A very hard year is behind us. Full of problems, challenges, and success. But, now, that is finally over, it is time to make review of everything that happened during the year.

Warm spring and dry spring

Although we thought that after a couple of very mild winters, we’d get a harsh one, this wasn’t the case. The year 2022 started with extreme warmth and a dry period that lasted almost half of the year. On the one hand, this was a bad thing since there was no moisture in the soil and the drought was very much visible in the early months of the year. Also, bugs didn’t freeze so we had a real infestation of bugs, especially ticks, mosquitoes, and shieldbugs, which devastated my tomatoes in late summer.

The good thing about that warmth in the spring is that there was no frost damage. The orchard was full of fruits and we got a very good blackberry, apple, walnut, and plum harvest. Still, the lack of water was visible in the size of the fruits which were smaller, and soon ravaged by the hornets, wasps, and bees, so I had to harvest all of my fruits earlier.

When it comes to garden work during spring we were really busy. We finally managed to start clearing and fixing the side garden area. The old sheds have been knocked down, the area has been covered with fresh soil for a new small garden, and we laid down new gravel paths and made fresh steps to make walking around the house safer. There’s still a lot of work, but now that we managed to get the big jobs done, the rest should be easier.

Extrtemely dry summer

The one thing that marked this summer was drought. It has been a summer with almost no rain and with very high temperatures. Luckily past year was very rainy, so we didn’t have any water restrictions here, like in other parts of Croatia, but still, we struggled a lot during summer. I was watering the garden 2 times a day, but, this wasn’t enough. Most of the grass was burned through the summer, we didn’t need to mow anything from May till September and the plants struggled a lot.

Luckily this year we decided to invest in anti-hail netting, and the one we chose was also bringing some shade to the garden so we did get some nice harvests. The vegetable which enjoyed this year’s conditions the most was zucchinis. With regular watering, I had huge harvests and I’ve harvested more zucchinis than I ever did.

The rest of the garden also did well, especially the leafy vegetables, harvested almost every week. Every vegetable gave us at least one harvest and I can say that we’ve paid off all the seeds that we’ve sown and this year the garden definitely made a profit. I didn’t buy anything but potatoes through the season and right now, almost 2 months after the end of the season, my basement is still full of vegetables and I’m still using fresh carrots from my garden.

Warm autumn and cold beginning of winter

After a very dry summer, the rain came when we didn’t need it anymore. Yes, nature needed the rain, but the garden was already done when it finally started raining. We actually got above-average rainfall during October, November, and December so in the end, the year was almost average. The beginning of December was extremely cold with temperatures well below average so there’s nothing in the garden anymore.

We finished digging in late November and the garden is resting for a whole month now. Still, it seems that this winter won’t be as cold as it looked in the beginning. The last week of December brought unusually warm weather with extreme 18°C(64°F) today. At least with these temperatures, we’ll save on the heating.

The year 2022 was a difficult one, but it wasn’t the worst we ever had. Garden gave us plenty of fruits and all the struggle was worth it. We can now relax and rest until the middle of January when we’re starting a new gardening year with seedlings. We wish you a better 2023 and a good gardening year.