76 Lbs. What a Shame

Painted lady on butterfly bush

Today my vegetable tally is at a whopping 77 lbs.  Not too bad considering that my two large beds are full of tomato plants that have given me a whole 12 tomatoes, and about 2 dozen cherry tomatoes.  Last year my 4 pumpkins alone weighed in at 75 lbs. 

The majority of the weight for August has been cucumbers, most of which came off the Marketmore 97s.  The Lemon cukes are just starting to roll in now, two harvested and several still growing.  I have one small green pumpkin on my shed this year, I can only hope it will ripen before the vine starts dying off.  It doesn't look like it will weigh in at more than about 10 lbs. though.

Pumpkin on shed today.

It has been a very sad year for my garden.  Apparently I'm not the only one either.  My neighbor Julie told me her tomatoes started coming in about 3 weeks later than normal, and her pumpkins are also still green and small.  In a normal year her pumpkin vines sprawl across most of her back yard and she harvests enough for cooking and carving for the whole family. 

Pumpkin vines on shed.

My garden is producing, all of the plants are in good health, but there is such a short window of growing season here that a week or two of cool weather throughout the season can be enough to completely destroy any chance of main season tomato production.

Chocolate Cherry tomatoes.

So far the tomatoes that have ripened have all been the extra early varieties.  Oregon Spring and Beaverlodge Plum and a few varieties of cherries.  I thought that my double planting rotation could be a factor in their lateness, and I'm sure it is somewhat, but it is most definitely not the primary problem.  The volunteer Chocolate Cherries have been in the ground since the first planting went in, and while they have outproduced the other cherry varieties that were planted later, they haven't outproduced them by much.  Like the other plants they are weighed down with green fruit that simply won't ripen.

Indigo Rose tomato

I considered covering them with plastic to extend the growing season.  The late season plants haven't even gotten fruits yet though, and nighttime temps are getting down into the low 50s already.  I just don't know if the plastic will make any difference.  It doesn't look like we'll be having an Indian summer this year, we may not even have much of an autumn. 

Winter is coming.
(snicker)

All in all this year's garden has been a major disappointment.  While the rest of the country has been hit by a heat wave, our tiny corner of the world has been much cooler than normal.  I did have a few standouts in the garden this year though despite the weird weather and will have a post soon to acknowledge those plants that really outdid expectations.

For now, I should probably get back to my housework and prepping for the new school year to begin.

Garden Update: June 19th

Let's take a walk around the garden.

Coming in through the front gate we pass the strawberries, currently they are cranking out about a pound of berries daily. 

Tomatoes starting to perk up.

As we enter the gate to the left we see the remaining un-planted starts in their pots.  A scoop of compost in each pot, followed by a dose of fish fertilizer, and a dose of compost tea the next day has really improved the health of the tomatoes.  They have perked up, greened up, and kicked out a few healthy new leaves.  There is still some purpling but they are definitely improving, and hopefully with another boost of tea in a few days that too will fade.  I'm really surprised they are recovering so well, I was afraid I would lose them all within a week or two.

The remaining starts; tomatoes and a few peppers.

Turning to the left we see the first raised bed.  With the removal of the celery, broccoli, garlic, and remaining lettuce the bed is looking pretty thin.  Several tomatoes have been planted to replace the harvested plants, and all of the cucumbers as well.  The sugar snap peas in back are cranking out pea pods like crazy, though none have yet begun to bulge with seed development.  The first of these peas should be ready in a day, possibly two.

First tomato to develop.  Oregon Spring.

I finally have my first tomato beginning!  It's a bit late to be at this stage, but the Spring has been rather cool and wet, and I am happy to have anything right now.  Oregon Spring has proven itself to be a great producer in the past (for such a small plant), and judging by the 18 flowers on it right now I'm guessing it will be again.  IF the weather ever warms up.  The other tomatoes that have gone in the ground are green and healthy and obviously recovering well from their bout with malnutrition.

First nasturtium blossoms.

Further along the first bed we see a burst of color as the first nasturtium blooms pop out amid the blue-green leaves of the cabbages.  The Parel cabbages have firm but small heads and are nearly ready for harvest, Derby Day however still has a long way to go.

