Giving Up

[digitS']

No, I'm not doing that. I said a few years ago that I have had 40 seasons of gardening, man and boy. I guess that's about right if I count the family gardens back home, on the farm. When we moved off the farm, I had my own garden .

I can remember as a young married guy, with a kid and new jobs -- allowing a few years pass without a garden. Moving a household here and there can also sure interfere with a gardener's preferred activities.

We seem all to have faced fairly serious weather problems the last few years. Here, it turned into Junuary instead of the warm month that I'd hoped for. This was after a record cold April and a May that was well into the bottom 10% for warmth. The worse hailstorm I've ever seen about a week ago, frequent rain and hail yesterday with wind gusts above 25mph and an afternoon high aaallll the way up to 54F has put quite a cap on the first half of this month!

Others are dealing with different conditions but if you'd take a walk thru my large veggie garden, where all the warm-season plants are - you'd say like I did, "Where's the green?!" It's 99.9% dirt with mere wisps of plants poking up often at tortured, windblown angles.

Oh, there's promise. After 40 years of looking at spring conditions in the garden - I can recognize promise. Besides, as a gardener, I've learned to thrive on promise. Almost as much as the harvest, the promise sustains me.

My salad garden, which is much what the other "little veggie garden" amounts to - has been more than just a promise. Green leaves of cool-season crops can grow thru a spring where the temperature has risen above 75 on a total of three (count them, 3) days. I'm real pleased how the potatoes look !

So, what keeps me from giving up? One thing is that diversity of crops? And, I have to admit, it really helps for me to have a diversity of conditions since I have gardens 3 locations, 4 if you count the little patch of ground in the backyard.

Also, I'm a bit competitive! Yeah, with gardens in so many places - I've got lots of neighbors! Whaaatt ?

How about you? Even if this hasn't been a difficult start to the gardening year - don't kid me!! If you have gardened any length of time at all, you have faced gardening problems that were darn near impossible.

Nah, I'm not giving up !

Steve

 

[RidgebackRanch]

Give up, Never!

Gardening in the west is and always will be a challenge. The weather rarely does what it is "supposed to do". When we moved to the eastern plains from the city, the first three years we would spend all day planting seeds and putting plants in only to be forced indoors by a nasty thunder storm that would literaly wipe out everything we did that day.

Then we would do it all over again and by the end of summer there was always plenty of something to eat that we grew.

My best advice is to take it as it comes and remember we are temporary guests on the rock.

 

[calendula]

One thing is that diversity of crops?

We made our garden way bigger this year so that we could plant more stuff. So, yeah, the pumpkins and squash don't look so hot this year...but, wow, our potatoes, radishes, lettuces, and beans are doing wonderfully! The more you plant, I suppose the better chance you have of something turning out right!

I'm not giving up either.

 

[vfem]

Steve, it is so crazy to hear about temps being so 'cool' still anywhere. I know it is in fact that way... but after being sunburned most days, and dripping sweat at 10 am because its already over 80 degrees out... still makes my eye brows go up to hear someone say they have rarely hit 75! You are a warrior my friend... a true gardening hero!

As you see, we've had extreme heat from early on in May. We jumped from unbelievably cool and wet, to unbelievably hot and dry. There was no transition. My cool weather veggies struggled and died early. I only got a couple weeks harvest from my spinach before it bolted and went bitter. Same with my salad greens. I got the warm weather crops in early, but ended up losing many tomatoes and peppers to the winds and had to replant late.

But I have cukes and squash coming out of my ears and my popcorn has tassels.... my tomatoes have little greem tom toms all over them (or at least the few first survivors do) so I just smile and say... "It's a good year!"

:tools

 

[lesa]

I often feel like I am in a war with mother nature! One thing I have learned, quite by accident- is to plant the same thing in several locations within the garden... Having separate gardens, like Steve, would be perfect!
I had twelve plants of the same type- I planted them in two different areas. Six of them are dead and gone- due to ant infestation. The other six, are great looking, huge plants! This system does not appeal to Dh's OCD- but I really think it gives you a chance to get things right...and make discoveries about the soil, and light in your garden. Does make rotation a little more difficult. No matter how difficult the weather, or the circumstances I will never "give up". Keep up the fight, everyone!! Happy Gardening!

 

[hangin'witthepeeps]

Well this is the 3rd thunder storm that has whipped through my garden. I actually had a large limb to fall this time in the garden. Nothing was damaged beyond repair, but it did finally convince my husband that the sweetgum needs to go. It's just in a bad spot and shades my garden too much.

What I learned this year,after a storm; zucchini will right itself, tomato plants do not like to be tied in high winds and do better caged. The tied tomatoes on my cattle panel may or may not make it. But my humongous cherry tomatoes in my beds with a small cage (they did flop over) was perfectly fine and I fixed the cage and installed a bamboo pole to help out.

I will never give up!!! I ate my first ripe cherry tomato yesterday. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to share, it was delicious and well worth the trouble, expense, and heartache.

 

[digitS']

. . . I ate my first ripe cherry tomato yesterday. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to share. . .

LOL

Yeah, I share my plants with the neighbors with gardens. Produce? Never! ('Cept those who don't have gardens . . )

I think there's a balance in most people. I am a "pleaser" . . . maybe. But, I have been known to sneak the 1st cherry tomato and not even share it with DW . . . There, confession is supposed to be good for the soul . .

The neighbors? There's little competition at one garden. Cripes! If I don't just start piling brush on it - I think I'm okay! Elsewhere, there is some competition as to who will mow the grass around his garden first, who does the best job at hiding his weeds, who displays his ripe tomatoes to the best advantage to catch the light and be seen from the right direction . . . etc.

I hadn't even realized that I'd put a "question mark" after that sentence, Calendula! What I was really doing was trying to get folks to realize that they just cannot put all their eggs in one basket. They cannot!

I am going to have a pea crop failure this year! I can't hardly believe it! I don't remember ever having this problem and usually have 400++ square feet devoted to this crop. I stopped at less than 400 square feet to assess what was going wrong. Then ripped out half of it! (Planted more tomatoes ! (Wow, talking about setting myself up for failure!)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder? This sort of thing can run in all directions, you know! "Guests on the rock" ~~ I like that! Helps to keep things in perspective!

Steve

 

[digitS']

Guests on The Rock:

How do you like my garden soil? LOL

from last year

digitS'

 

[digitS']

Garden Warrior:

LOL

digitS'

 

[lesa]

That pic is so funny, Steve. I know my little Japanese Chin sees a Great Dane, when he looks in the mirror! It is not how you look- it is how you feel! GRRRR!