7 Nov
Oh Mother Nature, why do you hurt me so?
My garden has been flourishing all summer long. I have been staring at corn stalks taller than me, tomato plants dotted with red ripe tomatoes, full ripening squash laying under their large shady leaves, all of it, just waiting to be eaten. I’m fairly patient, and honestly with gardening, you have to be patient. I was waiting for the day that I would walk out to my garden and say “today’s the day to pick all of this stuff”. Unfortunately Mother Nature had a different plan for all that lovely food.
Things were looking great!
I was in the midst of preparing for a much needed vacation to Tennessee. My husband and I had never been on a trip together that didn’t involve visiting family either in Florida or Maryland. It was nice to be preparing for a trip solely based on enjoying the pleasure of each others company while nestled into the side of a mountain. Just like any woman I know, vacation means new clothes. I needed some shorts and some new shirts so I could enjoy my trip a little bit more, right? I went shopping one afternoon and was literally in the store for about an hour. While leaving the store I received a phone call from my husband, asking me “What the hell happened over at the house!” I had no clue what he was talking about, and proceeded to question him. Hail, downed limbs, dented siding, ripped gutters, trashed garden! I suddenly didn’t really care about the downed limbs and dented siding, I had worked so hard on that garden that I suddenly felt like someone dropped my vase in ceramics class. I was heartbroken. I sped home to survey the damage. It looked like a tornado hit our lot, and only our lot. We probably have the most trees on the street, so every time its winds or we have a bad storm, you can see the destruction and despair over at our house, it’s usually a hot foliage mess.
All of my tomato plants had been knocked over, which wasn’t a big deal; I just propped them back up and placed their stakes back into the ground. My pepper plants had holes in their leaves; there was nothing I could do about that, they would repair themselves. My squash looked ok, but honestly you would have to set squash plants on fire to ruin them, or so I thought. My potatoes were about the same, their greenery had wilted away months ago, and they were simply sitting in the ground, waiting to be eaten. My beans and sunflowers were all limp and sad looking, like they needed a hug, and I proceeded to stroke their leaves and talk to them, because that’s how I roll. My corn on the other hand, that was a sad sight, they were all wind beaten, leaned over to one side, like someone ran them over with a truck, and most of the stalks had bends and kinks in them that were about to break. All of this happened the day before we left for vacation. I really had little work to do in the garden, I could only prop the plants back up, and hope for the best. My poor husband on the other hand had to borrow a bigger chain saw from our neighbor, since the limbs that were down in our yard we bigger then our house. We spent the entire evening cleaning up the yard, when I should have been packing.
The Garden was not happy, not happy at all…
Our trip to Tennessee was awesome, we stayed in a wonderful cabin with two of our best friends, another married couple that we know from before Justin and I really were even thinking about marriage. We spent time in the mountains, went hiking, went shopping, enjoyed the scenery. I took a lot of tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, peppers, and squash with me, so I wouldn’t have to buy any of that stuff while I was there. The week flew by, as it always does, and we were on our way back to Maryland before I knew it. My only indication of time was judged on how much I missed my dog, and I missed her a lot.
In the Smoky Mountain National Park
Upon returning home it took me a few days to get out to my garden and see how things had progressed. My dad had come over and watered while I was gone, so everything looked pretty good upon first inspection. I picked the ripe tomatoes, peppers, and green beans. I began to notice that the leaves of my squash and pumpkin plants were looking a big brown, so I headed over to that side of the garden. Looking at one of my pumpkins I noticed a little white bug crawling up the stem of the plant, leading me to a view of all of his thousands of brothers and sisters. Insert screaming and MF-ing here, because that’s what I proceeded to do for about 5 minutes. I had squash bugs! They were killing my squash and pumpkin plants, and as someone who avoids putting chemicals on their food, I couldn’t do anything about it, other then rip everything out and hope they died. I pulled all my squash plants, and all my pumpkin plants, covered the garden in a natural pest control powder and hoped for the best. As I was finishing cleaning up the mess that had been made by pulling out the bug covered plants, I noticed these little squash bugs crawling up out of my potato plants. I refused to lose my 30 potato plants to some hungry squash bugs, so at 8 o’clock on a Monday night, my husband and I dug up 40 feet of potato plants, we filled an entire 15 gallon Rubber maid bin with potatoes.
The Damage Done…
Squash bugs….aka JERKS!
When you dig up potatoes that you don’t plan to eat within the next 3 hours, don’t wash them. Potatoes shouldn’t be washed until you are about to prepare them for your meal. Instead leave the dirt on the potato, store them in an area that his cool in temperature and wont expose them to too much moisture or light, and keep an eye on things. If you notice a potato with some soft spots or a rotten area, get rid of it as soon as you see it. That one rotten potato could ruin the entire crop. FYI-mine are in the Rubber maid bin, with the lid no totally sealed onto the top to allow for some air flow, sitting on my kitchen floor.
The Bounty
HUGE!!
DINNER!!!
I’ve noticed now that my plants are in full swing, I really just keep an eye on them, check for weird bugs, trim out of control branches, and pull weeds when I see them. I’m into the maintenance section of gardening, so honestly it’s a little boring. The exciting thing now is the food that you make with your harvest.
I went out and purchased a food dehydrator from Target a week ago. I have been drying my herbs that have been growing since spring; once they are dry I grind them up in my food processor and put them in jars so I won’t have to by a lot of spices for a long time. I have Basil, Oregano, Thyme, Sage, Rosemary, Parsley, and I even dried hot red peppers and made that into a powder too, so I have hot red pepper powder as well. Spices are pricey, but seeds for all of these plants are ridiculously cheap. I think I will probably grow more of them next year so I won’t have to buy spices at all. I also made marinara sauce from all my spices and my tomatoes and peppers. I canned the tomato sauce on a Monday evening, which took about 3 hours all together. I have 10 jars of homemade tomato sauce that can be stored either in my basement or pantry for years. I also pickled jalapeño peppers from the garden.
My main goal for gardening is to sustain myself on that food, I enjoy the fact that I grew, cared for, and processed a lot of the food that I put into my body, I know where it came from, who touched it, and what was NOT sprayed on it. It’s a peace of mind that I worked hard for in the early spring months.
According to my husband, I’m still not allowed to get chickens, or a cow, but we’ll see how long he sticks to that.
Posted by Emily on 07.11.08 at 8:23 pm
Hmmm. . .
I guess I am pretty lucky, my husband wants me to have chickens, ducks, a cow, rabbits, and a pig or two! I also have a lovely amount of space for a garden; however, we also get those discouraging hailstorms. Marble-sized, usually accompanied by 2″ of rain in an hour! It does make gardening difficult. Good luck next year! (Or this winter, if you do cold frames.)
Posted by Lori on 07.11.08 at 8:23 pm
What an adventure! Yeah, my husband is also rather set against chickens. He says they had some when he was a kid and they were just dumb and stinky. Personally, I just don’t think they were being cared for right. But they can be such a boon to a garden! Sigh. Well, we’ll see.