I would classify our garden last year as only quasi-successful. We dealt with a lot of pests (like squirrels and chipmunks) and lost most of our squash to vine borers.

After all that, I didn’t really have steam to plant a fall garden. Instead, we planted a sort of fall garden.

I’ve never had a ton of success with cool weather plants, plants that do best in the fall and spring. It’s harder to judge the seasons and figure out when to get them in the ground. I seem to always plant them a little too late.

Another way to say it is: I don’t know what I’m doing.

Our strawberry and blackberry plants are sleeping through the winter; waiting for spring when they’ll all be eaten by rabbits. And our perennial herbs (sage, rosemary, mint) are going strong. I always thought parsley was perennial, too, but I just learned it’s actually biennial? I guess that means I need to make some taboulli stat.

This fall I planted a few carrot seeds. They didn’t have a chance to really grow before winter. They should be at least 100 times this big.

To be fair, David also walked on the carrot seedlings a lot. Our cherry tomatoes were still growing over them when they first sprouted, and David thought the cherry tomatoes were ball plants.

I also tossed a bunch of sugar snap peas at the base of a trellis. We didn’t have many seeds left over, so I only expected to get a handfull or so. It sprouted and grew, but now it’s just a wilted bramble.

We got lots of flowers, but they sort of started withering before dropping any fruit. Like the carrots, it seems they didn’t have enough time to grow before winter settled in.

We do have a patch of arugula that’s doing great. We didn’t use the vertical gutters for the fall plants because we didn’t need the space for other veggies.

I wish I could say we’ve been eating it nonstop, but unfortunately I planted them outside, so I have to go out there to harvest it. And did you hear what the carrots said? It’s cold out there.

Next year I think I might just use all the space for kale. I’ve never grown kale, but it’s worth learning because we eat a lot of kale. That’s a fact I like to tell people at parties. It makes you sound so healthy, doesn’t it?

Plus, kale is so trendy right now. Win-win.

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