Back in May, I planted a vegetable garden. You may remember. It was quite the horticultural event. It involved fence building and weather mapping and harvest planning… I had to buy a shovel.
In June I updated you with pictures of cute little squash and cucumber plants, tomato plants in neat boxes, some peppers, and some strawberry plants in an old wine barrel. It was all very sunny and tidy, like in a children’s book about gardening. We released lady bugs at dusk a few days after that post, and toasted our achievement with organic wine. (Not my favorite, I have to admit.) We went to bed with visions of the salads to come dancing in our heads. (I had to turn on the nightlight. Dancing salads are scary.)
Now it’s August, and there are three things I can say for certain about our garden…
First, it is no longer tidy. It’s pretty wild out there, plants spilling over their borders, reaching over the garden fence, spreading over other plants. Despite the fact that I followed the planting instructions, the cucumbers and squash are clearly engaged in a land war, the watermelon plant is creeping along the garden floor like fog, and the arugula looks like a meadow. (It’s prettier than I thought it would be!)
Summer squash defending itself against invading cucumbers
Watermelon (sans actual melons)
Arugula jungle
Second, our garden reminds me of when I make dinner. My problem with making dinner (as opposed to, say, a cheesecake or sandwich) is that there are all these different dishes that are supposed to get done at the same time. To accomplish that, you have to stagger your starts, plan for your prep time, calculate cook times… The kitchen is a magical place and I don’t know how to make it work.
The garden is like that too. We have four tomato plants taller than I am. They are beautiful. There are no actual tomatoes. By contrast the cucumber plants are producing more cucumbers than we can eat, or feed to our friends, or hand out to innocent passers by. We’ve got a watermelon plant with no melons (not even anything that looks like it might grow up to be a melon), but we’ve got crazy amounts of arugula.
Third, the garden is pretty cool. I show everyone that comes over. I’m like a little kid. “Look what I did!” I say, and I tell them about the ladybugs and how the peppers still have to turn red, and how we’ve been experimenting with squash blossoms. I ask them if they want any cucumbers, and that’s usually when The Boy comes down from upstairs to rescue his friends. “Mom,” he says, “they’re here to shoot aliens, not stare at your garden.” And just before he takes them inside, he tosses me a benevolent smile and says, by way of explanation, “Sorry. We’re teenagers.”
And I figure that’s his way of telling me my garden is super cool.
Wild
Judy,
As often happens when I’m around your wisdom, you have inspired a post for me.
I was visualizing you touring teens through your garden while they delightedly enjoyed your cuteness and enthusiasm. It reminded me of the time I toured two Japanese businessmen through my perrenial garden. They walked with me for twenty minutes tasting and smelling different blossoms and herbs while I described things to them at 90 miles a minute…only to find out AS THEY WERE LEAVING that neither spoke a word of English…..but they did smile the whole time…
:0)
Karen, I LOVE inspiring things! A tour of my garden takes about twelve seconds (better suited to teenage attention spans than to Japanese businessmen). But here’s what I love. You say, “I toured two Japanese businessmen” as if everyone does that with their garden. Holy cow, what?!
They were in Ohio to attend a business meeting and a group of us were taking them to an Indians game….
We were carpooling and had some time to kill until everybody arrived.
It wasn’t like they flew in just to see my garden.
:0)
Usually my garden tours consisted of teachers and kids from the local elementary school where I was know as the “bug lady.”
But I got garden clubs and a lot of seniors touring on a weekly basis.
The garden I had took seventeen years to grow and it was AWESOME….a blissful place to be in….
j – awesome garden – good for you! as for the boy… i know he’s probably too old for a lemonade stand but perhaps a cucumber stand to produce some spending cash (and if that works out I want pictures).
Gosh Judy, how tall are those tomato plants? I don’t know how tall you are, but even if you’re only four feet tall, those are some awfully tall tomato plants.
How long have you been growing a garden? My wife started one last year and she had the same problem with the cucumbers. So many to eat or give away! We don’t have that problem this year though because a rabbit ate the tops of the cucumber plants when they were still infants. :( And no, we don’t want you to send us any! :)
Karen, “the bug lady” conjures up so many images! Seventeen years. Okay. That puts everything into perspective.
