Lessons from my garden

We have worked hard to keep our individual and family identities in place since Anna's initial diagnosis.  In addition to being a wife, mom, daughter, and friend, I am also a gardener.  One of the purposes of this blog in the past has been to be my gardening journal.  I can often look to posts from summers past to remind myself of lessons I learned.

So excuse me for boring you with facts about our garden, but here are my lessons from the growing season 2014.

* The extreme cold of last winter did not damage our peach and plum trees, but it froze the buds; we missed the peaches and plums.

* Waiting 6 years for the first apples from the honeycrisp tree was worth it.  Not only are the apples deliciously sweet, but they are huge!

* It is possible to keep ahead of those nasty invasive fruit flies that lay eggs in the raspberries and make them all magotty.  As with anything in life these days, it takes a lot of diligence.  However, the two or more cups of fresh raspberries that we picked every day made the hard work worth it.

* No matter how precious the time may seem in the spring, make the extra effort to drive across town to buy good, quality sweet corn seeds.  Otherwise, those rows of corn will end up taking up good garden space and no one will want to eat the corn.

* No one missed the carrots this year; no need to plant them in the future.

* We missed the beets this year; plant them when time allows.

* We need a better way to support our cherry tomato plants; the current method requires too many yoga poses for harvesting.

* Next year try planting some green beans as pole beans to harvest throughout the summer.  The bush variety is good for mass harvesting and freezing, but the pole beans might produce more consistently throughout the season.

* Next year definitely try growing sweet potatoes, and cut back on the butternut squash.  This year was not the year to attempt anything new, but since everyone in the family likes sweet potatoes better than squash, we might as well try it.

 * Get on the ball and plant the broccoli seeds for the fall crop the week before the 4th of July.  Also make sure they have plenty of sun; even planting the seedlings on the north side of the squash gave them too much shade.

* Our garden soil has become much more productive since we have been improving it with manure, compost, and leaves.  As such, I now know that 14 tomato plants is more than enough, even in a year that they get the blight; 3 rows of white potatoes is too much; and 4 rows of bush green beans is also plenty.


 Thanks for humoring me.