I have grown quite a wide variety of different vegetables in gardens over the years. Although it's always fun to experiment, now, as an older and wiser (and more tired) gardener, I have less patience to devote to things that are a consistent challenge or that I just don't like that much.
I'm going for maximum food for minimum effort, true, but I also have no interest in having bushels of kale on hand, even though it's easy to grow, prolific, and long-producing. I just don't like kale much. So I don't grow it. Along with these things . . .
Swiss chard--I feel about swiss chard the way I feel about kale: I should like it, but I don't.
Ground cherries--I got a free packet of these with a seed order years ago and finally tried them a couple of years ago. I really wasn't fond of the flavor. Off the list and out of the garden.
Mushrooms--I actually really wish I could grow mushrooms, but it's way too dry here. I just don't have the perseverance necessary to keep an inoculated log damp in this climate. I can barely keep the drought-hardy plants watered.
Broccoli--I do love broccoli from the garden. I do NOT love the cabbage worms that are inevitably in the broccoli from the garden. Even soaking in salt water won't get them all. They hide in the florets so well you don't see them until they're floating in the steaming water. Gross. After one too many meals featuring worms, I gave up. Actually, the breaking point was probably the time A. found a cabbage worm in his broccoli, and, to the delight of our toddler sons at the time, ate it.* Kind of ruined garden broccoli for me.
Onions--I never succeeded in getting onions of any reasonable size from the garden. And there are few things more irritating than having to peel and chop a dozen tiny onions just to have enough for a recipe. Give me those baseball-sized store onions every time. Although I am going to try some green onions this year. I like them in my salads, and they're stupid expensive (and perishable) to buy.
Celery--I never grew this myself, but I remember the MiL growing it a couple of years, and it was always much greener, tougher, and more bitter than store celery. I suspect the issue was lack of water. Since that issue is much more of a problem here than New York, I'm not even going to attempt celery in my High Plains garden.
Of course, the great thing about growing a garden is that you can grow whatever you want (and have the patience for). So while I think it's worth it to devote a bed to space-hogging kohlrabi and will persevere with watering beets, you might think those are a total waste of space and time.
So tell me, my fellow gardeners! What vegetables have you banished from your garden, and why?
* And then remarked drolly, "The worm tasted better than the broccoli." Such a card, that A.
16 comments:
I persist with onions despite my difficulties. Occasionally I get a decent crop, and the irritating little ones are great whole in beef bourguignon
You may have already shared this but now I'm curious as to what you WILL grow in your garden?
I'm guessing... Lettuce, Spinach, Tomatoes, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Peas, Bell Peppers? What else?
I have a black thumb (don't judge me!) but I have dreams of having a lush garden one day... in the meantime I'll live vicariously through your gardening efforts! ;)
Green onion is good, but chives are stupid easy and grow like weeds.
I like herbs in general. Fresh herbs are so much better, and take much less space. Otherwise, tomato is about the only thing I've found that so much better that it's worth the effort.
I bought a packet of ground cherry seeds this year. I hope that they grow well in my 7B zone. My 85 year old dad mentioned that it was his favorite jam growing up in WV. I thought that I'd try my hand at making the jam for him.
You could possibly do mushrooms inside one of your plethora of outside buildings/structures/underground bunkers. ;)
It is easy to plug the logs the kids would love it and they will come back for years.
You are lucky to have the area were you are known for using any glut of produce or fruit or meat that you all are willing and able to work it up. That is special.
Nopes in my Sydney Australia garden: broccoli (same reason), lettuce (bolts really quickly unless we’ll shaded or else slug city), strawberries (snail food) and honestly while I love heirloom tomatoes I never get a great flush before the pests have a go. It’s like two tomatoes per plant. And for some reason, I can’t get dill to stick around.
Since we moved to Maryland, we have gradually quit gardening until all we have left are tomatoes (because we nurse them so devotedly-and even then don't get very many), lettuce, and Swiss chard. The bugs here are unbelievable. They eat everything. So far they have eaten all attempts at radishes, turnips, beets, green beans, cucumbers, and zucchini. I'm pretty much reduced to buying at the farmers market and trying not to think about the pesticides they use.
Kit-- Which part of Maryland do you live in? (I am in Western Maryland.) I don't know if it has actually helped, but we like to think that putting our garden in really late (sometimes as late as the beginning of June) has kept many of our things away from some of the pests.
The nopes for me-- broccoli (same reason) and cabbage, ground cherries (same reason as you), most root crops unless we put them in our raised beds because our big garden has more rocks than soil.
Bri: Stay tuned for the post about the keepers. :-)
Anonymous: I have never heard of dill being problematic to grow. That is amazing to me. It's been like a weed everywhere I've gardened.
Kit: Oh no, the dreaded "pest pressure." That is a hard one if you don't want to spray them yourself. I don't, either, and I spend a lot of time hand-picking tomato hornworms and army worms to get some usable tomatoes. Wretched things.
Jody, another Marylander, yay! We live in central Maryland. I did once try planting late turnips and they didn't get eaten by bugs. But nobody but me likes turnips so I kind of gave up on it. I might try that with the green beans though, everybody in the family eats them.
Ground cherries have never even been on my radar. I think the only time I've ever heard of them is in the book "Hatchet". You can grow those? What are they, exactly?
I've grown chard, but we don't like it much either. It's just not very versatile. I'm trying a couple different sorts of greens this year to see if any of them are easier to actually eat.
I'm still to novice to have "banished" anything else, though I have had pretty much all my attempts at sweet peas fail.
JP2: Ground cherries grow inside a papery husk on the plant--I've also heard them referred to as husk tomatoes--and are quite small, yellow, and have a very unique, sweet/tart flavor. The ones in "Hatchet" were chokecherries. :-)
I have green "Egyptian" walking onions. Can onion bulbs be mailed? If so, I'll send you a handful. Warning: they spread. I consider that a positive because I can find a few ripe ones any time during the growing season.
Daisy: Thanks for the thought, but I try to avoid anything that moves around my garden on its own. The best part of plants for me is they stay where I put them. :-)
Nope: Sweet corn. Yes, even in the middle of corn country (Nebraska). The raccoons get it every time. I buy from other local vendors.
Zucchini. the squash bugs decimate it every year. Although I may try it in half barrels with new soil this year.
Pumpkins & winter squash. Again, squash bugs.
Peas. Too much work for little yield. I buy frozen.
Leaf lettuce. I prefer spinach, chard, romaine, beet greens.
I'm in Tennessee, and tried growing celery last year. The stalks were tough and bitter. Not worth it. My onions, like yours, were small. I planted garlic last fall, and the stems/stalks/leaves (?) seem pretty good-sized, so I'm hoping for a good harvest there. Tried cucumber several times, and either had a ridiculously small harvest, or the cukes were bitter and yellow. Same happened to my neighbor that year.
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