Right around Labor Day signals the end of the summer and for me, it’s the end of the planting season with thoughts of the next. While in the middle of this heat wave, while whatever is left in your garden might go crispy, it’s a good time to think about all the things that went right.

My trees continue to be productive. If you want to feel accomplished, planting trees and fruit that you enjoy will make you feel that. After being the first tree I planted on this property and the last to produce, my tangerines gave me a bumper crop of over 100 pieces of delicious Satsumas.

I have three plum trees and this was their year. The Santa Rosas were ready all within a span of a week so I had to basically put off everything in my life to pick and process plums: jams and baked goods. At least I got a few weeks break before my Friar plums and Dandy pluots were ready. The abundance of these was more manageable and kept in the fridge for a long time.

And finally after several years of trial and error with my pomegranate trees, being a complete mystery to me, I finally grasped one concept. I trimmed the tree while the first leaves were forming and the most abundant flowers appeared in the Spring. I’ve had no flowers appear before, or few flowers, or flowers during the Fall just to fall off and not fruit due to lack of pollination. This was the one thing I did the most differently from all other times and it worked. I have over 15 pomegranate fruits, some larger than my hand.

My two Anna apple trees gave me yet another year of abundance. I thinned a few apples and was able to produce larger hand sized apples. Hanging apple moth traps from last year and this year seemed to work well as there were much fewer infestations than last year.

My summer garden had its ups and downs. Last year, it was a complete failure so I would say that this year was a good success. My REBA acorn squash was quite prolific and produced not just one but two fruiting crops of about 5-6 squashes each time. I had only two plants and was able to harvest quite a bit of fruit that I can store and eat for the next couple of months.

My zucchini was a complete failure again like last year. I’m not sure what is going but I’m willing to try again. I also grew several yellow squash, straightneck and crookneck and those were fairly good producers, though, I did not have the issue of growing so much that I had to give it away.

This was the first year I soaked some sweet potatoes and started my own slips. I grew several slips and planted the main potato and they are growing in my garden. I hope to harvest the leaves to eat.

Cucumber still is a challenge for me as I had initially started with a few good cucumbers a week and within 3 weeks, that was over. Any efforts in planting more plants or a different variety was fruitless.

The one big success for the year would have to be my watermelon patch. Still growing strong after 3 months, I have been able to harvest and enjoy Mountain Sweet Watermelon and Orange Glo. My biggest watermelon came in at 23.7 lbs.

This is the second year I am using Olla water pots in my garden and I feel that most of the success is due to these pots. I decided to plant my summer garden early (mid-May) and gave some of the plants a longer time to establish their roots which the olla water pot could take advantage. In another year of harsh drought, I feel that I gardened smarter and still had many delicious fruits and vegetables to enjoy without the guilt.

The true highlights of the garden is probably the most effortless. The different varieties of butterflies paying me a visit usually between 11am-1pm. The birds that hung around the garden landing on bachelor button flowers or building a nest nearby. The two hummingbirds zipping right through in their busy lives building a nest atop my orange trees and sipping from my native penstemons. I look forward to inviting more pollinators and bird residents to my garden next year.