Graffiti cauliflower

 Surprise, surprise! Deep within the recesses of the cauliflower leaves are tiny but beautiful little heads of cauliflower.  Graffiti is ahead of Amazing by a few days, and the color is just incredible.  The one good thing about the cooler weather is that I may actually get summer cauliflower undamaged by heat.

Herb and bench area

 Moving past the first bed we see the bench area, the herbs here have exploded.  The lavender and sage doubled in size, the spearmint is spreading (and recovered well from whatever was eating it).  The catnip looks very sad, but that's to be expected since the cats flop down and roll on it, and then chomp the leaves off like it's an all-you-can-eat salad bar.  I'm surprised it's survived at all.

Bed #2

Just past the bench is the second raised bed.  The peas are not as tall here, but everything else has grown above and beyond.  In fact, I was forced to break off several of the largest broccoli leaves because they were shading out so many other plants.  A few little lettuces are tucked away here for later eating, and some beautiful dill is hiding in amid the brassicas.  Otherwise it is very similar to the first bed.  On the far end are the few peppers I planted after pulling the chard and kale.  I transplanted one chard plant and one kale plant into the pumpkin bed in hopes of a few more harvests.

Whiskey barrel and pots

To our left, at the end of the patio, sits the first whiskey barrel.  The barrel currently contains Alex's carrots, most of which are just sizing up before being harvested.  The eggplant, slicing cucumbers, and jalapenos were planted a few days ago.  There are also a couple bolted cilantro tucked into the barrel, and I plan to let them go to flower to help attract beneficials.  Behind the barrel are three large pots containing artichokes and my rhubarb.  They are all growing well, but there will be no harvests off of them this year.

Whiskey barrel 2 and pots

 Further to the left is the second whiskey barrel.  This barrel holds a few little lettuce plants that will be harvested soon, and the same eggplants, jalapenos and lemon cucumber combination as the first barrel.  The three large pots hold my potato plants.  Feeling down into the dirt beneath the potatoes you will find several long thin rootlets that will hopefully plump up into potatoes soon.  The small pot contains a spare kale that had nowhere else to go, it's struggling and I probably will never see a harvest from it.

Stepping into the yard between the barrels we face the shed and the rosemary and thyme planted in front of it.  Both are growing incredibly well and the tiny thyme flowers are always buzzing with insect life.  I didn't picture the third barrel here, but it sits along the fenceline billowing with flowers.  The delphinium has faded and gone to seed, so things look a bit shabby, but the bee balm is just about ready to bloom and the glads and lillies are popping up between the other flowers.

Pumpkin bed.

At the very back of the garden sits the pumpkin bed.  Beans fill most of this bed, both pole beans along the back, and bush beans throughout.  A massive zucchini has filled the corner near the fountain and will take over most of that side of the bed by summer's end.  To the left side of the bed, planted along the shed trellis are the pumpkin plants.  They are healthy and growing but haven't yet had enough heat to begin their stretch up the trellis onto the shed roof.  There are a few tiny basil planted at the front edge of the bed, but the slugs have happily nibbled them down to almost nothing and I will be surprised if they survive to provide me fresh basil this year.

Turning left and walking through the back gate we come into the previous blackberry patch.  It still looks pretty shabby back here.  Annual and perennial weeds are popping up throughout the yard, the lava rock path only extends a few feet before giving up, and the blackberries are popping out new leaves all over.  I go back there and trim them down to stubs every week or two, but haven't gotten up the time and energy to finish all the cleanup yet.  There is a small strip of cleared ground though that contains four small plots of winter squashes.  I have given up any thoughts of growing corn back there though, it is too late and the area still isn't ready for it.  The squashes are doing well for the most part, a few died (likely eaten by slugs) but the rest are starting to stretch their leaves out and expand into the area.  I can't wait to see them take over that space and make it a flowing carpet of squash leaves and flowers.  And eventually, fruit!

And that concludes our tour.  Please stop by the concession stand on your way out.

