This sure was quite a year to choose to document my garden with all of you. I'm beginning to think that titling these "Growing Food" is a bit misleading of me, since the actual amount of food out there is pretty pathetic.
I did harvest a few things yesterday, though. Five tiny carrots that didn't have any foliage left on top, ditto one beet the size of a golf ball, and a hot pepper that had been on the plant my neighbor gave me and was all that was left on that plant once the grasshoppers were done with it.
The grasshoppers are completing the destruction begun by the harlequin beetles, cucumber beetles, and hail. They are eating everything. Even the perennials. A. has resorted to spraying pesticide in our garden, which we have never done, just to keep the asparagus and rhubarb alive for next year.
I actually had a semi-ripe tomoto on one of the bigger plants that was protected enough by foliage it survived the hail storm.
Oddly, the one thing they haven't touched is the watermelon vines A. planted on a whim this year. And of course, that's the thing we are least likely to get an actual harvest from.
It's pretty grim, I gotta say.
At this point, I'm just trying to keep as many weeds from setting seeds as I can* and get the perennials through until next year.
Next year is the hope of all gardeners. Especially when this year has been so wretched.
* Of course the weeds are flourishing. That is always the way.
6 comments:
So sorry--I know how much you depend on growing your own food! Mary in MN
I have been studying galinsoga, which foragers find to be edible. It originates in Peru. Ergo, I am wondering if guinea pigs thrive on galinsoga. I pull it and pull it and clearly have enough to feed a hundred guinea pigs. Such an amusing thought! From 2 hills of cucumbers I harvested 19 cucumbers todsy. I do NOT want to make pickles but may be forced to do so. Mil
I guess we will see now another side of gardening.....gardening from food boxes that come to you online or is that offline.
More meat dried beans, dried everything, oatmeal....you may have to switch the title or just go with gardening through the mail. I know you will come up with something. ;)
I know, grow lights in a shed and shelf gardening. Lettuce....you will come up with something.
Put a little stove out there to heat with wood or around your cochina el fresco.
In spite of spending a boatload of money on special mulch, special fertilizer, and special deer repellent, this year has been no better than previous years in trying to grow vegetables. So, I feel your pain! I am so very thankful for farmers (and that my dad didn't "have room" in his farm for me to join him in that very difficult and uncertain profession, and instead I found my own difficult and uncertain profession. (Central California Artist from FG)
Ug, I'm sorry. :(
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