This Year's Gardens: Chapter 10

Zinnia

Blogger friend Sam, who blogs at Sam Squared, recently had a post titled "End of Summer Juggle." I was so tired that when I saw the title, I read it as "End of Summer Jungle," and laughed at myself for mixing my garden thoughts with her summer thoughts.

Our Kitchen Garden IS a jungle. Between the cherry tomatoes gone wild, the cosmos gone wild, the agastache gone wild, and the zinnias gone wild, it is a thicket of stems and branches and bees and butterflies and even an occasional hummingbird. Earlier this week, I waded (the only verb that fits) into the thick of it, garden snips in hand, and cut a lot of tomato stems and branches off. Remember that scene in the movie Hook where one of the Lost Boys keep smoothing out the wrinkles on Peter Pan's face (played brilliantly by the late, great Robin Williams) and then announces, "Oh, there you are, Peter!" That's how I felt after some ten minutes: "Oh, there you are, garden!"

Late yesterday afternoon, Warren was in the dogleg of our backyard, where he had built a large storage shed for his business and for yard equipment like the tiller and mowers. As he and we continue to move into the next phase of our lives, he has been working in the shed to rearrange, cull through, and move various tools and materials. I came out to keep him company and sat there for some time, then announced I was getting my work gloves and be back. Five minutes later, I was taking apart the fence surrounding the Hej Garden. I realized several weeks ago that the time for me to operate this second garden, even though it is "right there," has come and gone. So slowly I unwound the fence and pulled up the support stakes.

Dave, whose yard contains that garden, came out and chatted a few minutes. I told him this was the last year I was gardening here; that Warren would till it later this fall and we'd seed it, but our gardening days were over. He nodded; they had gardened there the first year or two after they bought the house, but, as Dave noted, laughing, "with all of our activities, gardening, though enjoyable, was low on the priority list."

The site formerly known as the Hej Garden. 

So the Hej Garden is down and done. As a final fitting note, just know that the fat, happy groundhog who lives under a large brush pile on Adam and Maura's property just feet away from the north end of the Hej Garden breached the garden fence and ate BOTH of the remaining two red cabbages before I could cut them and make more slaw. 

The fencing that did not stop the groundhog

Even though I have been gardening for years, every year I learn new things about spacing and grouping, and this year was no exception. I am already making notes (both mental and actual) about next year's gardens, both vegetable and flower. The biggest change coming to the Kitchen Garden will be moving the agastache, which has flourished there, to the flower bed down near the pine trees, which we plan on expanding (all perennials). We love the agastache, but it takes up more room each year. Along with moving it out, I will not be sowing the kitchen garden with cosmos, but instead will sow the small bed immediately behind the house. Cosmos are beautiful and bright, but I want the room they take up. And, in a surprise to myself, it turns out that I love zinnias and will seed a row of them along the very back of the kitchen garden, against the outside garage wall. The ones I sowed this year were in a packet sent to my father from the Alzheimer's Association and the results were tall and colorful and made me smile.

As for next year's planting in the Kitchen Garden, I learned that I had been stunting the peppers' growth by having them too crowded and, wait for it, too shaded by the tomatoes all these years. This year, the peppers got the south side of the garden, and except for the two unfortunates closest to the cosmos/tomato jungle, the peppers have been having a pepper party!

Some of the peppers, ready for their closeup 

There should be weeks yet of tomatoes and peppers. The basil is growing beautifully still and while I am leaning towards letting it flower for the bees, I may do one more small harvest to dry the leaves for seasoning. My neighbor Mary was taken aback when I told her my plans to let it flower. "But it gets bitter then!" "But the bees love it," I replied, and I told her how I liked to think of the bees wintering over with their hive smelling like basil. Mary smiled; so that's why I was thinking that! 

Summer is winding down. But the bees and the flowers and the Kitchen Garden are still going strong. I look forward to seeing what the next month brings.