A Little Light Goes a Long Way

I stopped by my neighbor, Julie's, house the other day to exchange a few seeds with her and she gave me a couple tomato and jalapeno starts as well.

Seeing Julie's grow room system and the condition of her starts made me decide to put up a post regarding legginess and lighting.

Left, my pepper starts, planted about 2-3 weeks ago.  Right Julie's jalapenos, planted 2 months ago.

Left: my tomatoes, Right: Julie's tomatoes (the little ones in front are mine too.

In the photos above you can easily see that Julie's plants are much older than mine, but you can also see that they have a paler green color to their leaves, much longer stems between each set of leaves, and I'm actually holding the tomato up because its stem isn't strong enough.  So why the difference?  Light. 

I wish I had taken a picture of Julie's grow room, but sadly I'll just have to describe it.  She has one large set of fluorescents in a 4 bulb fixture above a wood shelf in a west facing window.  There is a second shelf below that one with no lighting.  The light fixture is suspended about 6-8 inches above the pots. 

All in all it isn't a bad system, but it's not adequate; the easiest way to tell that it's not adequate is the pale leggy look of the starts.  The light fixture she has would be perfect for the one shelf if it were positioned lower, but it does nothing for the lower shelf, especially since the wood shelves let no light from above down onto the plants below. 

So if you are having trouble with leggy, sickly pale green starts try adding more lights, bringing the lights closer to the plants (fluorescents are very cool and will not burn your plants even if the leaves touch them) or if possible the very best way to improve the health of your starts is to set them out in the sunshine a few hours a day.  Only do this when it's comfortably warm out though and slowly progress them from an hour or so to a full day in the sunlight.

Eggplants finally sprouted! (Only planted two though, WTF? Why are there three?)

 Just to add a quick update to things:  the past few days have been cold, rainy, and depressing.  The plants in the garden are growing very well and I'm waiting for my first harvest with bated breath.  I haven't been able to get the rest of my tomatoes started yet because there is no room under the grow lights, but the weekend is expected to be beautiful and I will try to get the pumpkin bed cleaned up and planted with pumpkins, beans, zucchini and basil.  Hopefully that will give me enough space to start the rest of the tomatoes.

More starts under the lights, I bought one Oregon Spring tomato in hopes of a very early harvest from it.

Keep your lights close to your plants, give them more light than you think they can bear, and good luck!

Easy Plants Are a Myth

People often say that a certain plant is easy to grow, or difficult to grow.  I say it's BS.  Supposedly a great easy to grow plant that even a kid can plant is sunflowers.  Well, I have planted mammoth sunflowers many many years and they've always either failed to sprout at all, or grown the saddest spindliest flowers I've ever seen.  Last summer however my 3 year old son was helping in the garden and I gave him a couple sunflower seeds to bury just so he could plant some seeds that were large and easy to manage.  His two sunflowers topped 12 feet in height, they also put out flower heads that were a good 12 inches in diameter.  Maybe it was just better soil? Nope, I put in a few sunflowers too. Planted them at the same time and they only grew to about 6 feet and had 6-8 inch flowers.  I have no idea why, but the sunflowers loved being planted by the small boy.

Among the so-called "easy to grow" plants most people list perennial herbs, tomatoes, pumpkins, summer squash, annual flowers, and hardy greens like kale and chard.  If you are just starting out with gardening give these plants a shot, but don't give up hope if they don't do well.  Sometimes it will just turn out that you have a knack for celery (known to be a very finicky plant), while tomatoes fiercely dislike you.

My brother built a massive greenhouse and garden last summer, on my parents' property.  The garden there has been producing piles of tomatoes and summer squash for nearly 20 years.  He saved the hot crops for the greenhouse, but continued the tradition of putting summer squash in the garden, he also planted peas, turnips, carrots, kale, broccoli, and chard.  While this was the first year he managed such a large garden he is an experienced gardener.  Guess what? Everything in the garden did great... except the squash, and the peas.  For some crazy reason last year the only things that would grow well in that garden were root veggies and brassicas. 

