How My Garden Grows

Terrie, Terrie, quite ordinary,

How does your garden grow?

With beets and beans and lettuce greens

And cucumbers all in a row.

My tomatoes look dreadful and I don't know why.

This time of year, I love how every meal preparation involves stepping out to my garden for something. Given the skyrocketing food prices and the decrease in our household income this year, I thought it prudent to jam-pack my little garden with vegetables and keep my flower budget to zero. I took the geranium I’d barely kept alive indoors over the winter, divided it into three pots, and said, “God bless you.”

My resurrected geranium. Where there's life, there's hope.

Then my son gave me a lovely potted calla lily for Mother’s Day.

Then my sister-in-law gave me twenty bucks as a hostess gift, saying “Get yourself some flowers.” I bought a pot with a beautiful red/white/purple combination.

Then my friend gave me a gorgeous coral impatiens plant.

Then another friend gave me a pretty pot of pale purple calibrachoas.

I know, I’m spoiled.

Meanwhile, the geranium I thought I’d killed began showing delicate signs of life in all three pots. By the time they amount to anything, summer may be over, and it’ll be time to take them indoors for another winter. But still.

I also have three perennials faithfully doing their bit: daylilies, hydrangeas, and sedum.

All that to say, my “no flower” summer has turned into just enough flowers to bring joy to my soul and to demand their fair share of attention.

As for the vegetables, our cold wet spring made for a slow beginning. I planted the first week of June and finally harvested our first picking of lettuce on July first. By the next day, you couldn’t tell I’d picked at all. My spinach has been rather disappointing and the carrots even more so. Will they suddenly take of?

Zucchini is quickly taking over. I’m using them in stir-fries and salads and hope to freeze some for baked treats and soups.

Green beans showed up next, and I hope to harvest plenty for eating and even more for the freezer, but we’ll see. I planted way too many cucumbers, then thinned them to half. I should thin them to half again, but don’t have the heart. I’d love to harvest enough dill pickle-sized cukes at once to fill several jars, though. Most years, I save a week’s worth of pickings only to fill two or three jars. My last blood pressure check said I should avoid salt, so hubby will eat the pickles. Do you suppose I can make enough for his work-day sandwiches for a whole year?

 

 

Which brings me to the dill. I planted some new seeds in case last year’s didn’t come up voluntarily. It did.

I’ve got lots of beets, too. I throw the greens in salads until it’s time to pull up the root. We enjoy eating those cooked as a side dish, plus I always put several bags of beets in the freezer to use in borscht come winter.

Of course, can you even call it a garden if it doesn’t include tomatoes? I planted six this year. It’s already August and I’m still looking forward to biting into my first toasted tomato sandwich. Something to look forward to, I guess.

I hope you’re enjoying your own or someone else’s fresh garden produce this summer.