Not Such a Good Year

Having retired now, Brombeere has wanted to do more in the yard, particularly with the garden.  So earlier this year we bought our own rototiller and a few days later I tilled up half the garden space.  That was an adventure all its own.  But, in any case, we were off to a good start.  

Later that same day, Brombeere came out and did some planting.

Mostly, that day, she planted her tomatoes; she really likes fresh tomatoes.  She did plant some other stuff, some beans right next to them.  The beans were planted from seeds.

Brombeere had heard about using cardboard to keep the weeds down so, since we had a bunch laying around, she laid some of that out around her tomatoes in the hopes it would help.  And then, to keep the cardboard in place, she laid out some wood "cookies" we had, on top of the cardboard.  The thinking was the cardboard would eventually decompose into the ground anyway so it wasn't a lot of extra work.  And if it did keep the weeds down that would be a good thing.

The next week I got the tiller out again and did the rest of the garden space.  I like this tiller, its much easier to use that the one we rented last year. 

So, at that point, the whole garden space was tilled and ready for planting.

Brombeere also decided to plant the space right next to the garage with garden vegetables instead of the ornamental plants that had been there before.  So by the garage she planted a different variety of tomatoes she got from Blaubeere.  

We normally have waited until after Memorial Day to put in a garden in those years we've planted one.  That is because there often is a frost late into May.  This year was no exception.  All these plants Brombeere had planted, she'd done in mid-May.  

Then, sure enough, just before Memorial Day weekend, there were several nights of low temperatures, a couple cold enough that we covered everything we'd planted, just to be on the safe side.

It paid off, the frost came and went and everything we'd planted survived.  We had also done some work on the plumbing at the house so that our outside taps worked better, making it much easier to water the garden. We were off to a great start.

By the tomatoes, Brombeere planted some beans and onions.  No squash or pumpkins this year. I was a little surprised because Brombeere really likes zucchini and summer squash, and I like butternut and acorn squash.  We've grown it in the past but not this year.  

Then, one day in June, Blaubeere and her kids came over and helped us with a lot of garden work.  That was fun.  

That was fun.  They worked not only in the garden, planting herbs, but also with some other work around the yard.  Her boys helped trim several trees near the garden, in the hopes of letting a little more sunshine get to the garden.  They also helped put in a decorative space under the trees near the garden.  

So summer progressed and the tomatoes grew.  Soon they were blooming out and things were looking pretty promising.

Both in the garden out back and along the side of the garage.  At this point it was hard to tell the difference between the new varieties of tomatoes from Blaubeere and the regular ones in the garden. But it was fun to see them growing.

Brombeere also planted a bunch of marigolds along the edge of the garden, by the tomatoes.  That's supposed to help keep out bugs.  Marigolds have long been one of my favorite flowers, they're so easy to have around.

After a while the little green tomatoes began turning red.

There were lots of red tomatoes growing on all those vines.

For as promising as it had looked during early and mid-summer, we didn't get a whole lot of stuff out of the garden this year.  We got quite a few tomatoes, both the normal ones and the ones from Blaubeere, but not as many as we had hoped for.  The beans didn't do anything, which was real surprising.  We only got a few onions, much less than we had expected, considering how many starts Brombeere had planted.  Blaubeere had given us some chives, which probably did better than anything we planted, we got lots of them.  She also gave us some basil and rosemary, which did okay, but not as well as the chives.

The end of our summer was pretty busy, including a trip to Hawaii for a wedding and another trip out west shortly after the wedding.  Despite being one of the warmer Octobers on record, we were gone a lot and not here to look after the garden much.  But by then it was evident that the garden was pretty much done anyway.

Then it cooled off fast in late October and early November and frost put an end to the garden.

When I was talking with Brombere a day or two ago, about how her garden had done this year, she commented that we would have been just as well off to have made several more trips to the local farmers market, or one of several vegetable stands that spring up around here every late summer and fall.  That might have been true this year, given how disappointing the garden produced this time.  But Brombeere still derives a lot of enjoyment from working in the yard.  And while buying fresh produce from the farmers market or a vegetable stand is certainly less work, there's a lot to be said for the satisfaction of having stuff you've grown yourself on your dinner table.  We did have fresh tomatoes and lots of chives and other herbs in our salads this summer.  It was good.  So we'll write off this summer and likely give it another shot next summer.  It's a work of faith and hope, and yummy deliciousness when it works out well.