’re taking to grow. It felt like this year’s cucumbers (and other vegetables) were taking longer to mature than last year’s garden; however, looking at my weekly blog entries from last year, I learned that we didn’t pick our first cucumbers until the second week of July. So, at most, we’re a week late, which is almost entirely the result of the weather. The craziest part is that on Wednesday of last week, our cucumbers were only 3 or 4 inches long, but by Sunday evening, we picked 6 that were 7 to 8 inches long, with 2 of them being overripe. Magz cut 2 of the cucumbers into chunks, and we ate them raw with dinner. The Bushy cucumber is a very tasty variety that is firm enough to hold up to brining for pickles but still tender enough to be eaten fresh.
Experiencing New Summer Squash Varieties
In last week’s update, I wrote about our first zucchini harvest for the year, which was a Costata Romanesca. Since then, we’ve picked 4 or 5 more of them as well as 3 or 4 Lebanese White Bush, 2 Ronde de Nice, and 1 Black Beauty. The Lebanese White Bush is an heirloom variety that produces 4-to-5-inch squashes that are light green in color. The Ronde de Nice is a French heirloom that has an acorn shape but is a summer squash. It can be dark or light green and is typically picked at 4 inches in diameter. The Black Beauty is the dark green zucchini that comes to mind for most people when they think of a zucchini. It has a smooth skin with an even color, and we pick ours when they’re 8 to 10 inches in length.
Costata Romanesca, Black Beauty, and Ronde de Nice summer squash
We’ve eaten at least one of each variety except for the Black Beauty, and all are delicious. My dad and stepmom visited us this past weekend, and we were able to send them home with some Costata Romanesca, Ronde de Nice, and Lebanese White Bush. My dad messaged me yesterday and said that they fried the Ronde de Nice and loved it. In a future blog post, I’ll review each variety and detail the flavors.
Corn Tassels and Ears
Our corn has really taken off over the past week. Our Painted Mountain corn has the most beautiful reddish-purple stalk, and even the tassels and silk have a purple tinge to them. They’re almost 6 feet tall and have ears developing. Meanwhile, our Sweet Mexican corn is approaching 7 feet tall, and the tassels are starting to appear. Nearly every day, we go out to the garden to tap the stalks to help germinate the ears.
Painted Mountain corn stalk and tasselPainted Mountain corn ear
A Bean Harvest
On Sunday, we had the joy of being able to harvest a full dinner’s worth of beans. We grew beans last year and were able to eat some, but they didn’t grow well, and we never had enough ripen at once to have as a meal. This year, conditions seem to be perfect for growing them, because we’re having a ton of success. We picked Beurre De Rocquencourt and Maxibel Haricot Vert, yielding a quart in total. Magz steamed them, melted butter over them, and added a pinch of Kosher salt and black pepper.
First bean harvest of 2026.
Even though we ate the two varieties together, you could taste a difference between the two beans, which I love. Yesterday, that harvest was followed up with another quart of beans, with Cherokee Wax beans comprising the bulk of the haul.
A Grab Bag of Topics – Potatoes, Peppers, Flax & More
Our potatoes continue to do well with the exception of one bag of Adirondack Blues. For some reason, that bag never took off, and on Saturday, I noticed that the plant that had been growing in it died. It’s not a big deal since we have 19 other bags that are doing well, and we’re going to use that bag to transplant a couple of the Gochugaru pepper plants I started late. In other pepper news, one of our habanero plants is producing fruit. It currently has 3 or 4 small peppers on it, each about 2 inches long.
Our flax and sunflowers are looking great. The flax plants are about 2 feet tall and have a lovely light purple flower on top. Not knowing how they grow or what to expect from them has made the process of growing them all the more fun. What we didn’t realize is how much flax you need to grow in order to turn it into a sizable amount of yarn/thread. We thought that growing a few rows of it would yield a decent amount, but it looks like we’ll need to grow an entire bed of it in the future. Meanwhile, our sunflowers are 4 feet tall (Mammoth variety) and 12 inches tall (Teddy Bear). The plants are looking healthy, and we’re hopeful that we’ll get heads to form on them this year and that we can prevent the squirrels from attacking them.