Some crops are considered easy because they have few known diseases or predators, or because they can withstand some drought or flooding.  Very few veggies should be considered easy to grow, nearly all of the vegetables people plant are so carefully bred that they are entirely dependent on human kindness for survival.  Kale is one of the few that could probably manage on it's own, and in hot climates it is challenging to grow outside of the winter months.

Often when you have difficulty with a certain plant it is not because the plant is difficult but because you don't yet have an understanding of what it takes to make that plant happy.  Since a pumpkin makes a very small root compared to the massive amount of aboveground space it takes up, it doesn't generally need a lot of well worked soil.  The pumpkins roots won't spread much, they can be put in a 6" pot in a hole full of rocks and be content so long as their 6" of dirt is highly nutritious.  Meanwhile, carrots sprout from very tiny seed that then sends down a tap root, while carrots don't actually bulb like an onion (so they can be spaced fairly close) they are rather delicate and need their soil loosened and fluffed to make growth straight down easier.  If you've got heavy soil and only loosen the top inch or so, your carrots will never do well.  I have never yet been able to grow carrots well.  This year I plan to try again in the "Mel's Mix" soil, in hopes that it is light and fluffy enough to keep carrots happy.


Once you get a handle on what the plant needs to be happy you will find it easier to provide those things and have a very "easy" plant to grow.  For me, one of the "easy" plants I struggled with was pumpkins.  I put them in the ground and they got powdery mildew, or didn't sprout, or didn't grow beyond a sprout, or grew long and happy and healthy but didn't produce any pumpkins.  Each year I learned a few things so that I got a little closer to pumpkin perfection.  Initially I had it in my head that pumpkins were colder weather plants, it seemed reasonable since they aren't harvested until fall, I planted them in March and my seeds didn't sprout.  The variety I was growing needed about 100 days to reach harvest, so I figured out that I needed to start them indoors to keep them warm until the weather improved, this also helped prevent the mildew that sets in during the wet months in spring.  Once I had a good start going and the weather improved I moved it into the garden bed, but that year I let them sprawl and only had room for one plant: it grew well but no pumpkins developed.  Finally I began trellising, it gave me enough room to grow three pumpkins in my small space and finally had the cross-pollination needed to produce some very healthy fruits. 

Gardening is a learning experience, each year you find that you get a little better at managing the plants you grow and get a little better fruit or flower in return.  It's a struggle at first for most people, but it does get better.  You may never be able to get the hang of sunflowers, but you may grow the best turnips in the county instead.  There is no such thing as an "easy" or "difficult" plant, it all depends on the gardener, the garden, the weather, and how many butterflies flap their wings in Taiwan.  Gardening is truly an experiment in chaos theory unlike any other.

And What To Do With All That Plenty... Pumpkin Muffin Recipe

This blog is intended to not only discuss gardening but to offer recipes and techniques for preserving your harvest.  Since it is January and miserably dismal outside I'll take this time to share a recipe that can be done with already preserved pumpkins.  While carving pumpkins are edible, they aren't very good to cook with, they can be cured and carved but I recommend Sugar Pie, Rouge Vif de'Tempes (Cinderella) or another eating variety of pumpkin for roasting.  Roasting and preserving directions also apply to any hard-rinded winter squash.

There are a few ways to keep pumpkins once they are harvested: one is to cure them.  If the skins of the pumpkin are undamaged (scarring is fine, but no fresh scrapes or cuts) you can cure it by letting it sit in a warm, dry area where it won't get damaged. If skins have fresh damage you will have to roast and process them immediately.  If you notice blemishes in the skin or mold growth your pumpkin isn't curing properly and needs to be processed into the freezer or canned immediately. Remove any areas that appear to have mold or spoilage.  Then follow the process for roasting.

If the skins toughen and the stems dry brown in about 10 days, your pumpkin has safely cured and will keep like this for several months.

