A Late-Blooming Garden
I saw a vegetable stand yesterday that was filled with pumpkins and watermelon — you know, late summer and fall items from the garden. I thought of our garden at home and I chuckled to myself.
You see, our small garden is a late bloomer. I got started a little late and planted three tomato plants (one Early Girl, on Big Boy, and one Grape) two pan squash (I thought that there was one plant in the pot, but instead there were two!) and two green people plants. There was some hope that this year would be better than last, where we got about two tomatoes and one little green pepper.
And, for most of the summer, our hopes were dashed. Our plants would grow and we would get buds, and that’s it. Last year we had a lot of green tomatoes that never turned red and it looked like the same thing happening again. We got one green pepper, one tomato out of our Early Girl, and them some squash.
Then the August rains came. It’s unusual to have this much rain in August, but since it didn’t rain at all in June, I guess it evens out. And our garden has taken off. Gina pulled some pan squash out, including a giant one. And quite a few grape tomatoes and said that many green tomatoes are coming. When I checked the garden last night, I saw our Big Boy plant as almost taken over the whole little plot. And it has some nice sized green tomatoes. And two green peppers are coming in!
I think the composting worked. The small place in our garden area was where the compost pile was. When I turned it this spring, I put it on the other side of the garden and worked what was left in that place in the ground. It is still a late-bloomer, I think because of the lack of rain in June, the little attention in July (we were gone all the time) but monsoons we have had this August helped it catch up.
Next year I place on spacing things out a little more. And, maybe, add a couple more plants. But this late-blooming stuff is very weird. I wasn’t that late in putting in the garden. I blame the lack of rain for stunting things off. And I can’t explain why we have a decent crop of green peppers — everyone says they are the easiest thing to grow and yet I get excited when I have two.
Well, I’m happy for some fresh produce anyway. Maybe this is just practice for next years . . . .
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