We have a pretty long growing season here in NC, but we really have to work the soil.
We compost, which is awesome, saves us money and our gardens grow very well. We never have to use chemicals or anything else to make our garden grow.
We are HUGE tomato planters.. HUGE HUGE HUGE.
So that we do not take up too much space in the beds, we have started growing them directly out of Manure bags, works like a charm.
We grow:
Okra (hubby loves it and it freezes REALLY well)
Tomatos, we save a ton of money on these. We plant and harvest and make pasta sauce from them. We then freeze it and use it throughout the rest of the year. We would go through about a jar of pasta sauce a week.. let's see that could be 1.00-2.99 per jar (we do not use canned tomatos sauce) or more. If we buy 2, that would be almost 5-6$ per week. That is a lot of savings over the year.
Peppers,: Depends on the season, sometimes we get good ones, sometimes... not so good. The freeze, ok.. but not for long. They are great to spice up other meals that we freeze though.
Cucumbers: Last year we had a bum crop, will try a smaller amount this year.
Hot peppers: We plant them, use them freeze or dry them and stick them in a zip lock bag and use them throughout the year. nothing like YOUR hot pepper in your winter chilli.
We also plant A LOT of basil and last year we got a BOOMING crop. It grows and grows and grows, we just have to be careful to snip it back before it flowers. We make Pesto sauce and freeze it in ice cube trays and then freeze them in Zip Lock bags. We use these all year too. You can get a real bumper crop from a small plant.
We also plant sage, thyme and other herbs in my daughters butterfly garden. when we want fresh herbs, we just go out and snip some. Its FABULOUS.
We love it and in a few weeks we are starting our summer garden!