Roasting:  You can roast your pumpkins directly after harvest, or cure them and roast them at a later date.  If you have a big harvest I can pretty much guarantee you will be sick of roasting pumpkins long before you are done, so cure as many as possible.  Curing pumpkins also increases their Vitamin A content.  Cut off any damaged areas of the fruit, cut it in half or quarters (depending on size) to fit in roasting pan.  Scrape out seeds and guts, discard guts; you can either add the seeds to your compost pile, dry them for planting next year, or roast them for eating.  Preheat your oven to about 350F.  Depending on what you intend to do with your pumpkin it may be worthwhile to butter or season the halves before roasting.  For pie, and other sweet making, I like to sprinkle the raw pumpkin with pumpkin pie spice.  Then roast in the oven for 1-2 hours or more, depending on the size of the pumpkin, until the meat is tender.  Let cool for half an hour, then scrape the meat away from the rind.  Use a blender or stick blender to puree the pumpkin meat until smooth.  Lastly, place puree in a colander lined with cheesecloth for 15-20 minutes to drain out excess water (this can be done later, such as after defrosting if you choose to freeze the puree).  The resulting puree can then be used right away in any pumpkin recipe, about two and a half cups is equivalent to a can of Libby pumpkin puree from the store; or it can be frozen for later use, generally in 3 or 4 cup containers.  I have never tried canning pumpkin because I don't have a pressure canner and have a healthy fear of botulism, but I'm sure it's possible.

So that is how to process pumpkins (and other winter squashes).  Here is a fabulously delicious recipe for your home grown pumpkin that my family will gobble up before it even cools.  I don't remember where the recipe came from so if someone knows my source please let me know so I can give credit where it is due.

Pumpkin muffin, served warm with butter is best.

Pumpkin Muffins - preheat oven to 350F
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 cups pumpkin puree
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 lg. eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. cinnamon

Stir together flour, baking powder, salt, spice, baking soda, and cinnamon.  In separate bowl, mix puree, oil, eggs, and sugar until well blended.  Gently fold together wet and dry ingredients until well moistened.  (As with all muffins, stir gently or the muffins will become tough).  Scoop into muffin cups about 2/3 full. Bake at 350F 25-30 minutes.  Serve warm with butter.  Makes 1 dozen.

Tying Up

There are many reasons to trellis plants, and many different ways to do it.
One reason to trellis a plant is for looks, a pile of morning glories strewn across the ground isn't nearly as attractive as a teepee of trellised morning glories, or a chain link fence blooming with sweet peas.  But looks are not the primary reason to lift your plants up to a higher level.  Trellising, staking, or tying up plants lifts them off the ground; it allows them to receive better light, keeps them from taking up more garden space, keeps them away from the wet ground and out of reach of some pests.  Supporting plants also helps to keep taller plants from blowing over in the wind when they are young and keeps them growing straight and tall.
By lifting peas up onto a trellis you provide a support that keeps the leaves out of contact with moist spring soil that can lead to fungus and mold problems, you ensure that the peas will get adequate sunlight despite other low-growing plants nearby, and you keep the sweet tasty pods out of reach of slugs and other non-flying pests.  You also save a lot of space.  Peas are one crop that is well-known to need a support of some kind, and while one square foot of soil can support 8 peas plants, those same pea plants if not supported would spread out in a mass three feet by three feet.  What a waste!
So yes, providing a support of some type is essential for many plants.  Among the plants that require support are peas, pole or runner beans, indeterminate tomatoes, morning glories, grapes, sweet peas, clematis, and all vines.  While these plants really need to be supported there are many others that benefit from support as well.  Winter squashes (including pumpkins), cucumbers, melons, sunflowers (sometimes they need a little help to keep winds from blowing them down), roses, luffas, etc.  Basically anything that grows more than two feet high/long could probably use some support. 

