The Dirt Under My Fingernails Report.
Summer blew through here like an express train barrels through a small town crossing.
Our days filled with activity but not many moments of reflection. So between now and the official start of fall — Wednesday, September 23 — I’ll reflect on wisdom learned from the bullet train that was Summer 2015.
What I gleaned from my garden this summer.
Gardens need rain to produce.
Though rain pours in abundance now, our summer broiled hot and dry. A promising start to my tomatoes dried up. Same with my squash.
You need tomatoes to can tomatoes. Or
Don’t count your canned tomatoes before they grow.
Last summer the tomatoes were prolific. Remembering all my tomatoes, I ordered a canner this year. I determined to “put stuff up” in jars on shelves and not in bags hiding in my freezer like some weak imitation 1940s Home Ec major.
Pooh. My canner remained unopened up in the attic with canner written in black Sharpie on the top because I’ll never remember what is in that cardboard box.
I created a new breed of tomato. The Dr. Seuss Hybrid
Look at this.
I’m house sitting this crazy guy for a friend who couldn’t cram him in her suitcase to Sierra Leone. A wee guy when I first got him, I noticed that after an area produced tomatoes the leaves turned black. Kimmee, my BRF, said of the new plant last April, “Oh just give it some water and fertilizer and it will be okay.” And I guess it’s been okay but odd.
Maybe it just misses it’s mother. Who’s to know?
See, it’s producing.
Drier weather, hotter pepper.
I had a fellow working around the house and after sampling one straight from the garden he said, “Why didn’t you warn me those peppers were hot?”
I looked at him. “They are jalepenos. What did you think?”
He said that at the restaurant where he works, they aren’t as potent.
I put three pickled slices on my hot dog the other night and the inside of my lip burned for hours. So there must be something to this dry weather, hotter pepper notion.
5. Pumpkins
It’s been on my garden to-do list since I’ve had a garden. Grow some pumpkins for our porch in fall.
I took seeds. Put them in containers (with dirt).
And.
And now . . .
No pumpkins yet but closer than I’ve ever been.
So I got that going for me.
And that’s what I learned.
Tomatoes can be mediocre some years even after spending money on a canner.
I can lose half of my okra before realizing it’s a grasshopper and not the drought that is killing them.
Jalapeños’ heat can increase with lots of dry heat.
Bees do sting you. Two stings in five minutes. After years of thinking my garden’s bees were too busy working over the plants to work over me, they got me good one Sunday afternoon.
It’s still worth battling the rabbits to get sunflowers past the sproutling point.
Favorite time of year to pull in the driveway. #sunflowers pic.twitter.com/0fCNvZwWa8
— Jamie Miles (@SouthMainMuse) June 30, 2015
Some years a garden can be relaxed.
Or should I say the gardener can be relaxed.
And things still turn for the good.
Just four tomato hornworms managed to decimate my tomato plants in an afternoon. Not that I had any plans of canning because I just don’t have any place to store canned tomatoes.
As for peppers, I grew four varieties this year. Poblanos that my mom started for me, along with Chili, Jalapeno, and regular bell peppers that I bought. So I have no idea what I actually got, but I did not get any of the last three varieties.
Next year my mom says she is starting all of our peppers. Yay!
I agree. There is such satisfaction in starting your own from seed. This year I used seed for my butterbeans (small limas) and they are doing well. And my pumpkins. Your peppers are bearing too? And you are so farther north. Maybe you get more sunlight, longer days. It takes me till August every year before I see any real production from my peppers. I’ve only got one bell pepper (fruit) that is still tiny.
Hmmm. What’s with that tomato??? It was such a cute squatty thing that I thought it was going to turn out to be a tiny cherry tomato.
None of my volunteers made it past the April (or was it May?) freeze.
I have mint, oregano, parsley, and cilantro. And that’s about it for the Absent Gardner Garden.
Also, did you see the beaver got my lilac!?
Still limited to my pot herb garden (no that ‘s not what I’m growing) The butterflies stayed away this year so I’ve had a good supply of parsley; the mint remains strong and the oregano is taking off – may pull some and dry it. And the chives are chivin’. But my basil – my poor basil – it cooked and baked until it was all dead. Or so I thought, until I pulled it up out of the pot and there’s some runners with new leaves appearing. So the basil got a crew cut and back in the dirt.
I’ve got another pot now, trying to decide what will live there. Peppers sound tempting.
A beaver? Is he big enough for coat? Maybe you ought to set a trap? I know Jani. The tomato is quite the poser. But it’s produced tomatoes the whole time.
Peppers work well in pots from my experience. And I’d never grown dill before but did this year for my pickles. So I was introduced to the butterfly/caterpillar mowing through all my dill. I regularly cut my basil way back. I don’t make pesto much or anything to keep up with how much it grows. Once it starts flowering I cut it down.
I loved your “dirt under my fingernails fall report.” I don’t garden, other than some petunias and vincas, but the best gardeners I know, who usually have all kinds of fruits and veggies to share, got zip this year. Nothing made it to harvest.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
I know Jerralea. I think of the true farmers who do this for their livelihood. And also how last century so many depended on their home gardens for food to can for the winter.
[…] In an earlier post, I mentioned propagating pumpkin vines from seed. […]