With the beginning of a new year, we usually look back at the year behind us. This 2024 in our garden has been challenging. With lots of work, in the end, things paid off. It can always improve, but we’re happy with this year’s results.

January- June: Warm and very stormy

The past couple of years we didn’t have a proper winter. Here in NW Croatia we’re used to much harsher winter, with a fairly large amount of snow, and at least a month of freezing temperatures. The winter of 2023/2024 was much milder than normal. We did get some snow in January, but every cold wave was quickly interrupted with an almost late-spring warmth so there was no real soil freezing. Because of this, the soil was much harder and lumpier than it would be in normal years. This was especially the problem in the new orchard garden where we’re still trying to turn the meadow into a new garden. But with a couple of thorough digs, we managed to get the soil decent enough for planting. The unusually warm weather also brought severe storms with them, so we continued on the path from 2023, and by the middle of the year, we already had a few hail storms and severe thunderstorms. The main job during the first half of the year in my garden was weeding. I’ve spent roughly 8-10 hours a week just weeding out the orchard beds, although the entire garden required weed attention almost daily.

July-December: more warth, storms and finally harvests

The weather didn’t change much even during summer and fall, it brought us lots of heat and violent storms. Although the average monthly temperatures were quite high, during July and August they didn’t even drop significantly under 30°C, the entire summer was extremely rainy. Over the period from June till the end of September we got 660mm of rain which is, knowing that the yearly average is around 1000mm, an enormous amount. Especially since this rain fell during the summer, which is usually very dry. We ended the year with 1400mm of rain, with very dry November and December and only 102mm.

This made things in the garden very difficult. The garden was out of reach for a couple of days every week, everything was very slippery, the diseases were ravaging, and the weeds were all over the place. We managed to keep them in control on the beds, but the paths were an area where I eventually gave up. The harvests depended on the weather conditions, many plants were lost due to the strong wind, and sometimes we opted for an early harvest just to save the fruit from storm destruction.

The main garden

The main garden this year was in the average by the production and growth of the plants. Due to its location with very shaded areas, this part of the garden was quite affected by the diseases, mainly by late blight and mildew, which were starting to appear as early as the end of June. The most affected plants were zucchini and tomatoes. Cucumbers were quite disease-free, probably because I’ve planted the Parisian pickling here. If I’ve used a different variety here it would probably be very sick too. The potatoes, on the other hand, were a huge success. Although this was a quite bad year for potatoes we managed to get 30kg (66 lbs) from 5kg(11 lbs) of potato starter. This is good considering that gardens in our area were mostly harvesting twice the amount they’ve sown. This year I’ve used the main garden mostly for potatoes, beans, kale, and tomatoes, and I can say that the beans did poorly in the main garden this year. The stormy weather in May damaged most of the plants, and the rest of them were ravaged by bean blight.

The orchard garden

The orchard garden was a huge success this year. Just as we thought when we decided to expand the garden to the orchard, the main issue in our main garden is the lack of sun. The orchard garden gets almost twice the amount of sun and the harvests here were earlier and better. Although this year was very difficult and required an unbelievable amount of weeding it was all worth it in the end. The orchard gave us incredible early zucchini harvests. There were so many zucchinis that I even made some pickled zucchinis this year. Beans here, especially purple pole varieties were amazing, giving pods from July till October, Tomatoes grew excellent until the stink bug infestation. Potatoes in the test bed were amazing, and we even had a decent pea harvest. First in 10 years. If it weren’t for the powdery mildew the amount would be huge.

The side garden

I have to admit that the side garden was a bit neglected this year. Due to the huge amount of work in the orchard, I’ve used the side garden mainly for our daily lettuce garden. There aren’t many other varieties there, but since now I’ve noticed that the orchard garden is an excellent place for lettuce too, the side garden will most likely be turned into a different use. I’m considering making it into a herb garden. But we’ll see.

The winners of the year

This year we managed to harvest around 200kg (440 lbs) of vegetables from the garden. Some of the varieties were a total disappointment, like bush beans which, unlike last year, were very sick and didn’t give much. Tomatoes, zucchini, and potatoes on the other hand were great. Zucchinis and potatoes were mainly sown to test the different areas, so we’re more than happy with the amount we got. This year we’ll sow more of them. The one thing I will downsize on is kale and collard greens. I’ve planted too much kale and greens. I’ve dehydrated, frozen and even pickled the leaves and there was still too much. I ended up just leaving the plants in the garden. There is so much kale I have enough for at least a couple of years. This year I will sow only a couple of seedlings of kale and collard. We’re not that crazy about the kale anyway.

The past year showed us perfectly which plants work in which part of the garden, and now we can plan well, and hopefully thrive with the new knowledge.