What success did you have in the garden this summer?

[John Libonati]

This spring we decided to give up a portion of our yard and grow a bigger garden. We planted 5 different basil, chocolate mint, peppermint, rosemary, red peppers, horseradish, garlic, oregano, penny royal, mortgage lifter tomatoes, green grape tomatoes and black krim tomatoes.

Our herbs did amazingly well. Our red peppers; we're still waiting for the 4 to get some color.
Our tomato plants grew like crazy, the mortgage lifter plant is over 6 feet tall. It gave us 6-7 tomatoes so far that were delicious. Collectively there's roughly 20-30 more tomatoes on the vines and we're picking a few everyday. We've had about 5-7 rotten tomatoes.

I learned this year that horseradish produces gorgeous huge leaves. I've been cutting them and putting them in floral arrangements. Unfortunately I discoverd late in the summer that once you plant horseradish it's there for life.
The photo is of a bunch of horseradish leaves.

[Andrea Sloan]

I've never heard of "mortgage lifter" tomatoes. What are they like? And where do these names come from?
We're in our third year of raspberries, and they do amazingly well. Our peach tree got attacked by a peach borer moth and never quite recovered. Cucumbers were plentiful. Hot peppers did great, but the green just kind of rotted on the plant. We have a few red coming in now, and the banana peppers are just about ready for picking.
Our tomatoes were hit or miss. The Heirloom plant did pretty well, the cherry tomatoes, eh, so-so, and the plums were practically non-existent. Some just rotted on the vine.
We tried strawberries, but while the plants looked fine, the fruit went from ripe to mushy. Our garden was not helped by our dog, who has decided she's actually a deer; she picks (!) and eats fruits and vegetables, always at their peak of ripeness. I've never seen anything like it.