Or, the waiting is the hardest part. This happens every year, once all the prep work is done, and everything is planted, and all the seeds have sprouted. Just waiting. Waiting for the roots to settle in so the tops can start to grow. Waiting for a stretch of hot sunny days to tilt all the new growth towards lushness. Waiting for the first little flowers to promise eventual tomatoes and cucumbers and peas. Waiting to be fed from all my hard work. Waiting.
These are the days of obsessive coddling. The morning rounds, coffee in hand, checking for signs of growth, checking for pests, checking for malnutrition indicators. Catch trouble early – feed a little, water a lot, pinch out the tips, thin the seedlings, pick and squish the bugs. These are the days that ensure happy rewards later on. For now the garden gives up little in return for all that care, mostly leaves of one kind or another: spinach, baby lettuce and arugula, some cilantro. Garlic scapes this week. I have to remind myself that in another month I'll be scrambling to keep up with its bounty. But for now, just waiting.
Still, there's so much beauty and wonder. Sometimes I wander through just so I can admire nature's craftsmanship.
Cilantro and dill, mixed baby lettuces and arugula.
Butterhead lettuce.
Garden jewel.
Young cabbage; maturing garlic
(some of the stalks are more than an inch thick – I expect some monster heads).
Tiny fennel bulb; not so tiny hungry caterpillar
(black swallowtail – I'll gladly give up a few fennel fronds for him).
Wee little scallions.
Heirloom peaches started from seed.
Cucumbers, shelling peas, and beets.
The cucumbers and squash that I started in flats got waterlogged before they had a chance to sprout and germination was spotty. I gave those few plants to some friends and started more seed right in the garden. They're probably as far along now as the earlier ones, so no great loss. Also, I think they're healthier for not having to withstand transplanting.
The peppers and eggplant are taking their damn time settling in; a month after planting and they're only now starting to show some vigor. The tomatoes, on the other hand, have taken off and are growing an inch or more every day. I'd always caged my tomatoes, and let the side shoots ('suckers') grow and fruit in addition to the main stalk. But they always got overcrowded, and the lack of air circulation caused a lot of yellowed, wilty, fungus-y leaves. Last year, I tried staking instead – pinching off all the suckers and tethering the main stalk to a tall pole. The plants seemed much healthier, but I think I limited my yield – and the plants topped my 6-foot stakes in no time and started to fold over and drag the stakes down.
This year, I'm trying a hybridized system of staking and caging. The main stalk is tethered, but I'll let some of the suckers hang around and weave into the cages. We'll see how this works.
The last few years, I've been plagued by cutworms, which burrow just under the surface of the soil, coming out at night to chop down little seedlings at the base of their stems. Several sources recommended spraying with beneficial nematodes, which I did – and this year seem to be free of the bastards. And the nematodes control flea beetles, too...so no holey arugula! Also, slugs? I don't know why I waited so long to try Sluggo, but just look at this beautiful unslugged basil:
So tell me: how does your garden grow? What are your early successes (or frustrations)? What's your garden feeding you?
Do you remove some or ALL of the flowerless limbs on the tomatoes? The one thing I'm good at in gardening is "editing." I can prune, usually beautifully, without killing anything. (A rose was my teacher.)
Posted by: Tana Butler | 16 June 2012 at 16:38
Most of the flowerless limbs stay; I remove the lowest few, just so there are no leaves hanging in the ground. The suckers are the shoots that sprout out at the crook where each branch meets the main stalk. These are the side shoots that flower. Last year I removed all of them; this year I will be a careful judge of which to remove and which not.
This is all in regard to 'indeterminate' tomatoes, by the way, the ones that will just keep vining along. 'Determinate' tomatoes are more of a bush, and somewhat self-limiting. I have little experience with these.
Posted by: GG Mora | 16 June 2012 at 17:12
Tomatoes- I have always gone to a central stem, no suckers, on the wine grape theory that the right proportion of leaves to fruit yields best. May have been dealing with determinate tho. Lately I don't have the right place for them.
My pride this year was carrots and one butterhead that wintered over! One of the joys of Newport. Have been leaf harvesting the lettuce head, but time to pull it now. I harvested the carrots with Faye in February I think.
The missed opportunity was my rosemary BUSH (there's that vernacular again). Often I will gamble on wintering over; sometimes I win but rosemary will often get killed off here. This year I had a beauty going and I didn't want to risk it so I pulled it in and fed off it all winter. Then it got some kind of pest so I lost the whole thing. Out in the temperate chill it would have been fine!
Ah, but we all know the score when it comes to weather guessing.
Posted by: Peter | 17 June 2012 at 07:28
I always manage to kill off my rosemary. I keep some in a pot in the garden through the summer, then bring it indoors for the winter and find new ways of killing it each year. Last fall, I decided to try moving it to the root cellar. Ha! Thought I'd outsmarted myself, as it was healthy right through the holidays...then the humidity spiked and it got some kind of mold.
I also keep mint in a pot in the garden. I started doing this to avoid putting it in the ground and having it take over. At the end of its first season, I just plucked it out of the pot and chucked it an a compost pile...only to find it sprouting fresh growth in the spring. So I hacked off a piece and repotted it and, well now it's a vicious cycle of mint.
Posted by: GG Mora | 17 June 2012 at 08:10