Vegetable recap 2009
October 13th, 2009
Filed in Fruits, Veggies and Herbs
Tags: eggplants, lettuce, peppers, vegetable gardening, vegetables
Best laid plans. . .
If you read my blog posts early in the spring (around March/April), you saw that I was SUPER EXCITED to have my own vegetable garden again. My husband and I embarked on a gigantic re-purposing of our back landscape beds for vegetables. We put in edging, compost, and tons of veggie seeds. We moved perennials we liked and dumped soil over plants we didn’t like. We got some tomato seedlings from the farmer’s market and sowed squash seeds.
Early Spring
Early spring is great. We have lots of lettuce to eat. Lettuce coming out of our ears. The herbs start to come up and the tomatoes take off once the heat is to their liking. We eat radishes for days on end. All is well.
Early Summer
Early summer. June-ish. The leaves on the trees in the backyard and front yard start to fill in. Our re-purposed garden gets a bit shady for anything but lettuce. The Swiss chard persists in hanging on to the SAME THREE LEAVES for months at a time. The cilantro, radish and lettuce bolts. “Radish flowers are pretty,” I muse.
Mid Summer
We start harvesting a few peppers here and there. The eggplant flowers, but doesn’t fruit. Not enough sun, I think. The yellow pear tomato vines live up to their description and grow six feet in two weeks, all but strangling everything around them. I become a religious attender of my local farmer’s market, buying everything I need to eat for the week: bread, eggs, grass fed beef and chicken, and LOTS of vegetables and fruits.
Late Summer
My husband continues to pick yellow tomatoes by the bucket-full. The basil plants are enormous, and great for making tomato soup, fresh pasta, tomato onion gratin, and spaghetti sauce. I wish I liked pesto, but I don’t. I give up on the eggplants.
Fall
I’ve decided that next year, I’m letting the area truck farms and organic farms provide my vegetables. My garden is worn out. I’m worn out. I’d rather have pretty flowers to look at out my window next to my writing desk. Maybe I’ll try some self-watering patio containers with patio veggies.
Who am I kidding?
For all of my resolution to let the local farmers grow the veggies for me next year, I’ll probably churn up the ONE COMPLETELY SUNNY spot in my ENTIRE YARD that I’ve identified and make it a vegetable garden once the air warms up a bit. The strawberry farm had reasonably priced blueberry bushes this spring. . .
Next year, lettuce.
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