I’m almost a bit reluctant to post this, to tell you the truth. The last few weeks of weather have not been kind–severe late afternoon thundershowers have kept everything a bit too drenched, though that’s really the least of it.  Last week a hail storm ripped through the city, and friend after friend was posting on Facebook about how their entire gardens were destroyed.

I didn’t get any hail at all.

I haven’t wanted to post anything about the garden because a)it seemed a bit in-your-face to those who have tatters left, and b) I felt like I was challenging the weather gods.

Well, I think enough time has passed and I’m hopeful that the worst of the storms are over.

The little grass circle around the plants looks awful.  We’re going to reseed it this fall and hope for the best.  Somehow, the grass seems perfectly willing to invade into garden space but has no interest in growing into the brown patches.

The corn is growing nicely, though shorter than I’d anticipated.  There’s two varieties–the tall ones to the back are a popcorn and the ones in the front are some usual yellow corn. Maybe I planted a compact variety? I can’t remember. It’s fun to see them finally tasseling and flowering! They were initially leaning far, far over so you can see where I constructed a little twine support for them.  I staked the ends of the rows and then pulled twine across the front and around the back of the stalks to hold them up while they grew.

Here’s how they looked 15 days ago. Kind of unbelievable how fast they grow:

The squash have taken over their little rectangle, as expected. Next year probably 2 mounds will be plenty. There’s even a few baby butternuts on the vine, safely nestled under the lilypad leaves.

We even have a few red tomatoes!

Here’s another one, growing tall:

If you compare this year’s plants to last year’s, you’ll notice that the tomato plants I had last year were complete monsters. This year I was diligent about picking out the suckers, and I think my plants are a lot healthier, though a bit less bushy, than they were last year.  I also had a lot of problems nearer the end of the season with fungus and aphids, and so far that hasn’t been an issue which I think is because the plants aren’t as crowded.  I’ve also been feeding them fish emulsion once a month to fertilize them. It’s a bit stinky, but the plants don’t seem to mind.

The pole beans and cucumbers don’t seem to be doing quite as well this year, and I’m not really sure why.  I planted both scarlet runners and purple pole beans around all 4 poles, hoping that they would snake their way up and create a profusion of color, but it hasn’t been all that great so far.  It may just be a bit early, or perhaps I didn’t water them enough initally.  And the cucumbers are languishing, though again I’m not entirely sure why.

We do have chard coming out of our ears and have been eating it at least twice a week, though you’d never know it by how big the plants are.  It still cracks me up that both kids love to eat chard, not knowing that they’re not supposed to. We’ve also been eating a bunch of carrots, almost too pretty to eat.

The peas are pretty much done and I got behind on the harvest so I let the remaining pods dry out and now have a handful of dried peas to throw into a soup. The cilantro also bolted fairly early as it usually does.  This year I realized that cilantro seed is coriander, and if I let my plants go to seed, could I possibly harvest coriander seed? The answer is yes, and the first seed that I plucked and broke open to sniff blew me away.  All of the other packaged coriander seed I’ve ever used tastes like cardboard compared to a fresh one.  I’m considering planting more of it next year–it draws a ton of bees to the garden and then I can collect the seeds as well.

The other thing I need to be better about is planting stuff in crops so that we’re not trying to finish 10 pounds of spinach in a week.  I say this every year and fail to be more organized about it, because it’s too hard to restrain myself from planting all the seeds at once, which I should just accept is the kind of gardener I am.

Next time–maybe more ripe tomatoes to show y’all?

The whole time I was in New York, I had quite a bit of anxiety about my garden. It was cold and gloomy in Denver, and I was worried that my little plants wouldn’t survive. As you know, I’d already planted too early. When I returned, the tomato plants were droopy and spotted. I began to panic. I hastily took off all the walls of water, convinced that they were making the plants too soggy.

I brought a few leaves into the local nursery. The two ladies at the “Plant Doctor” stand looked at me suspiciously. Both are older Caucasian women with close cropped, no-nonsense haircuts and expressions that show clear fatigue of idiot questions from novice gardeners such as myself. “When did you plant these?” one of them barked at me.

