What have you learned from this year's garden? Any tips or tricks?

When your garden fails miserably, you get to know where the good farmer's market and corn stands are! :)

Oh my goodness, this has been a *huge* learning year for me, but I'll probably not remember what I learned...let's see....

-Plant a lot more of everything
- Water more often
- Armadillos can magically melt through any fence, apparently
- Chickens can fly over any fence, apparently, and prefer digging up vegetables to eating grasshoppers (therefore they are banished from the garden)
- Hot peppers do very well here
- I can grow lettuce in August in Central Texas! Wow! (Secret: Plant in part shade)
- Garlic does very well here, I think I have a lifetime supply (caveat to first lesson above - don't plant *more* garlic)
- Fall is a better time to start perennial seeds than spring here
- Beets and rutabagas are very drought tolerant
- Hardy kiwi vines don't like it here
- A broadfork was a good investment I put off buying for too long, but I'm glad I finally got one

- Garlic does very well here, I think I have a lifetime supply (caveat to first lesson above - don't plant *more* garlic)
:eek:

- Garlic does very well here, I think I have a lifetime supply (caveat to first lesson above - don't plant *more* garlic)

Send me some! The garlic in the stores here is miserable! :)

The best lesson I learned this year was not to use tomato cages.

A pair of T posts at each end of the row, with some wire strung between them, is enough to support all of the tomotoes in the row. Fast, easy to put up, and easy to take down.

Last year, when I had a half decent garden, I tried to support my zucchini plants in tomato cages. It worked alright, I wanted to try to keep the zucchini off the ground, but the plants grow so big and eventually too big for the cages. It was zucchini mania here last year...

Don't move.

I moved just when my tomatoes were beginning to ripen and my corn was about 3 weeks off.

My melons were also about a week or two away.

All I got was zucchini and cayenne peppers.