Whiskey barrel and tomato cage with eggplant, Thai chili, lemon cucumber and Tigger melon. 7/2011

In my experience there are a few types of plant supports you should have in your garden; trellises, both strong permanent ones and lightweight temporary ones; stakes; and cages.  A trellis is some type of net stretched across an area, it can have large openings in the netting (such as the 7" squares in my pumpkin trellis) or small openings.  It generally needs to be attached to some sort of sturdy frame, like a fence, or electrical conduit, or a wood frame, or even PVC pipe.  A chain link fence makes an excellent trellis for all but the largest of fruits; it has a strong frame to it and medium-sized openings to allow the plants to twine in and around while still offering enough room for fruits to grow without being squeezed in the chain.  Peas, beans, cucumbers, and many vines and flowers are all good options to grow along a chain link fence.  Sadly, I have a solid wood fence in my garden.  I add my own trellis to this fence (plastic bird netting stapled to the wood in the corners) for peas and beans.  Pumpkin trellising required a little more strength, so after a quick trip to the hardware store I built the pumpkin trellis out of 2- 6' long electrical conduit pipes, 1- 4' long conduit pipe, 2- 2' long pieces of rebar, 2- 90 degree conduit connections, and a large holed nylon (much stronger than plastic netting) net.  I drove the rebar about halfway into the ground on either side of my planting bed, connected my electrical conduits with the 90 degree connectors in an upside down U shape, and slipped the conduit ends over the rebar tops.  Then I just tied the netting tightly around the conduit pieces and slowly trained the growing pumpkin plants up over the trellis.  It is a very strong and stable trellis, yet can easily be removed and relocated by lifting the frame up off the rebar and pulling out the rebar; it can also be broken down by turning a few screws to store in a small space over the winter.  If you plan to make a trellis like this one you can find detailed directions for it in the All New Square Foot Gardening book by Mel Bartholomew.
One of the reasons I chose to use the lightweight plastic netting for my peas and beans is that they tend to become a large tangled mass by the end of the summer and pulling that mass loose from a strong netting is a royal pain.  Instead I can just cut the plastic or tear down the whole thing.  Though I think this year I will replace that net with a biodegradable version so that I can simply toss it all into the compost pile at the end of the season.  Some people dangle lines of string down to beans; I love the idea, but my beans haven't been very cooperative about climbing them without a lot of assistance, so I prefer a net.

Stakes: Stakes come in different materials, lengths, and diameters; for most plants that need staking you will want a stake no smaller in diameter than your index finger.  You can buy bamboo, wood or plastic stakes; I tried all of them and was surprised that I preferred the plastic ones. Bamboo was too flexible and the plant weight bent them, wood rotted too fast. You can also create your own stakes from things you have around the house, sticks, dowels, PVC pipe, rebar, anything you can tie a plant to.  You should select stakes about 4 to 6 feet long. Stakes are very useful supports for taller plants on which the stems are a little weak at first, or that produce large fruits that may weigh them down.  I stake young tomatoes, peppers, sunflowers and a few other things.  In my area we do get high winds late into the spring at times and staking these new transplants keeps them from being blown over.  Once tomato fruiting begins I tie all of the side branches to the stake as well as the center stalk so that large fruits won't break the branches, and to keep branches from drooping down to the ground or over nearby plants.

Cages, generally called tomato cages, are perfect for trellising cucumbers and other curcubits.  They are generally made of metal or sometimes plastic, while the metal ones will rust over time I prefer them to the plastic ones; I also prefer the square cages that can break down for storage over the round cone-like ones.  Cages will work for tomatoes, but when plants get large it often becomes difficult to find and pick fruits that are deep inside the cage.  Cucumbers tend to vine and will happily grow around the outside of a cage, leaving all of the fruits out where they are easy to reach.  This is a great way to grow cucumbers or melons in a small space like a pot.  My whiskey barrels were nearly invisible under their cuke covered cages last year.  Each barrel had a cage stuck in the center of it, and a cucumber, Tigger melon, pepper, and eggplant planted around the outside of the cage.  I tied the eggplant and pepper to the bottom rung to act as a stake, then wove the cucumber and melon vines around the cage.  Those were the healthiest, best fruiting, largest cucumber plants I've ever grown. I will definitely do the same again this year.  One of the biggest issues for cukes in my region is powdery mildew, the fleshy leaves are very susceptible and once it starts it is difficult to stop the spread of the disease.  By wrapping a cucumber around a cage or over a trellis, you keep the leaves and fruits up away from the ground and the moisture left behind by watering, protecting it from powdery mildew.  In addition, I saw a much better pollination rate in my caged cucumbers; the flowers were held up high in plain sight for pollinators and for the wind to spread the pollen as well.