Lastly, we’re beginning to see progress from our melons. All 3 varieties are vining nicely and producing flowers, but the Montreal Market and Pride of Wisconsin are stealing the show. Both have fruit growing. The Montreal Market is nearly the size of a softball, while the Pride of Wisconsin is close to tennis ball size. Happy Gardening!
This is a post I originally came up with last fall, but it was too late in the growing season to make sense. This post is going to be regularly updated to share what we’re currently growing. It’ll be a way to keep everyone in the know with what’s currently in the garden and containers.
Beans
Our beans are being grown in two sections of our property. We have the majority of them growing in the ground in one of our garden beds alongside our corn. These are our bush-habit beans, so they won’t grow too tall and don’t have to be trellised. They’re growing along the perimeter of the bed, alongside the fence. The 7 varieties we’re growing here are Cranberry (shelling), Missouri Bill (shelling), Black Turtle (shelling), Maxibel Hericort Vert (snap), Blue Lake 274 (snap), Beurre de Rocquen (snap), and Cherokee Wax (snap). All of our bush beans have germinated, with the majority of the plants about 2 inches tall. These were planted close together and shouldn’t need to be thinned. Update: As of mid-July, all of our beans are doing very well. They’re all about 18 inches tall, have flowers, and small beans growing.
Rows of corn and bean plants
We also have 3 pole beans growing elsewhere on the property in the trellising containers that I built. These are located alongside our garage and by our potatoes. Update: Of the pole beans we planted, only the Iroquois Skunk pole beans have grown. The other varieties failed to germinate, so we replaced those with the Skunk pole beans. The first planter has done very well and has a lot of beans growing on the vines.
Corn
We enjoyed growing corn so much last year that we wanted to expand upon the 3 varieties we planted, which we did by buying 9 varieties for this year’s garden. As mentioned above, our corn is growing in the same bed as the beans, which was intentional since they are companion crops and are two-thirds of what the Native Americans called the Three Sisters, along with squash. In the right circumstances, corn stalks can be used as the pole that beans will climb, eliminating the need for a trellis system.
The 9 varieties are Hopi Blue (flint), Painted Mountain (flint), Northern Lights (flint), Country Gentleman (sweet), Luther Hill (sweet), Stowell’s Evergreen (sweet), Sweet Iroquois Black Mexican (sweet), Hjeirleid Blue (sweet), and Bear Paw (popcorn). Of these, we grew the Hopi Blue and Sweet Iroquois Black Mexican last year. Everything else is new to us. We’ve also never grown popcorn before, so that’ll be exciting.
Update: After starting with full rows of flint, popcorn, and dent corn and half rows of sweet corn, all the varieties now have full rows. Germination went pretty well even though oppressive heat and excessive rain occurred not long after the second sowing occurred. The corn has a wide range of heights, from ankle height for the newest plants to 6 feet tall for the flint corn we planted first. There are multiple varieties that are in tassel and putting on ears to the point where silk is showing.
Cucumbers
We’re only growing 2 varieties of cucumbers this year. One is called Bushy, and it’s a non-vining variety that produces cucumbers that can be used for slicing or pickling. I started 4 of these inside and transplanted them into our garden. Of the 4 plants, 3 are still alive and have sprawled much more than I thought they would based on their name. Update: We have had a lot of blossoms and many small cucumbers, with the largest being roughly 5 inches long. We should be able to pick them soon.
The other variety is the Mexican Sour Gherkin, also known as the Mouse Melon cucumber. These put out vines and need to be trellised. The cucumbers are small, roughly the size of a golf ball, and look like baby watermelons. We’re growing these in one of the planters I built from the Ikea chair. I started the first batch of these inside and transplanted them. Unfortunately, they didn’t transplant successfully, so I had to restart them by direct sowing. They have yet to germinate. Update: These never germinated.
Eggplant
We greatly enjoyed growing and eating eggplant last year. We bought an Asian variety from our local greenhouse and enjoyed slicing and roasting them all summer. This year, we again opted to buy 2 starts from the greenhouse over seeds. They were a couple of inches tall when purchased and have grown since being transplanted into the garden, but they aren’t looking the healthiest. Some of the leaves turned brown at first, which I think is the result of a watering issue (Too much or too little? Who knows?). We also had some small flying bugs that were causing damage, but I think these have been addressed with Sevin spray. Update: The plants are about 15 inches tall but have yet to flower. Last year, I think I remember the plants flowering and putting on fruit earlier than this, but the plants look healthy now. At one point, I was convinced the plants were dying, but they look very healthy now.
