I think I last left the blog in the summer after helping to start the community garden in Stapleton, and as my garden at home was doing quite nicely. Unfortunately, the community garden pretty much tanked due to various reasons, and my gardening efforts at home had their ups and downs. My most beautiful plant this year was Pineapple Sage. I picked this seedling up at Gerardi’s one day and it turned into the most spectacular plant of the season. At least five feet tall and it bloomed and bloomed these beautiful red flowers up until mid-November. Virtually everything else in my garden was wilted and dead by then except for this glorious plant which seemed to thrive as the weather got cooler. And it made a lovely pineapple flavored tea, bath tonic, and cooking spice. I’m sorry I didn’t get around to drying any leaves. I half expected it to never die; but then one day, sadly, the frost finally got to it.
The seed catalogs have been arriving in the mailbox and in the spirit of the new year and regrowth and regeneration, I couldn’t help myself but order a whole mess of seeds. I am hoping to do a more ornamental edible garden next year. Nothing crazy this time, just more diversified beds rather than beds with a single crop each. It has become increasingly evident that we cannot grow enough food to sustain our family throughout the entire year. At least, not with full time jobs, and a kid, and the house construction, and dreams of making art. Trying to be a full time farmer on top of everything else almost broke me this year. I decided that in order to sustain my sanity, we have to be moderate in what we try to do. I can grow what I can, and what I can enjoy, and try to do my best to supplement our diet with somewhat decent choices at the lame grocery stores on the island. But I digress.
Last year I experimented with some wacky tomato trellises, one of which I had planned to wear but disastrously did not account for the weight of dirt once you apply water to it. The rounded arch that we built out of embroidery hoops and bamboo was also unsuccessful because the water just drained right out of it and I ended up with dry, dry plants that produced little edible fruit. Apparently on both projects I forgot the age old sculptors rule, “gravity sucks.” But I still like my trellis and think it is pretty. Perhaps I will just grow vining plants up it this year. Peas, or some of the purple pole beans I just ordered.
Other gardening efforts that were less than successful last summer: the squashes succumbed to some kind of fungus, the cabbages were eaten by some sort of beetle, and the tomatoes cross pollinated with each other and I got a mish-mash-brandywine-wild cherry-old Virginia hybrid that was ok but not great.
On the other hand, peas were spectacular, as were green beans and broccoli. I even got quite a few habanero and jalapeno peppers which I haven’t had much luck with in the past. I tried carrots in containers this year and they were much better than the ones I had planted in-ground the year before. Also, now that everything else has died, I am noticing that there is an nice onion patch still there that I had forgotten about. I don’t know if I should dig them up or just leave them till spring. I think it is ok to leave them in the ground. I'm sure it is frozen solid at this point anyway.
So with the new year, starts the new blog, and hopefully a new, more positive outlook on my part. Stay tuned next time for news of our ongoing construction projects inside. And trust me, if my gardening projects last year were disappointing, wait till you see the mess we have made in the house!
0 comments:
Post a Comment