I’m planning to keep better track of what veg we love and succeed with in our 2024 kitchen garden, with a good dose of flowers sprinkled in because a garden is not complete without flowers!!!

In 2023, we had great success with red and yellow onions (it is February and we are still eating them out of my cooler at the flower farm though we need to finish them up because some are starting to sprout). We dried them out in the greenhouse and then braided (by color) and they’ve stored surprisingly well though I think they’d do better at a 40 degree temp and the cooler has been warmer than that for most of the winter…This season I will try growing this mix from Renee’s Garden, in addition to the Botanical Interests individual packs of Red Amposta and Yellow Granax.

Cucumbers are incredibly easy to grow and we love them fresh - but really love them in the form of dill pickles in the winter. My husband could easily eat a jar a week, and we would love to share as Christmas gifts but never seem to have enough (this was just my second year of canning) so in 2024 will go big and really focus on pest management as they seem to fade overnight with no warning and it is such a huge bummer! I’ve been using the ball canning jar book recipe and it is perfection. The pickles are fairly firm and crispy even 6+ months in storage. I am most excited to try Renee’s Garden French Cornichon and of course my tried and true fave Endeavor, which produces uniform, crunchy cucumbers perfect for pickling.

We love squash - grilling it, using as noodles in lasagne, making zucchini bread for winter treats (hello, French Toast) and sharing it because it sure is prolific. I have some old Johnny’s seed I will be working with, and will add a Romanesco (it was my favorite for straight eating last year!!!) I’m hoping to try growing squash vertically to help with pest pressure, based on some ideas I’ve seen on the Facebook page “Big Gardens in Small Spaces” - While I have plenty of room in my gardens both at home and at the farm, I don’t love how squash take up so much of that space - or scouting for squash bugs on my hands and knees. Planning to keep track of the process here, to be continued!

No kitchen garden is complete without tomatoes! It’s the reason my dad wanted to start farming haha. We’ve grown so many (SO MANY) varieties over the years. I really haven’t honed in on favorite varieties except for sungold (the yellow cherry) and would absolutely love to dial this in this season. I love a Brandywine, any color, but they are not very productive and tend to be more prone to disease. Last season our wonderful neighbor shared some starts with us and I didn’t do a great job keeping her labels (note to self for 2024) but what we did have we used to make endless jars of roasted tomatoes (she calls it sauce but I add a bit of chicken stock and / or cream and treat as soup) and wow has that been a treat.

Last but not least, the pepper family!

We made and froze a ton of jalapeno poppers, they are my husband’s favorite! We also canned lots of pickled jalapenos, perfect for taco night, hoagies, etc if you like the heat (they do mellow the longer they sit). I actually saved some seeds from a plant that grew really nice, large and uniform peppers so we’ll give those a go and also try some of these Bubba’s to compare.

We didn’t save enough sweet peppers…I canned some two seasons ago (pickled and packed in olive oil) and we didn’t really like them but will try some new recipes again in 2024. My daughter eats these like candy right off the vine.

Writing all of this out has got me excited for getting the garden prepped and planted! We started spinach, arugala, broccoli, cabbage, and sugar snap peas today and will do some lettuces this week to round out the spring. Happy gardening!