Leeks
I don’t understand how to grow onion-adjacent vegetables. I’ve never tried to grow bulb onions, but I’ve never been able to get spring onions to reach maturity so that they can be harvested. They start out looking great and eventually die off. This year, we passed over onions in favor of leeks, but it looks like it could be the same result. I started 12 cells of them inside and transplanted them when they were 3 inches tall. Update: I believe that the transplanted leeks died. However, in a stunning turn of events, the seeds that I planted have germinated and have greens on them 10 inches long. I’m still unsure if we’ll get a full-size leek out of it, but I’m really excited by the progress so far.
Melons
Pennsylvania isn’t the first state that comes to mind when you think of growing melons, but we had decent success last year with them. We grew heirloom varieties that weren’t native to the region. They also weren’t bred for cool climates, yet we still harvested a half-dozen or so fruit. This year, we focused on varieties that were bred to have success in cool areas. They are Cream of Saskatchewan, Montreal Market, and Pride of Wisconsin. We are growing 4 of each, and all were directly sown into the garden bed.
Update: I believe that 9 of the 12 plants remain and are having success to varying degrees. A few plants have vined out and have small, ping-pong ball-sized fruits on them.
Molokhia
I also struggle to grow greens. I’ve never been able to successfully grow lettuce. Last year, we grew mustard greens with some success, but they quickly got out of control. Molokhia is the only green we’re growing this year. It’s a vegetable that is popular in Middle Eastern and African cuisines and is also known as Egyptian Spinach. Molokhia plants enjoy hot weather, so I started the seeds inside to give them a head start. They germinated well, and I was able to transplant 6 plants; however, in the first days after being transplanted, they began not looking so great and have since died. I directly sowed another line of seeds, which have germinated, but it’s still too early to know if they’ll succeed.
Update: The tallest of our Molokhia plants are 6 to 7 inches tall. Because this is the first year we’ve grown it, we’re a little unsure how things will progress until we harvest some of the leaves. What we do know is that it should be harvested when the plant is 12 inches tall.
Peas
We grew one type of peas last year. They were a snap variety, which I love to eat. They were successful in that we harvested some pods, but we didn’t get the yield I was hoping for. That was largely because I planted them when I was feeling overwhelmed by all the other plants and didn’t give them the attention they deserved. This year, we’re growing 3 varieties: Green Arrow (shelling), Sugar Ann (snap), and Oregon Sugar Pod (snow). I was more careful with organizing the rows of peas this year than I was last year, and it’s going to pay off as the plants grow.
Update: We have rows of each pea variety growing, with the majority of the plants roughly 10 inches tall. They’re also putting on blossoms. I think we’ll get some pods to develop, but I wonder if they were planted too late due to weather.
Peppers
Peppers were another vegetable we had issues with last year. I started seeds and we bought starts, but none of the plants ever produced a mature pepper. Peppers can be tough to grow, and I don’t believe I was ready to correctly handle them last year. This year, we bought 4 varieties: Gochugarju (hot), Jaluv an Attitude (hot), Habanero (hot), and Takii’s New Ace (sweet bell). We bought the Takii’s New Ace largely because it can produce mature fruit quicker than other varieties, which is important in northern states where it can take until June to regularly get above 70 degrees. I also started a lot of cells for each variety and was intentional with developing a good root nest before transplanting.
Update: Peppers remain the most problematic vegetable for me to grow. There are still a few plants in the garden, but the others have died. We have a couple of fruits developing on a gochugaru plant, but I was hoping for more success with them this year. We still have the 4 plants that I started in the basement still growing in containers, and they’re looking good. I’m unsure if I’ll transplant them into the garden bed or to another container at this point.
