Our first-time gardeners share tales of their bounty

As the leaves begin to color up and drop - and our thoughts turn from basil and cucumbers to apples and pumpkins - we thought it the perfect time for one last check-in with the first-time vegetable gardeners we've been following all summer.






High-priced produce, tainted-food scares and a yen for organically grown vegetables led so many of you to pick up hoes and shovels and try your hand at growing food for the first time.



Any great successes to report among our gardeners? Abject failures? Have we uncovered any new green thumbs who will become lifelong gardeners? And what's in store for next year?



Alison Lazarus was clearly our most ambitious new gardener. In spring, she planted a 30-by-40-foot plot after clearing about an acre of overgrown bramble behind her Harrison home. She even added a tool shed, 8-foot fencing for critters and a new water line just for the garden. "It started as a small idea, and every step along the way it just got bigger and bigger," she says.



A long row of strawberry plants lines one side of the fence with dozens of asparagus plants on the other side. One corner holds blueberry bushes, with raspberry canes in another. A cornucopia of every vegetable you can think of fills the beds: herbs, broccoli, Napa cabbage, peas, beans, lettuce, snow peas, peppers, radishes and lots of herbs.



"I certainly learned this was too ambitious for one person," she says, especially a working mom who commutes to Manhattan five days a week. "Next year I'm going to get friends to help, maybe even hire someone to keep up with the weeds."



Next year, by the way, her squash gets banished to a new site outside the fence. "I like having it, but I had no idea how big it got," says Lazarus, pointing out a squash vine crawling at least 5 or 6 feet beyond its assigned raised bed, one of eight in her garden.



Lazarus wasn't the only one who learned what a space-hog squash could be.

George Mickatavage had the same issue in his new Rye garden, a modest single raised bed that measures 5 feet by 12 feet. "They produced tons of leaves and flowers, but I only got one squash."



For Mitch Bernstein, who crammed all kinds of heirloom vegetables into his new 10-by-16-foot plot in Katonah, the jungle of squash meant no beets or carrots from the seeds he carefully nurtured indoors all spring. His cauliflower and onions didn't fare well either.



"I think they were a victim of the heavy squash explosion," he says. "They lost their light."



OK, so the squash was a bust. Cucumbers, on the other hand, seem to be everyone's best crop this year.



"It was the cucumbers that really went ballistic in mid-summer," Bernstein says.



Looking back over the whole summer, he mostly sees his first garden as a winner.



"It went really, really well," he says. "I had phenomenal success with my eggplant. All the herbs went nuts, same for my peas and beans and all the leafy stuff in spring. I have another crop coming in now."



Like all of our first-timers, he knew that the startup costs of a new garden would surely outweigh any savings at the supermarket this first year. "I didn't do it to save money," he says. "I did it so I could grow my own."



For nearly all of our newbies, it ended up being a terrible year for tomatoes. Wet, cool weather in June and July led to an explosion of late blight, a devastating fungus that killed thousands of tomato and potato plants across the Northeast.



Bernstein lost nine of his 10 tomato plants to blight.



Cathy Deutchman says she only got about a half-dozen tomatoes all summer from her tidy plot in Croton-on-Hudson. "They didn't do well at all," she says. "A lot of them turned rotten on the vine."



Lazarus says she started off well - "tons of cherry tomatoes and Romas like crazy" - but then blight hit in mid-August and "things well downhill quickly."

Mickatavage was our only gardener with good tomatoes all summer.



"My tomatoes were fantastic - no problem with blight," he says. "I think it's because I had a brand-new garden - new soil, a new bed - and a new farmer!"



His beefsteak tomatoes were "so juicy, so good, and I had lots of Romas that came up."



Deutchman blames the weather for a not-so-hot first year for her and her family - "all that rain in June and July, and then we were gone for most of August."



"Overall, I must say it was pretty disappointing," she says. "It was a lot of fun getting started, but it was disappointing not to have more, especially tomatoes and pumpkins."



Fortunately, she's not giving up. In fact, she's already planning a plot with tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and pumpkins, plus peppers and more sunflowers for the birds.



Bernstein calls his first garden a "great experience - I look forward to doing it again next year, with a few extra morsels of knowledge."



Mickatavage says he's discovered a real love for gardening this summer. "I've really become a gardener - and everybody thinks I am because it's all I talk about."



Lazarus modestly says: "If I can do it, I think anybody can - I just threw the seeds in and things grew."



Her garden has been a big hit at the family dinner table. "I probably cooked more this year than any other summer," she says. "My husband and my two boys really enjoyed all the fresh food they got, and they were very proud of me because it actually worked."