Garden Update: July

Dead basil...so much dead basil...

Sometimes it is good to concentrate on one thing.  If we focus hard enough we can block out the noise and worry that burdens our movements most of the time.  Of course we return the noise. We can't help ourselves because it is in the air wherever we go. However, the rest we find while homing in on a pleasurable task can be just what we need to sustain us in our return.  That may actually be the crux of the project I am on.  Hiking, music, writing and preaching all require concentration at a level that draws the detritus away.  Each word, each note, and each step is a puzzle that requires attention.  Gardening can be like that, too.  Which is good, because I am not as successful at reaping the more obvious rewards.

It has been a while since I updated you on the small parsonage garden.  I have been working on it regularly.  Sometimes the work takes a couple hours.  More often it is just a few minutes.  Up until the heat wave, I have been drinking my morning coffee and answering emails by the raised beds while it is still cool.  These days I have to get my miles in while I can, so garden visiting has to wait until the hot midday.  The fact is, though, I am learning something new each day.  Some of those lessons, though, are harder than others...

Ewwwww...

Potatoes: Lets start with a mixed bag, shall we?  I planted two types of potatoes.  This was more than I needed but I was curious about them. Some of my ancestors were Irish and potatoes loom large in their history.  I myself grew up in the potato growing state of Maine and lived there as an adult. Potatoes have a special status in a Mainer's heart.  After all, we eat way more spuds than lobster.

One variety--Irish Cobbler--was a disaster.  They had scab and a little rot.  The yield was also low.  Strangely their neighbors--all Northland Red--were excellent!  I don't know why one type succeeded and the other failed but for the first time in my illustrious gardening career...I took a note of it and will get reds in the future. If I feel the need for whites next year I will try Kennebecs...because Maine.

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My new Cubanelles...with one yellow squash in the upper right.

Cucumbers: I did not take a picture of the cucumber plant.  It is a bushing variety that I got in order to save space and labor. A couple of weeks ago they started to look really bad...or at least some of them did.  My first move was to water them religiously.  However, they didn't get any better.  A consult with my sister-in-law Hanne (who is a professional vegetable farmer, among other things) revealed that they had something called "bacterial wilt."   I ended up pulling four plants, leaving me two relatively healthy ones.

Peppers: I now have a ton of pepper plants and very few peppers to show for them.  I started with a variety including Jedi, shishito, and those round hot ones we used to get at Italian restaurants.  Now that the potatoes are gone, I have added cubanelles and one bell pepper.  In the heat of summer, maybe peppers will require less work.

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Tomatoes: ​At least these are going OK.  I got a hardy bushing variety.  I have no idea how they taste but they live!  I spent a little time with these early on, removing early flowers so that strength could go to the plant.  Now there are many, many unripe tomatoes that hopefully will survive long enough for me to eat.  I am told that the critters don't molest nightshades as often.  I hope that is true. I love tomatoes.

Herbs: You see that dead basil at the top?  There is more where that came from.  However, other plants in the herb garden are doing well.  Rosemary, lavender, sage, thyme, oregano, mint, chives, and fennel are all thriving.  I also have a small volunteer dill plant that would have been used for pickling if the cuke yield was substantially higher.  The two "characters" in the herb bed are a stevia plant that I don't know what to do with and some strawberries that I apparently use to distract the local rabbits.

Finally, there are flowers.  I keep mine in pots so that the veg has enough space to expand.  This year I planted a number of different types but--thanks to the British program "Gardeners' World"--I went in big for Dahlias.  They are outrageous and I may have found a new thing to take a deep-dive on this winter when everything is bleak.  I bought three common varieties and inter-planted with Gazanias, which are similarly hardy.  The effect is perfect for morning coffee contemplation and I usually end that time of day by deadheading those three pots.  Yes I play favorites.

Next year I will order some more of both and of different types.  The Gazania tray I picked up promised a variety but really were just the attractive yellow ones in the picture.  I never thought of myself as a flower person.  They seem so impractical.  This year, though, their impractical beauty has been just what I needed at the beginning of many days.

So that is where I am now.  I may add something more if the cucumbers finally fail and if there is an herb I would like to establish where the poor basil used to be.  Carrots maybe?  It feels late for them.  I may just expand the greens section, which is rather cramped but produces plenty of arugula and micro-kale to make salads interesting.

​I did also add one yellow squash.  A couple of nights ago I had--I think for the first time in my adult life--a zucchini dish that I liked and considered planting one. Sadly I couldn't find anything at the garden store, hence the compromise-squash.  Many of the shops are transitioning to other things now and we are stuck with the seedlings that are left.  Still, I needn't have worried about the zucchini.  The neighbors have way too many and gave us a couple.  We probably don't need more than one plant in the neighborhood.

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