Potatoes
I recently wrote in-depth about how we’re growing our potatoes in bags this year and how well it’s going. If you didn’t read that post, I recommend checking it out. We’re growing 4 potato varieties this year: Red Norland (early season), Adirondack Blue (midseason), German Butterball (late season), and Magic Molly (late season). They’re all doing very well.
An example of our potato plants
We split each of the 4 varieties into 5 grow bags for a total of 20, and they’ve all needed to be hilled with dirt to the point where we won’t be adding any more dirt to the bags. Within a few days of planting, some of the plants began poking through the soil. We were adding more dirt on a daily basis for a while until we decided to buy enough dirt to top off all of the bags in early June. I am shocked with how well and quickly they’ve grown. Still, we’ve had several of the bags begin to show plants poking through the soil, so we’re seeing a lot of growth and may only be a month away from harvesting our first potatoes. From here on out, we’ll only have to water the bags, monitor them for weeds, and wait for the plants to flower and die off.
Update: Our potatoes continue to be the most productive and successful vegetable. All of our bags have plants growing, with the majority of them completely full. The most successful bags have plants that are 18 inches above the top of the bag and are starting to put on flowers.
Pumpkins
We loved growing pumpkins last year and had a lot of success with them despite not knowing what we were doing. We harvested 3 of them, making pumpkin pie with them for Thanksgiving. They made the most delicious pumpkin pie we’ve ever had. We would have been able to harvest more of them had deer not broken through our fence and ate some of the pumpkins.
This year, we’re only growing 2 varieties—Winter Luxury and New England Sugar Pie, which grew last year. We’re being really intentional with how we’re growing our pumpkins this year, with 5 hills built for each variety. Weirdly, only 1 plant of each variety has germinated so far, and we’re going to re-sow seeds. Update: After re-sowing the seeds, all 10 of the hills germinated. All of the plants currently have flowers, with one plant vining out and beginning to grow fruit.
Squash (Summer)
We are growing a ton of summer squash with 7 varieties: Black Beauty (Zucchini), Costata Romanesca (Zucchini), Early Summer Crookneck (Yellow Squash), Lebanese White (Zucchini), Ronde de Nice (Zucchini/Scallop hybrid), White Scallop (Patty Pan), and Yellow Crookneck (Yellow Squash). We love squash, if you couldn’t tell.
Costata Romanesca, Black Beauty, and Ronde de Nice summer squashOur rows of squash plants
We directly sowed 5 of each variety, and all have germinated. Update: Our squash has taken off like crazy, and we’ve harvested multiple fruits: 1 Black Beauty zucchini, 2 Costata Romanesca zucchini, and 1 Ronde de Nice squash. We have more that are close to being picked and several baby yellow Crooknecks growing.
Squash (Winter)
We’re also growing 3 varieties of winter squash: Burpee’s Butterbush (Butternut), Turks Turban (Gourd), and Burgess Buttercup (Buttercup). We started 3 of each variety directly in the garden, and then our neighbor gave us 5 more buttercup starts. Three of the starts didn’t make it, but I replaced them with seeds from our stash, giving us 14 winter squash plants, assuming everything germinates. Update: After re-sowing the winter squash seeds, we had successful germination. Unfortunately, the buttercup squash our neighbor gave us aren’t doing too well; however, the seeds I planted have grown into healthy-looking plants.
Tomatoes
We’re growing a ton of tomatoes this year, so buckle up. After growing some rare and colorful varieties last year, we returned to growing all red tomatoes. The varieties are Aichi First (Slicing), Early Cherry (Cherry), Heinz (Paste), Korean Long (Paste), Large Red (Slicing), Little Bing (Cherry), Martino’s Roma (Paste), Mountaineer Pride (Slicing), Sub Arctic Plenty (Slicing), and Umpqua Beauty (Slicing). I don’t remember the exact number, but I think I started 6 cells of each variety and transplanted a total of 20 or so plants. Not all have survived, but we probably have around 16 plants, with 13 of them in the garden and 3 Little Bing plants in a planter. Immediately after transplanting our starts, I started more Heinz, Early Cherry, and Aichi First seeds, which have since germinated.
