tender perennials and a few annuals comfy and safe in the garage

We woke up a few mornings ago to frost on lawns, cars and decks. It was 29 degrees. Most recent mornings have been frosty. So - with respect to the 2022 garden - that’s all, folks! Fortunately, we knew this was coming and the garage has lots of potted up tender perennials that we didn’t want to lose, as well as some started from seed that weren’t situated in the gardens. Among the plants now safe and sound are several tender salvias, a cranesbill, a dahlia, one Greek Columnar basil plant, geraniums, portulaca, bougainvillea, red wave petunia, and other various and sundry varieties started from seed but yet to find a home in the garden.

A few days ago I packaged up the last of the saved seeds - from two plants of the eggplant Midnight Lightning. It was a good year for seed saving, as there was only one complete crop failure (the tomato World War II, which will get another chance next year), and the only variety that I didn’t manage to save seeds from is the stubborn, yet to be released dwarf tomato Dwarf Liz’s Teardrop. It simply will not produce seeds. Though that may be an asset for those who can’t, or don’t wish to, consume tomato seeds, that trait makes it impossible to propagate! I didn’t save seeds from Sun Gold (hybrid cherry tomato) either, since I have some from last year, and playing with the F2 generation plants are not high on my list at the moment.

I provided lots of detail on individual crops in earlier blogs in my 2022 Garden Update tagged posts, so this is more about overall impressions and statistics.

For tomatoes, I have seeds up to T22-85. Of the 85 varieties saved, 65 were grown by me, and the other 20 were from fruits given to me by local Dwarf project volunteers or friends. Some were from seeds I gave out, some from seedlings. It was a fine year - more manageable than last year (with roughly half of the plants), 56 but a more abbreviated harvest window due to earlier onset of disease. We canned 7 quarts of tomatoes, far below the 63 and 56 quarts of our first two gardens here in Hendersonville.

For peppers, I have seeds up to T22-10. I was pleased to have gotten representative fruit - hence seeds - from the Islander project selections (Fire Opal, Carolina Amethyst, Royal Purple, and White Gold), as well as Orange Bell and Chocolate Bell, and a volunteer multicolored hot pepper from the Gemstone line. Everything behaved as it should have with regards to the types of peppers. The one oddity was that the first fruit on all of the bell pepper plants formed fine but rotted before ripening. Cooler weather, after the peak of summer heat, seemed to remedy the issue.

For eggplants, I have seeds up to E22-7, with good representative samples from the Orient Express selection varieties, as well as Mardi Gras and Green Ghost. We roasted a lot of eggplant and froze the results, which will mean some nice recipes in fall and winter.

As far as miscellaneous saved seeds, I have samples from Caramel Chianti basil, Coral Nymph salvia, a Baptisia from the Quechee Inn (Vermont), pink, white and red Swamp Mallow hibiscus and red coccinea hibiscus (frost hit before the white variety of coccinea set seed), Ground Cherry from a friend, Lablab from a friend, and some saved Marbel bush bean.

In retrospect, I was quite pleased with the 2022 garden. We wished for more snap beans (there never seems to be enough), but everything, else was ample. For next year, I think Sugar Snap peas are off the grow list - they aren’t worth it with the main place we can grow them. Melons will make a return - it’s been years since I’ve grown them, and strawbales should give good results. As for which and how many of tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, summer squash, potatoes and beans - that will be determined over the winter.

Right now, I am ready to turn my attention to fulfilling the many seed requests sitting in emails - after that, the Dwarf tomato book. There is no shortage of interesting things to delve into!