A Garden that Thrives on Neglect

I'm already considering next year's garden. I moved to a new house the first of the year. I was eager to make a new garden. I made ambitious plans. What I didn't consider was the number of years it took to get my old garden as large and productive as it was last year. I planned to start with an even bigger garden.

I got the beds laid out, and began filling them with Mel's mix, and quickly realized the garden I had planned was much too large for me to establish in one season. I planted only part of what I'd originally planned, but still didn't manage to keep up with it. 

I planted sugar snap peas, which are incredibly easy to grow, but I planted far more than my family would eat. I gave a lot away, but had a hard time keeping up with the harvest. I never got around to cutting down the vines when they stopped producing. 

We have a short season for tomatoes here, so I planted 4th of July tomatoes, which have always done well for me. They've been productive, with plentiful, larger, and more flavorful fruit than usual. I was busy, so I put off setting up vertical frames for them. Then I lost my job, and just didn't care for a while. By then, they had escaped into the lawn, and I couldn't lift the vines without breaking them. My son has been carefully mowing around them, but because they are on the ground, we have lost a lot of fruit to animals and rot. 

I put a peppermint plant in a 5 gallon bucket by the kitchen door. It has filled the bucket, and grown 18" tall. All it needs is occasional watering in hot weather.

I never got around to planting the baby carrots, radishes, or anything else I had planned. I'm still hoping to plant garlic by the end of September for bulbs next year. I'm hopeful I'll have more time for gardening next year, but there will be times I get busy, and just let my garden go. 

I live in Wisconsin. Northern gardeners, what herbs and vegetables have you grown that seem to thrive on neglect?

This year ..... just about all my ANSFG beds

 My lass convinced me to drag the car and caravan round main land Europe for a month plus a couple of other short haul trip in national holiday times..
 
I'd set up auto watering it filed in the glass house with one spray head coming off and being left like that by the house sitters .
 They were both veggies and ate a plenty out the beds  but didn't do any weeding or trimming the excess or tying up of tomatoes .

It's nearly 14 days since we came back , I'm still struggling to make headway as I've also had to do several other vital things. Happen it will ease off a tad towards the end of this week.
For I have to clear several beds of everything and prep them for long term /permanent crops such as asparagus , rhubarb & a herb bed of perennial herbs .
I'm also dedicating an extra large bed for a permanant onion & garlic bed .. it should last for at least 100 years  & gets plent of sun from March to November .
.
 The tomatoes in the glasshouse & gardens took two days of care and staking up just to get them untangled & vertical still with some fruits on the stems .

Besides a massive cabbage white butterfly & caterpillar attack that left almost all  the brassicas looking like light green net curtains we have had some decent sized marrows  , broad beans, kohl rabi , asparagus pea, onions , peas and salad crops .

Plantoid, I'm glad you had quite a few successes even after your long holiday.

Down here if neglected the garden goes to weed real fast. Kind of funny the Seminole Pumpkin has come back to life a smothered everything in its path. Just getting the rest of the garden planted and having to cut this beast back.
 Plantoid, caravanning here is RV camping. We recently sold our pop-up for a Jayco Featherweight. The weather should break in mid October & looking forward to taking the Jayco out real soon. Just too hot & rainy to go this time of year for us.

We just sold our Jay Flight 22 FB.  I'm back to motels.

PS If we could have home parked it, we wouldn't have sold it. The rental fees weren't worth the number of times we took it to the coast.

The upkeep on them can be so expensive(and the gas ain't cheap) that you might be better off with the motels, money-wise anyway. My folks went through a lot of money saving all the money an RV saved them.

Marc Iverson wrote:  My folks went through a lot of money saving all the money an RV saved them.

I totally understand.

We are able to keep ours at the house, no HOA here. Yes hotels are cheaper but camping in the state parks, under the stars with the smell & glow of a campfire, cooking outdoors with my dutch oven make up for all the extra costs. I really enjoy tent camping but DW is now allergic to fire ant stings, they put her in the hospital twice now. So off the ground we went to a pop up & now lightweight travel trailer.
 I'm a life long camper...

I have a special deep memory foam mattress set up in the caravan it's like home from home and always there .
Fuel costs still work out far cheaper than hotel bills for three plus we know what's gone into our in the caravan cooked food .

 We would never ever buy a brand new caravan they are not worth THAT much money .

The three we have has since 1988 were all over four years old but in pristine condition ..... no smokers, dogs or kids in any of them .

Usually we waited till what we wanted came along and drove the salesmen stupid by going to some places every Sunday for several months , but not buying . .

"  Mavro " was 15 years old when we got it in 1988  , " Multi " was 18 yrs old  when we got it in 2005 , Bubbles the  last one we got a year ago , a  5 berth Bailey Ranger 500 has just turned 5 years old .


No more :-  bed bugs , fleas , dog , cat  hairs  etc ., rooms that stink of smokers , sweaty people & cheap perfume etc   , leaky plumbing , wet carpets and beds that slope from the middle like a ski slope to the outer edge and no drunks next door banging doors ,shouting or snoring themselves silly , I've  had far too much of that style of trailer camping to last me till I'm 200 yrs old .



 One thing we got whilst on holiday was a curry plant , It's  now out in the herb garden, seems to be growing  , do they thrive on neglect ?
 What sort of cold temperatures kill them ?  I took a peek on the internet but it seemed to be survivable in way too cold ( minus 10 oC )  for a plant that comes from the warmer parts of Spain.   Anyone able to help out on that one ?

Sorry I can't help with the curry plant. My old neighbor was from England & couldn't live with out the  curry spice.
Seems we have the same love of Caravan camping and the value of a used camper! Our camping season is just beginning.
 Craig