“Umm…two weeks ago…” I lied. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them I planted three weeks ago.

“Mmm-hmmm” they both said and nodded in unison. They reminded me of those Sesame Street aliens that go “Yipyipyipyip. Uh-huh. Uh-huh” “Ya planted too early. It’s STILL too early to plant.” (This was about 2 weeks ago) “Nighttime temperatures have to be over fifty degrees consistently to plant.”

“What about the walls of water I used?”

They gave each other a knowing look. “When did you set them out?”

“Ummm…” I tried to think of a good lie, but couldn’t. “Well, I just set them over the plants when I put them in.”

“Wrong!” She gave me a bug-eyed look. Now she sort of looked like Large Marge. “Ya need ta put ’em down a few weeks before to warm the soil.” This drubbing continued for a bit longer until, gardening ego battered, I retreated to my car. The last piece of useful advice was to keep picking off the spotted leaves and give the plants a few weeks more in the walls of water.

I went home, put the walls of water back on, and checked on the little plants every day. I also got an essential oil spray to help with aphids and powdery mildew which has always been a problem with my squash and cucumbers and gave everything a nice drink of fish emulsion, hoping to combat the nitrogen poor soil I’m told I have (also by the snooty plant ladies).

A few weeks later…and everything has survived with minimal casualties! I did lose an eggplant, sadly. As you can see, I mulched the plants with newspaper and then covered it with straw mostly so it didn’t look ugly.  It holds in place fairly well except when it gets very windy.

The peas have just exploded and we already ate a few!

The squash is coming up nicely, as is the watermelon. And the corn looks strong, though leans forward to get the sun. The cilantro and spinach already bolted and I’m going to let them go to seed and see if anything comes up in the fall.

The tomatoes are growing nicely, too, and seem to have recovered completely. See the little wooden stake next to the plant? That’s how big they were when we brought them home! And now look at them.

Take that, you snooty garden store “doctors,” you!

So the garden obituary was a little premature:

I’ve actually had to cut down the tomato plants several times because they were getting too big.  My wonderful neighbors, a couple in their 70s and avid gardeners, counseled me that my plants were putting too much into green growth and not enough into fruit, so I lopped off branches and branches.  And now look at them!

Nothing red yet, but there’s still time.  My neighbors tell me their tomatoes are slow to come in this year, too.

I couldn’t believe how much the cucumber grew in just two weeks.  It covers the trellis now!

July 15

July 29

And there’s flowers, carrots, and an eggplant just waiting to fruit.

I also love the deep purple color of these beans.  Apparently they cook up green just like regular ones.

The peas had done their job and were exceptionally delicious.  I’ve replanted in hopes of a fall harvest.  I also tried putting in some brussels sprouts seeds where the dead tomato plant was and have reseeded the center of the trellis with spinach.  The irrigation is a bit tough to manage with the new seeds.  I can’t just have them get drenched three times a week like the bigger plants, so I’ve capped off those drips and am hand watering daily until they sprout.  The bush beans in the front are almost done, too, and I plan on planting broccoli seed there.

A few things already for next year–I’m definitely putting in many many more peas.  They were so tasty but not enough.  I’m also going to buy larger plants for the things that take a longer time to grow.  And more lettuce–I’ve been harvesting once a week, but twice weekly would be better.  I’m going to try and plant cold-hardy plants to overwinter for early spring fruit once the tomatoes and cucumbers and such are gone and plant some other ground cover in the other areas to add organic material and to prevent having brown dirt all winter.  Another option would be to allow some of the fruit to fall and just mulch over it to see if anything comes up on its own in the spring.

Also, the pole beans are clearly not “trellis beans” but pole beans.  The plants sought out anything round and wound themselves around it and laughed at my attempts to train them along the horizontal trellis wires.

Hopefully there will be some red and yellow tomatoes in the next installment!