Martin, your post makes me smile, but it's a smile of sympathy and recognition.

This is the third year for me having a garden, too, and it seems like every year is another "rebuilding, learning" year.

So far, my asparagus looks great - next year, I get to begin harvesting it. My mesclun salad mix has produced...copious amounts of arugula, and almost nothing else. I thought I'd be getting a salad in a packet of seeds, but I've got like 90% arugula and a tiny bit of one other variety I don't recognize. And it's just too bitter to be its own salad. So - lesson for next year is to diversify a lot more, with several more varieties of lettuce.

My herbs were terrible - most didn't sprout for me this year. I got two oregano plants going. Slugs got my basil (traditional and thai), and also destroyed all but one of my Toscano di Nero kale (an absolute favorite I discovered last year).

Tomatoes sprouted and have grown wonderfully...and fallen prey to tomato blight. Once I found out what it was, I've been pruning ruthlessly and spraying with a sulfur compound. The first 3 to 4 courses of branches on each of my plants is gone, but they're forming nice-looking tomatoes. I hope the plants stay alive long enough to harvest them.

My zucchini and summer squash looked great (they've so far been my one absolutely reliable crop. Who can kill a zucchini?) ... until they started one by one to wilt. A trip to the nursery found the culprit - an inch-long white worm burrowing through the low stem system. Solution: spray for them bugs before they get in. Alternate solution: dig into the stem, find and kill the worm, then cover the stem with more dirt. So, being I caught it so late, I did get one worm out of one of them, and it rallied for about 5 days, wilted leaves stood up again, then gave up the ghost and wilted again.

Rhubarb produced pretty well this year, but the Japanese beetles have really hit them hard. I've never liked Japanese beetles. Many of them end up going for a swim in a bucket with water and just a touch of dish soap, but there always seem to be more.

Beets have been coming along nicely - humongous leaves - but they're STILL tiny. However, the greens have been great with some olive oil, bacon and balsamic vinegar.

I've got some Thai eggplants going this year - last year I couldn't get them above 5 inches tall - this year they're almost 2 feet, flowered and beginning to form eggplants, but we'll see if they really produce.

I started okra, too...they're still about 6 inches tall and I wonder if they'll ever get to maturity.

Pole beans have done well - kind of like my first time with squash, I underestimated the room they'd need. I made a bamboo pole framework, but they need more than a 7 or 8-foot run...I'll know better next year. The Japanese beetles like them a lot, too.

So...I think I've picked crops more wisely this year, and I think I've improved the layout/footprint of the garden a lot. Next year, I'll begin a pre-emptive course of spraying for several pests (fungus and bug). So far, that's been my entire gardening experience - some small triumphs, many lessons/things to try next year, and reversals on previous successes.

Dave