It is a good idea to evaluate the results of your vegetable and flower gardens at the end of the growing season. I know this, but rarely get around to doing it. You can even purchase little books specifically for the purpose of recording your garden successes and failures. You can channel Thomas Jefferson and keep a pocket notebook, going out each day to record the temperature, rainfall, and weather conditions. I admire anyone with the self-discipline and presence of mind to do either of these things. If we all recorded our findings each day and made necessary adjustments to irrigation and amendments to improve the nutrition of the soil, we would likely have bumper crops every year. Since I know I will never be that organized, I must be satisfied with a review of the summer’s good, bad, and mediocre. Last week Jim and I reviewed his successes and failures in the vegetable garden.

I’ll start with Jim’s first batch of tomatoes, which he feels he planted too early after the mild winte...