Although it seems like there is still plenty of time to grow vegetables, my season has already ended. The cold spring and very stormy and cold weather have made me end this season early and wait for the next one.

The poor harvest

This season was below average when it came to harvest amounts. After an excellent season last year, I decided to base my garden plans on last season and I’ve sown lots of heat-loving and drought-loving plants. Sadly, this season was very much below average when it came to temperatures, and together with extreme rain, caused most of the plants to fail. The only good harvests this year were beans and brassicas. The rest of the plants gave below average yield or even failed completely. Tomatoes were struck by blight in July, cucumbers and zucchinis started flowering and the storms killed them, and carrots were standing still from June till August, all in all, it was a pretty poor year.

Since in October, my garden gets almost no sun at all, I decided to take out everything and start preparing the garden for next year. There’s no point in leaving everything inside for another month when the plants won’t grow at all. So during the first week of October, I’ve finished hand-tilling the entire main garden. This year hand tilling was easier since there was no rain in the past 3 weeks. The soil wasn’t too moist, and I was able to dig 2 beds in one day. I’ve finished the entire garden in just one week.

The cold wave

September and October have been unusually warm. The warmth we were supposed to get in summer got here during autumn. The morning temperatures have been well above average, and daily temperatures have been above 20°C(68°F). But, the warmth ended abruptly a few days ago, dropping our morning temperatures around freezing point. This meant that last week I had to bring all the cold-sensitive plants indoors. Luckily I don’t have many this year, so I was finished very quickly. Most of the potted plants can spend the winter outside and this year due to the very bad weather I didn’t take out any of my house plants.

While I was storing the sensitive plants I also removed the annual veggies and got a few empty containers for the spring bulbs. I bought some new tulips, hyacinths, and mixed bulbs for next season. This will stay in containers which I’ll then use for my front yard and balcony.

So what’s next?

Now, I have two months to prepare for the next gardening season and think well about what to do and how to do it. I’m not giving up, despite the bad season. Actually, I’m planning to expand the garden even more, make some new projects, and sow and plant even more. One thing is certain, next season I will plant more varieties than ever, both cold and warm-loving. With the climate changes, I can’t be certain what kind of summer we’ll have next year.