Peggi, I’m sure The Boy will give a cucumber stand all the careful consideration it deserves! ;-)
Craig, Just started in May. I’m surprised by how big the plants are. Not many critters wander into our yard. Lexi is a deterrent. She even harasses birds trying to use the bird bath.
As always… you make me miss our old garden and wish for a new one!
Your garden looks great, they’ll stop being at war with each other if you try to make them each a fence like string to climb on/along. Probably, no guarantees though, haven’t had a garden in quite some time. But anyway, it’s a sing they like it there so keep up the good work!
And lastly, it seems like your garden loses vs aliens. But I’m sure if it were zombies, your plants would win :P (sorry, too much similar to that game (which I haven’t played in a month now… maybe I’m growing it out as we type))
“It’s pretty wild out there, plants spilling over their borders, reaching over the garden fence, spreading over other plants.” —- YEP, I bet Robert Frost was looking at his own garden of squash and cucumbers, trying to come to grips with the ideals respect, responsibility and accountability in mankind, as he was writing the lines about good fences!
I’m happy to take any garden veggie donations. :) and I’m not a fan of organic wine wither… it’s just not right.
lovely garden – and excellent blog title today. :-)
last year, i accidentally grew cucumbers bigger than my cat, so i didn’t plant any this year. maybe you & the boy can learn to make pickles? (important note: pick the cucumbers before they’re bigger than lexi or you’ll have trouble finding a pickling jar.)
my watermelon is doing the same thing! i suspect it’ll have melons in october and i’ll be painting them orange and carving them for halloween!
thanks for sharing. :-)
ok, jb, please put that into perspective, how big is your cat?
Karen :0)
karen – good follow-up question, as always. he was a big, strong guy. not sure how long he was – but he weighed 13 lbs….
Estrella, We actually did use bamboo and string to try to guide the plants upward, but they’re heading up and out in equal proportions! … The aliens win, huh? I guess that makes since. They’ve got the spaceships and the cool laser guns, right?
Bobby, If my neighbors were more like my garden, they’d all taste fresh and be good for me. (Wait…)
jb, A cucumber bigger than Lexi would truly be a scary thing. (But it might win me some ribbons at the country fair!)
Oops, Teresa, didn’t see you in there! You are close enough for me to drive on over! Be careful what you wish for!
Lovely post. Lovely pictures. Your garden is jamming. (I am so late to your blog party lately, I need to step it up!)
I loved this post! The writing was as much fun as seeing your pics. Love your sweet but zany sense of humor ;~D
And I adored that hearing someone out there has the same timing issues that I do with cooking. I used to find it highly stressful for just that reason. Now that I’ve mellowed out in other ways, timing the dinner doesn’t stress me out but it does bore me. I’m too prone to burn things cuz I’d rather be reading my email while a dish is “simmering” (darn, wish I was better at judging simmer on a gas stove – LOL).
But, like you with the cheesecakes, if it’s something *I* have decided I’d like to produce in the kitchen, I can summon a more respectable attention span. Nightly dinner is not of that ilk.
That’s funny about trying to give away the cucumbers. Perhaps you could start a Saturday stall at the Farmer’s Market, selling cucumbers and preview copies of your novel. Your enthusiasm is bound to make you an instant hit!
P.S. You should not be in the least dismayed with your untamed veggie garden. Just the fact that you have one, and that you put in the time and nous to learn how to create one, is huge in my books!
Incidentally, I looked up ‘nous’ before posting to make sure I wasn’t about to gaffe.
In Australia it’s a slang word meaning “smarts.” Imagine my surprise when I found this:
nous (nōōs, nous)
n.
Philosophy:
Reason and knowledge as opposed to sense perception.
The rational part of the individual human soul.
The principle of the cosmic mind or soul responsible for the rational order of the cosmos.
In Stoicism, the equivalent of Logos.
In Neo-Platonism, the image of the absolute good, containing the cosmos of intelligible beings.
To my relief, dictionary. com also included:
Chiefly British : Good sense; shrewdness.
“Hillela had the nous to take up with the General when he was on the up-and-up again” (Nadine Gordimer).
Nevertheless, it will never be quite in context until you hear an Aussie use that word in the flow of conversation. But consider yourself complimented. ;~)
Terre, Thank you! All I need are some hummingbirds!
Milli, I loved your comments ! I’d feel complimented no matter which definition we choose! (For the record, I like hearing Aussies say almost anything!)