The Summer's Last Salad

The greatly anticipated arrival of October 5th, thankfully brought about the end of my 2009 gardening season. It had been a long summer (did we have a summer??) of rain, rain and yet more rain that only succeeded in bringing destruction to almost every variety of vegetable struggling to get a foothold in my swampy soil. No cucumber, carrot, tomato, pole bean, pea or pepper was spared by Mother Nature’s wrath and they all suffered equally. Thankfully, we still have supermarkets because otherwise there would be widespread famine at the homestead.

All in all the great "first in a long, long time" garden experiment succeeded, as my primary goal had been for the lil ones to plant, pick and eat their own food and be involved in every step of the process. Within the gray folds of my brain are now stored hours and hours of happy memories of the lil ones picking green beans, peas, tomatoes and pulling carrots. When someday my memory fails, digital means additionally managed to capture video and dozens of photos that will make me smile for years to come.

Rather than go into a rant about how little was collected over the course of the gardening season, let me instead tell you how incredible it was to eat the last fresh salad of the season. Salad ingredients . . . two green peppers the size of a baby's fist, 3 onions the size of a quarter, 4 small heads of broccoli, 8 carrots the size of your thumb, two cherry sized tomatoes and lastly a dozen small lettuce leaves. Ummm, how fantastic to eat something made of fresh ingredients that your planted and tended. The smells are so much stronger and the tastes so much more complex and interesting . . . I can almost taste the MUD. :)

So while the year was difficult, it certainly hasn't discouraged me from trying it all again next season!

Rainy June Garden Update . . .

June 13 and 14th Journal entries - 13th - I managed to squeeze in part of the morning working in the garden. There had been a number of small items that I had been meaning to attend to so was excited to see the predicted rains held off. 

I noted that my cucumbers planted by seed were beginning to poke through the soil but my 4 experimentally grown inside plants were dead or dying from an invading sugar ant population. Shovel and 1 and 1/2 containers of ant killer later the issue was rectified!

 Plantings in garden two were completed as I inserted tomatoes and peppers into the remaining empty rows. Inside grown tomatoes appear to be seriously struggling (probably due to me trying to acclimatize them to quickly) but the peppers may survive.

 Broccoli row had spots ranging from explosive growth to nothing so I split up double plants and as I have checked on them throughout the week they appear to be thriving!

 Weeds are occurring but 10 minutes a day seems to be keeping them under control. Close proximity of the plantings as outlined in the "French technique" may be helping. 

Peas are doing amazing! Everyday I am directing a dozen new runners toward or through the chicken wire! Pole beans are also up and looking healthy showing about 3 inches of growth! What an absolute gift Saturday morning is after almost a week of straight rain!

14th - Sitting here Sunday morning sipping bitter black coffee and pecking away on my blackberry I can plainly see that with the rain pouring down it is doubtful I will be working in the garden today!

 Fortunately the lil man and I managed to get the short list of gardening tasks done yesterday morning. We had to re-plant several tomato plants as most had died after the transplanting last weekend! Used all but perhaps one final handful of the fertilizer that the old man had brought to try and help some of the struggling plants.

 It is important to note that next year I need to provide starters with better (higher quality) soil and be more careful in transitioning them to outdoor living.

Lil man helped to dig the holes and I popped in the new starters.

 I gave the lil man a leaf of spinach and he said ummmm yummy! Then we had an extended conversation about how we only eat outside things "approved" by Mommy and Daddy. Lil man then proceeded to tear a leaf off one of the red pepper plants and say "this ok to eat Daddy?"