« things you may or may not know about me | Main | Sometimes I am really, really lame. »
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
The garden: RIP.
Cami (who is, I just realized, my very oldest* Internet friend -- in fact, she was the first person I ever met on the Internet. I have no idea why it took me twelve years to fully grasp this fact) asked me about the garden. In short: The garden died.
*Not that Cami is old, of course. Is there a good way to word this concept? "My internet friend of longest duration" sounds terribly awkward.
But wait! It was supposed to die! That's right, I, me, Rachel of the Black Thumbs, actually maintained a garden from seedlings to first frost. Well, not all of a garden. There were those beans that looked really cute and amazing when they first sprouted but then they never did anything. And, um, the broccoli, which I planted at the wrong time of year and finally gave up watering sometime in June. And then the corn went and got corn smut, and it hadn't been doing too fabulously before that either, so we didn't eat any of our corn this year. (Really, really small ears. Definitely doing a different corn variety next year.) And there were those squash plants that the gophers demolished, but not until after we'd at least had some squash from them... and the watermelons that never got bigger than footballs... and the winter squash that, shall we say, underperformed. But really, the fact that I even noticed that a frost had happened and killed what was left in there is kind of amazing. With past gardens (really, just corn and tomato patches), by October the stuff had long since died of neglect or at the hands (hoofs? teeth?) of the neighborhood deer gangs and I didn't notice when the frost came along to finish it off. This time I had tomatoes and peppers and a few squash hanging in there right until the very end. I even did a last-minute frosty-morning harvest of the bell peppers, which I then chopped up and froze for use in spaghetti during the winter.
So I would say that Garden 2008 was a minor success, and definitely a huge learning experience. Next year, DEFINITELY more compost, even if I have to (sigh) buy the stuff. You apparently need a whole lot of compost if you're going to use it effectively in a good-sized garden. It's shocking, really. I have compost on my Christmas list. That's how determined I am.
I'm thinking of trying onions over the winter, just for kicks, but my main goals for the fall (between now and the onset of the wimpy drizzle that passes for a rainy season in California) are: to get all the plant remains mulched, mix that and our measly supply of compost in with the top of the soil, toss in some worms, and cover the whole thing with spread-out newspapers and then wood chips, in hopes of getting some nutrients into the soil by spring. If there are any gardeny types who've just read that and either laughed out loud or recoiled in horror at the shuddery wrongness of it, please please comment and tell me what I should really be doing because honestly I don't have a clue.
Comments
One of these days, I will garden too. Maybe.
It froze so hard overnight that there is ice all over everything outside! Yuck.
Posted by: Beck at October 22, 2008 07:14 AM
It sounds like you did an awesome job for your first time with this particular garden plot. Now you remind me of Emily, in I forget-which-book, going through the seed catalogs and dreaming of next year. Fun.
This is odd but you had a killing frost before we did! It's coming soon, though.
Posted by: mary at October 22, 2008 09:00 AM
Awwwwwww
My name in a post! my name in a post!
And my birthday isn't even until Friday!
I will be entering my 4th decade this year, my students swear that I don't "look that old, even if I am ..... " one very wise child said, "miss, you only look 21" - of course, they will recieve an A for manners!
Posted by: Cami at October 22, 2008 09:01 PM
In my little space-aged Jetsons' hydroponic garden, we actually got a bunch of eensy tiny tomatoes but the peppers never fruited. Unfortunately midway through one of the light bulbs burned out and the company won't ship us a new one. (They can't ship seeds abroad - I think my brother probably broke a few laws when sending us the whole setup - so they won't ship anything, even inorganics like bulbs.)
Maybe for Christmas you could ask for a composting *toilet* - maker you own and add an extra bathroom, all at once. (I'm only partly joking, especially given CA's perennial water issues.)
Posted by: dichroic at October 22, 2008 10:11 PM
