k's garden: Things I learned this year

Last year at this time, when I was dreaming about the garden, I was very aware of my own ignorance. I knew I was venturing into something at which I could easily fail. At this point, though, I consider The Garden 2013 a huge success. That's certainly not due to the fact that I knew what I was doing, however, and I learned a lot of things along the way.

1. Seven tomato plants is enough for us.

I planted eight plants, and one of them did not amount to anything. Even with some blossom end rot, the tomato jungle was amazing, and I ended up with canned and frozen tomato sauce, canned tomatoes, salsa, pickled cherry tomatoes, frozen roasted tomato and vegetable sauce, oven-dried tomatoes, and whole frozen tomatoes. Enough of all of them for us to be enjoying tomatoes well into winter, and I was still able to give away fresh tomatoes.

2. Never underestimate a mother rabbit. Enough said.

3. When it comes to peppers, all I really want are red and green bells. I planted nine pepper plants this year, representing seven different varieties.

The variety was pretty, but none of them stood out flavor-wise. The only plant that produced a lot of fruit was the poblano pepper (the dark green ones), and I've discovered that I don't really care for them. In the end, I was disappointed that I didn't have more chopped red and green peppers in the freezer.

4. Everything takes up more space than the online garden plan says it will.