Cucumber in whiskey barrel 7/2011

In conclusion... tie your plants up!!  If tying up a plant is an option, it's probably a good one.  If I had my way I'd develop a vining lettuce that I could trellis up out of the slugs' reach, but for now I'll just keep crying over chewed lettuces.

How Much Harvest?

If you are new to gardening and want to grow some food this is the post for you.
Planting a tomato plant or two is nice and you get a few tomatoes, if you don't kill them somehow, but how do you know how much is right for you and your family?  When space is at a premium this can be an important decision, it can determine whether you will have room for tomatoes, carrots, zucchini, bell peppers and cucumbers... or just enough room for tomatoes.  Having too few tomatoes may mean you have enough for hamburgers one night, but not for salads the next day.  Or that you harvest more than your family can eat fresh, but not enough to make it worth the effort to can salsa.  Having too much of one harvest can mean an overstock of salsa, spaghetti, canned tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, tomato soup, fresh eating tomatoes... you get the idea.  You don't want to waste garden space growing more than you could possibly eat in a year.  Most home canned goods and frozens are only good for a year, and by the next summer you'll have a whole new crop to process.
Tomatoes are a good example for this.  I have a family of four that is not big on vegetable eating, my son is a huge cherry tomato eater, my husband and daughter prefer their tomatoes fresh in their meals, while I like to have salsas, sauces, canned tomatoes, soups, etc. for after the harvest.  My 2011 garden worked out just about perfect giving me a mix of cherry, saucing and slicing tomatoes at a rate of about 4lbs every 4 or 5 days.  When we had an overabundance of slicers I simply seeded them and added them to sauces, when saucers were more productive I would chop them into meals.  The cherry tomatoes were eaten fresh or added to salads.  In total we planted 12 tomato plants with a mix of extra-early to late season, in differing sizes shapes and colors.  We actually ended up short on spaghetti sauce but I gave a lot of tomatoes to my mom because I was sick of processing them.
The tomatoes worked out to 3 plants  per person, which seems to be just right for my family, though not necessarily for yours.  If you are big vegetable eaters, or plan to share a lot of your harvest aim for closer to 5 per person.  If you are overwhelmed with that number you can always post on craigslist that you have too many tomatoes and would love to make a trade with someone who grew too many bell peppers, or share your extras with friends and family.  Around here, summer squash are the most overgrown vegetable (people just don't realize how productive they are) and are nearly impossible to get rid of, but tomatoes, carrots, peppers, corn, and peas are an easy thing to trade with friends and neighbors.
Generally when I'm selecting a new food to grow I put in one or two (if needed for pollination) plants and wait to see what comes of it.  This served me well when my brother insisted I should grow five or six eggplants last year and I decided to leave more cucumber space instead and only plant 2 eggplants.  Those 2 eggplants produced more eggplant than I could have ever managed to eat, luckily my mom took a lot of it off my hands, and meanwhile the extra cucumber space was needed since my pickling cucumbers ended up being completely shaded out by the nearby tomatoes.  For new gardeners this is a great way to practice trial and error too, and may keep you from giving up in disgust when your favorite veggie does poorly the first year you plant it.  When planning your garden, plan many different types of vegetables, in several varieties if possible, plan for them to ripen at different times if you plan to eat them fresh, or all at once for processing big batches.  As exciting as a lush patch of hot chilis may sound, if you won't eat them or don't know someone who will, it's probably not worthwhile to grow them.  And obviously, if you are a massive watermelon eater who simply can't get enough it may be worthwhile to plant several just for yourself.  Keep in mind that perennial fruits and vegetables tend to get bigger or spread over the years too, don't keep investing in blueberry bushes or strawberry plants to fill your garden bed if a few will spread in a year or two and fill it nicely.  Instead use that money to purchase some u-pick berries the first year or two until your patch can keep up with your demands. 
As an example of what can be done in a small garden this is a list of what I planted last year in my 102 square feet.
-one Thai chili plant
-two jalapenos
-two lemon cucumbers
-four slicing cucumbers
-two eggplants
-one small melon
-one luffa
-three pumpkins
-one zucchini
-six marigolds
-four calendula
-about 30 runner beans
-12 tomatoes
-eight pickling cucumbers
-three bell peppers
-eight basil
-six garlic
-24 bush beans
-six mammoth sunflowers
-six celery
-three cabbage
-four broccoli
-24 lettuce
-27 spinach
-12 nasturtiums
-42 peas
-and a handful of carrots

