Kelly Rossiter
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I completely embrace Sami's post yesterday about being okay with failures in the garden, and it looks like I'll be having a few of my own this year. Gardeners must be the most optimistic folks on the planet. Despite weather problems, insect problems and animals eating your plants, we still keep on year after year planting and nurturing in the hopes of eating the produce or enjoying the flowers. I still get ridiculously excited when I see seeds I planted sprouting up.
Vanessa from Green as a Thistle has been diligently weeding and watering the garden in my absence and generally speaking, the garden looks pretty good. We do have a couple of disasters on our hands, however. The green beans, which was a bumper crop for me last year were eaten right down to the stalk by some insect before they even had a chance to get established. I'm going to plant some more and see if we can get them past the infancy stage, and perhaps get some green beans before the snow flies.
My tomato plant looks like something has bored into the fruit and they are all mush. I'm just going to pull the plant out entirely and cut my losses. The four bell pepper plants I put in have disappeared entirely. My mother always blames rabbits when this happens in her garden, but I don't have any rabbits. Who knows what it was. The herbs which I planted into pots are about the same size as they were when I put them there. Perhaps the pots are too small, or perhaps they dry out too quickly. I can compare it to the sage I planted straight into the ground because it is a perennial, and it is doing extremely well. I think I might just put them in the soil now and hope for the best. All except for my cumin plant, which appears to have been stolen in it's entirety from the pot. We are in the 18th day of a garbage strike in Toronto, so perhaps some racoon needed a little seasoning on his garbage.
On the success side of the ledger, the zucchini has a number of buds on it and it looks healthy and happy. The kale is a new crop for me and it is doing very well. The cauliflower is growing nicely as are the squash and beets. The big crop this year will be peas and lettuce. Lots of peas and prosciutto at our house this season.
It might be a week early, but I'm going to take a bit of leaf lettuce with me to the cottage today and have my first salad from the garden. I got some magnificent French hazelnut oil from a tiny store in Paris and I'll drizzle that over the leaves with a sprinkle of French sea salt.
I was talking about my garden to my cousin yesterday, and she said why put in all that work growing vegetables when you can just go to the grocery and buy them? (This from a woman' who's family fortune came from a garden centre!) Well, I think there is great joy in gardening in general, but vegetable gardening in particular. When you love to cook as much as I do, there is something almost magical about preparing food that you have grown yourself.
Related Posts:
How Green is Your Garden?
How to Go Green: Gardening
Organic Gardening: Take it Easy on Yourself
Try a New Vegetable: Zucchini Blossoms
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