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| the chair, the book, the paper - a plan |
I cannot imagine spring without a garden or summer without the harvest. However, as fall approaches, the garden and gardener grow a bit weary. The spinach & peas were done long ago. The cucumbers have succumbed to mites or beetles or a case of the-gardener-doesn’t-love-us-anymore syndrome. I’m tired of keeping those stupid carrots watered. And forget about the out of control tomatoes – who eats all those anyway? Fighting heat, drought, weeds, bugs and ever-present wind… At this point, I’m fairly certain I won’t be planting so much next year. I should know better.
Winter slips by. Shortly before the calendar announces spring, I notice seed packets and seed potatoes appearing in stores. My Growing Vegetables in the Great Plains book whispers from the shelf behind my chair. The garden beckons rototiller-man (my husband). Suddenly I’m planted in front of a seed display, pulling out envelopes – “Hmm, maybe leeks this year…or turnips…do I want to fight smut and grow my hubby some corn? (I hate corn, bleh) … oh, those red spotted beans look cool." Here we go!
Before planting can start, there is the planning, square foot by square foot.
I swipe a piece of graph paper from one of my kids and start mapping. Let’s see, I planted tomatoes here last year, but over there the year before, so.... (Disease fighting tip – don’t plant tomatoes in the same place every year.) Square by square everything finds a home. This usually takes a day or two.
I like to marinate ideas. They taste better that way.
Then – nearly my favorite time of year. Trenches are hoed, holes are dug, peat is added (lots of clay in the soil here) and seeds are sown. Waiting begins.
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| 2011 garden in May |
I have a white plastic chair at the edge of my garden. It wasn’t planned, I pulled it out of the shed one day to take a break and there it stays. It’s excellent for musing a garden plan or admiring the day’s effort, for watching bees working the oregano or squirrels straddling the fence or just waiting around for things to grow. Once the garden is in – the plastic white chair is my hammock.
The first fruits are the best part really – first green onions, first red radishes, first tender asparagus, first crisp rhubarb, first little green tomatoes that take forever and a day to ripen. The rest of the summer entails watering and weeding and picking and hoeing and staking and watering and mulching and fixing and plucking and canning and watering and cutting and pulling and on and on.
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| 2010 garden late summer |
Gardening is good for the body and soul...until it's not... when the ole joy-of-gardening battery starts to run down. A few tomatoes go bad on the vine, the cucumbers don’t get watered soon enough. Mites stake a claim on the eggplant. Weeds sneak in under the pumpkin vines. The squash bugs just won’t go away no matter how much you yell at them… About that time I start watching the forecast for the first frost. Hoping... The die hard gardener will plan for this. Fairly certain I’m not one of those. I cover my tomatoes a time or two before plucking the green ones to ripen indoors. This year I was oh so ambitious and covered up the best plant every night in late October – sheets & towels & straw. Made it to November 1, then threw in the towel – or off, however you want to look at it. Probably a record I’ll never break. Later the sad brown remnants are hauled to the community compost pile. Next year I will NOT plant that many tomatoes! And forget corn for at least 10 years. Smut – ew!
Well, it’s April 4. The soil has been worked and evened out and the onions went in before the rain chased me out of the garden. A stack of seed envelopes sit next to me – too many once again. I blame Dad. Every year he announced the garden would be reduced and every year he’d just keep adding. I know there are worse addictions, though it’d be nice if this one didn’t involve squash bugs.