Update: Our tomato plants have put me through the wringer this year. They started out perfectly, but then an issue with grass growing in the garden bed combined with me forgetting to trim leaves on the plants led to them looking sickly. That was followed by torrential rainstorms that yielded 3.5 inches of rain in less than 12 hours. Since then, we’ve had warm weather and more consistent precipitation, which has salvaged the majority of the plants. We have lots of blossoms and small fruits growing on the plants. Our most successful variety has been the Little Bing, which is being grown in a planter. It looks healthy and has dozens of small tomatoes on it.
In this week’s garden update, we harvested our first vegetable from the garden, our leeks are actually growing, and we are having an issue with rabbits and deer. Plus, our tomatoes are managing to hold on. Let’s dive in.
Harvesting the First Zucchini
We are growing a ton of squash this summer, and the plants are taking off. The first variety to produce fruit is the Costata Romanesca, an Italian heirloom zucchini. The fruit is striped, lighter green than a typical Black Beauty zucchini, and huge. We harvested ours at 12 inches, and it was as thick as my forearm. We ate it the evening we picked it, and it was delicious.
Our favorite way to eat summer squash is to chunk it, drizzle oil over it, season it with Season All, and roast it in the oven until the skin is a little crispy and the “meat” is tender. It had a lot more flavor than the standard green zucchini. It was even more flavorful than the White Scallop patty pan squash we grew last year, which had been our favorite type of squash. We will certainly be growing this variety again in the future.
Our Leeks Are (Surprisingly) Growing
I started leeks this spring because I really want to successfully grow onions one of these years. I started leeks inside and directly sowed some in the garden. The leeks that I transplanted died pretty quickly, and while I saw that the seeds germinated in the garden, I had low expectations for them given the excess rain we had and stopped checking on them. This past weekend, however, I noticed what looked like onions in the garden bed. Sure enough, the leeks are still growing and are pretty tall (about 12 inches). I still don’t know if they’ll be able to develop bulbs below the soil surface, but I’m really excited that they’re still growing.
Issues With Deer and Rabbits
In spite of the Irish Spring and disposable baking trays, we’re still having issues with deer and rabbits getting into one of our garden beds. I’ll start with the deer. While we haven’t seen the deer, we have seen hoof prints in the soil that have appeared since the fence went up. I think it’s only one deer based on the number of hoof prints, and thankfully, it doesn’t look like it’s done any damage, but the fact that it’s the bed where we’re growing corn is concerning. I knew that our fence only being four feet tall could be problematic, but because we planted the corn inside a border of bean plants, I thought perhaps it would keep deer away. If you’ve been a reader of the blog since last summer, you’ll remember that we had deer destroy our fence and eat corn that was on the verge of being picked. Before the corn puts on ears, we need to address the issue. Our neighbor suggested adding a string or something small, about two feet above the fence. Anything that can deter them from jumping over the fence would likely succeed.
Rabbits have been even more difficult. There have been several times this summer where we’ll walk off our back porch and see one or two rabbits hopping through the same garden bed that the deer is getting into. Unfortunately, the rabbits are simply chewing through the fence to gain access, and once they’ve breached security, they’re finding the corn stalks irresistible. However, they quickly learn that they don’t like the corn stalks and don’t eat them. They only chew them enough to knock them over. It’s quite annoying, but the rabbits are so cute that it’s hard to actually be mad. Getting them out of the garden is quite an ordeal, though. It usually requires Magz and me to both go into the bed, keep the gate open, and calmly guide them toward the opening. Sometimes, they try to run into the fence, which isn’t rigid, thankfully, so they don’t get hurt. To address this, we’ve started zip-tying scraps of pressure-treated lumber across the opening they bit into the fence.
Tomato Plants Are (Mostly) Holding On
Last week, I wrote about how sad our tomato plants have been looking since we received a torrential rainstorm on July 5. All of the plants were drooping, the leaves were wilted, and they looked unhealthy in general. In the days that have passed, the majority of those plants have made drastic improvements, putting on more blossoms and fruit and looking stronger. There are still two plants that look unhealthy and may not survive, but that’s an incredible blessing compared to where we were last week at this time.
Up Next
We’re going to continue to harvest summer squash as they ripen, which I’ll report on next week. We also have some beans that will be ready to pick as well as our first cucumbers. How are your gardens doing? Happy gardening.
