A big part of gardening is learning to deal with failures. You hope that at least a few more things will go right than wrong. This season, that has been the case. I learned a lot last year, so that helped, but some things you can't always plan for. Here are the latest rights and wrongs from the garden (emphasis on the rights):
Success: peppers that went straight from the vine to tonight's dinner. Failure: the small pepper on the right was supposed to be red but never turned after over three weeks of waiting so we picked it anyway and it tasted like...nothing. The plant itself had stunted growth because it started flowering too early. I'm actually impressed that it produced anything at all.
Success: the gretel eggplant has about six eggplants growing from it now, and is still flowering!
Success: the purple beauty has two large, healthy eggplants almost ready to be picked. Such a step up from my Japanese eggplant last year which produced one tiny, shriveled, unedible eggplant.
Success: the brandywine currently has fourteen green tomatoes growing on it! I haven't counted any of the other varieties, but they are doing similarly well.
Failure: a storm this week completely
uprooted the 0nly three sunflowers which made it all the way to the early blooming stages. I was heartbroken when I saw them. There is a problem with soil erosion in this part of the yard (it slopes down slightly) so I think that caused them to be planted at a shallower depth than originally intended. I dug holes for them and got them upright, but the roots were too damaged and they wilted later that day. The large zinnia on the left was in the same situation and it has apparently recovered after my replanting it, much to my surprise.
Success: lots of beautiful cone flowers. I love watching the bees land on them.
Success: the past few days' tomato harvests have looked a bit like this. No larger tomatoes yet, but they are on the verge of ripening. In the meantime, this makes for a delicious snack.
Failure: The storms have been doing a number on the tomatoes as well. After every storm (about one per week) we assess the damage and upright what we can, but some of the branches have to be cut off. Luckily the tomato crop is still going to be very large.
Success: fifteen zinnias and counting. I'm just waiting for a yellow or red one, though! Those are my favorites. So far, mostly pinks and oranges.
Success: peppers that went straight from the vine to tonight's dinner. Failure: the small pepper on the right was supposed to be red but never turned after over three weeks of waiting so we picked it anyway and it tasted like...nothing. The plant itself had stunted growth because it started flowering too early. I'm actually impressed that it produced anything at all.
Success: the gretel eggplant has about six eggplants growing from it now, and is still flowering!
Success: the purple beauty has two large, healthy eggplants almost ready to be picked. Such a step up from my Japanese eggplant last year which produced one tiny, shriveled, unedible eggplant.
Success: the brandywine currently has fourteen green tomatoes growing on it! I haven't counted any of the other varieties, but they are doing similarly well.
Failure: a storm this week completely uprooted the 0nly three sunflowers which made it all the way to the early blooming stages. I was heartbroken when I saw them. There is a problem with soil erosion in this part of the yard (it slopes down slightly) so I think that caused them to be planted at a shallower depth than originally intended. I dug holes for them and got them upright, but the roots were too damaged and they wilted later that day. The large zinnia on the left was in the same situation and it has apparently recovered after my replanting it, much to my surprise.
Success: lots of beautiful cone flowers. I love watching the bees land on them.
Success: the past few days' tomato harvests have looked a bit like this. No larger tomatoes yet, but they are on the verge of ripening. In the meantime, this makes for a delicious snack.
Failure: The storms have been doing a number on the tomatoes as well. After every storm (about one per week) we assess the damage and upright what we can, but some of the branches have to be cut off. Luckily the tomato crop is still going to be very large.
Success: fifteen zinnias and counting. I'm just waiting for a yellow or red one, though! Those are my favorites. So far, mostly pinks and oranges.
2 comments:
woo!!!
Thanks, Natalie! You are a gardening inspiration. :)
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