The Post-vacation Garden

Tomatoes reaching for the sky.

Toward the end of my week-long vacation, people started saying things like, “Are you missing your garden?” “Are you looking forward to getting back to your garden?” “Are you excited to see how your garden is doing?”  The truth is, I was sort of dreading it.

I remembered the last time I left for a whole week, two years ago, and returned to find that a wilderness of weeds had completely usurped my garden while I was away. It was so bad that we were prompted to go out and buy a machete.

So I was mostly interested to see what had gotten away from me. The answer is: not too much, actually. It was hot the week I was gone, but it also rained a half inch, so my husband’s lackadaisical approach to watering (“Did you show me three outlets for the drip system? I could only find two…”) wasn’t a problem.

The peppers had suddenly come to life and they grew nicely in their supports. The tomatoes went wild and escaped their cages, some branches lying on the ground, so that was a bit of a mess. However, I might have mentioned that I’m really tired of tomato drama– I’ll do what I can for them, but they need to just figure it out and either produce or die. I can’t be babying them the way they’d like and I’m so sorry it’s hot and humid, but really, get over it. I’d like salsa and tomato salad and even to can some, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m not going to beat myself up about it.

The cucumbers didn’t have me around to show them how a trellis works, but I lifted the vines and threaded them through the jute and they seem to be getting the concept now.

The summer squash is growing slowly. I’m so excited about the zephyr squash: yellow with a green bulb on the end. I have been picking the babies, thinking maybe that will encourage even more blossoming. This morning the blossoms were filled with ants and even some bees, so I know pollination is happening at a good pace.

The weeds were, yes, not really deterred by my efforts before I left. And there are hoppers on the potatoes and plants near them (beans in one area, cucumbers in another). But they don’t seem to be doing as much damage as last year– the potatoes are in full flower and seem really happy…

… except that I planted them too close to the onions so had to pull up a row today. I can’t tell if their stems fell down because they’re done growing or if they were pushed down by the potato foliage (which was pushed to their side by the hilling as well). The onions are small, but that’s fine. Onions are by far the cheapest plant and so reliable, and chopping up two small ones is no worse than chopping one medium one.

Garlic, on the other hand, is the most expensive plant in the garden. I really couldn’t tell what was going on with the garlic– it’s smaller than last year, but my seed garlic was also kind of randomly acquired and smaller. Unlike previous years where it has gotten the distinctive “one brown leaf” saying it’s time to harvest, this year the foliage is kind of brown on the tips and maybe also at the bottom…  What I don’t want is for the heads to over-ripen, because then they won’t keep. So today I harvested most of it– small but compact and beautiful heads. And I’ve already started using it in dishes this week.