End of June Garden Update

I have not written about my gardens since early June, when tilling the second garden exhausted me. With June about to end, I thought an update was in order, especially since we have gone digital on the photography front and I can now show off some of the results.

The tomatoes are going great guns. I have caged some, I have staked some, I have more yet to stake.Everywhere I look, there are yellow blossoms. By August, I should be awash in tomatoes. I plan on canning some, as well as freezing some (an idea I first read about in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and tried successfully last year), but most of all I plan on eating lots fresh off the vine, which is my idea of a perfect meal.

Bonus: Warren does not like fresh tomatoes, so I don't even have to think about being polite and sharing.

The peppers continue to lag, although recently they have shown some mild interest in growing again. Lag behind? I have blossoms setting on a pepper plant that is less than 6" high. I had such high hopes for the peppers; my hopes are pretty battered at this date. The biggest plants are the plain old green bell peppers that my dad brought over. I don't mind bell peppers, but I had so hoped for Purple Beauties, Sweet Chocolates, and mighty King of the North. (Not Munchkin Delight, which is apparently what I planted instead.)

The broccoli is tall and showing no signs of doing anything except looking beautiful. (Warren,

whose parents gardened, told me the broccoli will come. We'll see.) I have had to clip some leaves here and there because they were overshadowing everything around them. Broccoli is pretty though right after a rain.

The artichokes are racing the calendar; artichokes are slow to mature in this part of the country and it will be nip and tuck to see if they bear anything before the weather turns cold. Close by, the eggplant also has showed signs of being interested in growing. I don't remember which plants are which, so I will have to see what comes of them.

All around the rim of the first garden are herbs. I did not start the herbs inside; I just threw the seeds - all of them - in the herb "containers" made from filling the center inserts of the concrete blocks that edge this garden. While preparing dinner last night, I walked out the back door with a pair of scissors cut the first cilantro, basil, and oregano of the season. I have never grown herbs before and was just about knocked over by the sharp fragrances that rose up as I cut. I can see that herbs are seriously addictive just for the scent alone.

The second garden, my first year "sod garden," is at the back of the lot where it get soggy when it rains. And it has been raining this summer. I found out after the fact that pumpkins don't particularly like to be soggy, but they came up all the same. I have two rows of zucchini seedlings, which at this stage look just like pumpkin seedlings, and five (yes, five!) rows of pumpkin seedlings, which at this stage look just like zucchini seedlings. I am banking on a lot of pumpkins, and hope I am not disappointed. There is also a short row of potatoes, solely because Scott from two houses down had seedling potatoes from a friend of his that he could not plant as his yard is ruled by a walnut tree. I don't know a thing about potatoes, but these seem to be doing fine.

This has been a learning year for me and I have been keeping notes. Note: Start the pepper seedling earlier next year. I think February and not March should do it. Note: When starting seedlings, one seed per pot really does work. It saves me having to separate the seedlings later.

Note: Weeding is weeding is weeding. It lasts all summer. I supposed if I mulched, that would cut down on the weeds, but I could not even think of mulching until the peppers got more than an inch high lest I lose them in the mulch. So I just weed. It is hot, tiring, aching work but there is the payoff of a cold shower afterwards.

Besides, it turns out I like weeding. I thought I would hate it, but it reminds me of swimming laps (which I do regularly): you fall into a rhythm and just go along lost in the movement until you look up and the garden is done (kinda, sorta).

I find my mind untangling and unknotting while I weed. I am not only turning soil but turning thoughts. Like the plants, my thoughts stand a little straighter and are a little more defined after a good workout in the garden.

Voltaire wrote "il faut cultiver nos jardins" (we must cultivate our gardens). I am cultivating both this summer: the figurative and the literal, the dreams and the plants, the one within and the one without.