Giving Up

[SweetMissDaisy]

My GOODNESS!! Glad everyone is safe.
Maybe your tomatoes got a little energy from the bolt!
Or maybe just a little incentive to do better, OR ELSE!!

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

It was very scary, I had never seen lightening hit the ground before. No smoke or burnt spots, just a hole in the ground around the t-post. I'll have to get pictures of the trampoline. I'm still finding springs in odd places, lol.

The bolt hit the family garden some 500 feet from my house.

ETA: You can barely make out the swing set in my avatar. It's over my mules rump, the slide is beige. It is now farther to the left of the picture and the slide is broken.

 

[Southern Gardener]

Yikes! I'm glad everyone is ok. The forecast shows rain tomorrow and Wednesday - maybe thunderstorms, hopefully no lightening.

 

[momofdrew]

It was very scary, I had never seen lightening hit the ground before. No smoke or burnt spots, just a hole in the ground around the t-post. I'll have to get pictures of the trampoline. I'm still finding springs in odd places, lol.

The bolt hit the family garden some 500 feet from my house.

ETA: You can barely make out the swing set in my avatar. It's over my mules rump, the slide is beige. It is now farther to the left of the picture and the slide is broken.

the only positive thing from all that is the free nitrogen that lightening gives you...
wow you are so lucky no one was hurt...where was the mule through all of that???

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

Suzy now lives with a friend of mine. He has trained her to pull a wagon. She is a beautiful mule, she was just too big for me. She probably weighs about 1800 pounds. All muscle and just beautiful.

 

[digitS']

I didn't give up!

The diversity really did help! It was a long salad start to the season. The potatoes - great! I have 2 more plants to dig out of the 200sqft patch of ground. Total so far: 190 pounds.

And the warm-season crops? The plants were stunted . . . then in August, it began to finally warm up! August was actually warmer than it had been in the previous 5 years. People around here were afraid to comment on it! Afraid that we'd go back to miserable, substandard temperatures. The warm-season plants took off !

Right now, I've got 2 boxes, 2 large baskets and 2 small baskets of tomatoes in my kitchen!!! Flower set finally began to occur with the beefsteaks about the end of July & they are ripening. The pepper plants have been kicking out fruit for 3 weeks with no end in sight! The sweet corn began to ripen and will continue! Of course, frost could happen at any time . . .

We have now moved out of a late season surge in warmth. A few records were set for afternoon highs but there are sprinkles this morning with wind forecast over the next 24 hours and that will blow away all this warmth. I have no idea what next week will bring. When the hours of darkness begin to equal the hours of daylight, 40 temperature swings are normal. Without cloud cover, a pleasantly warm afternoon here will be followed by a freezing cold morning. Still, there looks to be a good chance that not only will my garden's summer warmth have stayed ahead of Jackson Hole, Wyoming but may actually top Devil's Lake, North Dakota!! I'll let you know .

As your temperatures and precipitation have risen to record heights or fallen to record lows, I hope you haven't given up on gardening. Others have Fall & Winter gardening! (I even have my lingering beds of greens & lettuce .) Some, have 1 short season where plants grow, or they don't. But, gardens are annual experiences that may respond to the seasons but know nothing of Gregorian, Islamic, Chinese, or Hebrew calendars. A leap in growth has nothing to do with a Leap Year!

I hope your next gardening season leaps into growth but if it doesn't, don't give up .

Steve

 

[Carol Dee]

Thanks for the words of encouragement It was a strange year for so many. And just when I thought we might get a bumper crop of tomatoes and peppers the tobacco horn worm population exploded! My goodness they can do a LOT of damage in a short time. Hungry little buggers.

 

[momofdrew]

Well as I predicted back in July all my tomatoes have ripened in a very short time...my peppers actually started producing in mid augus...and the beans have been slow but seem to be catching up... have been scrambling to get everything canned or frozen...Fall has suddenly arrived this morning after a very rainy muggy evening... I had the AC on yesterday and have a sweatshirt on today...ahhh New England just wait it'll change in a bit... EAstern NH hasnt had a frost yet...but West and north of here has...no matter what the year brings by November I will be checking out the on line catalogs and by Christmas they will be arriving in the mail and I will be making a wish list...Give up NEVER...Next year promises to be better...or maybe the year after that...

 

[digitS']

I didn't give up!

. . . there looks to be a good chance that not only will my garden's summer warmth have stayed ahead of Jackson Hole, Wyoming but may actually top Devil's Lake, North Dakota!! I'll let you know . . . Steve

Another month has passed and . . . we DID top Devils Lake, North Dakota!! By less than 1/2% of the total but . . . Hey!

Most of the communities in Wyoming stayed ahead of us but WY had a very warm year. And, we had a little very warm weather at the end of September coming down the stretch! I mean, it could have frosted before we even got to that. Sad to say but for some of the area's gardeners, it did frost before those record daily highs :/.

I had lots of tomatoes and quite a few peppers ! They mostly came with a rush very late.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

Well Steve, as much as I sometimes think I want to give up, it's a passing thing, usually fueled by some temporary frustration.

This fall I told my husband I didn't want to grow tomatoes next year. This year was so disappointing, and when you weigh all the babying and pampering and anxiety of starting from seed, not to mention the elapsed time to a ripe fruit, ( 6 months here! ) it just made me tired to think I did all that for a handful of vine ripened fruit.

But what's a garden without tomatoes? And if you can't grow a tomato can you call yourself a gardener?

So, I caught myself flipping through a few old catalogs looking at the tomato section.

It's really impossible to give up I guess.