That's over 200 individual plants, of 27 different types of vegetable/flower.  Admittedly there were only a few of each type but they were more than enough to keep my family stocked for the year, with a few exceptions.

Working With Obstacles

So you are creating your garden, planning beds and plants and maybe some decor, a comfy spot to enjoy it... then you come across an Obstacle.  Anything that gets in the way of the flow of your garden space or your enjoyment of it, or blocks light or walkways, is an Obstacle.  My yard is full of them, your yard probably is too.  some Obstacles can be removed, others can be worked around, but even better is turning the Obstacle into a focal point and highlight of the garden.

An ugly shed turned into a pumpkin patch.

The biggest eyesore in my garden, an obstacle that blocks light to the side yard completely, and cramps my garden space is our ugly old shed.  It leaks and is rusty and needs to be replaced, but until I'm ready to take on that task, and expense, it has become my pumpkin patch.  In an earlier post I mentioned that I had grown pumpkins in a 4'x4' bed, 6" deep.  It's true, not only that, but the same space provided a row of runner beans, a HUGE zucchini plant, a few lettuces and some marigolds and calendula. I used some of the techniques found in the Square Foot Garden system to keep the bed small, while filling it with "Mel's Mix" for the best possible combination of moisture retention, nutrition, and drainage.  Lastly I built a trellis system.  The pumpkin bed had two open sides, one side that backed against the fence, and one that backed against the shed.  On the fence side I used lightweight chicken wire and plastic trellis to run the beans up, covering the fence side entirely in a carpet of beans, leaves, and flowers.  The pumpkins were planted on the shed side and trellised up a nylon 7" square net tied to electrical conduit poles.  The entire pumpkin trellis cost me about $25 to build, and while nylon is very strong it will wear out over time; but the frame will never wear out.  I can reuse that trellis frame for years on end, it is easily removed and set back up if needed, I plan to build many more of them in the near future.  (You can find the specific directions for building this trellis in the SFG book by Mel Bartholomew, which I found to be a wealth of great ideas).  The pumpkin trellis supported 3 pumpkin plants that grew up over it and onto the roof of the shed.  From those plants I got a total of 5 pumpkins, with a total weight of about 75 lbs.  The largest was 33 lbs.  More importantly, I was able to grow pumpkins in an area I didn't think was big enough, kept the shed from being an eyesore, and the pumpkins were up off the ground; far from rodents, slugs and other pests, getting great sunlight, away from kids and pets.  I will never grow a pumpkin on the ground again!  The one caution I will offer in regards to this system is that growing large pumpkins like the Cinderella variety I grew you run the risk of the fruit weight breaking the trellis strings and the fruit falling to the ground.  One of my pumpkins did this, luckily it was nearly ripe and I heard it fall so was able to process it immediately and salvage most of the fruit.  It reached 17 lbs. before the string snapped and if it had been on the shed instead of dangling on the side, or supported with something more than the one nylon strand it never would have fallen.  Everyone who saw my garden last summer exclaimed over one of two things: The pumpkins on the shed, and the massive sunflowers.  No one mentioned that the shed could use a paint job. ;)
When working with an obstacle if it can't be removed, or worked around, try finding a way to incorporate it into your design.  Turn a stump into a plant stand for a huge pot of nasturtiums, hang trellis netting on a fence and make it a wall of green, grow pumpkins on top of a broken down car, or if you have a massive patch of empty where no one goes?  Throw a few different packs of squash seeds out there and see what happens.  I actually plan to do the last one with the side yard near our compost pile this year.