“Why be influenced by another person when you already are one?” – Martin Mull
“There ain’t no rules around here! We’re trying to accomplish something!” Thomas Edison
“Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for.” – Earl Warren
“We had a quicksand box in our backyard. I was an only child, eventually.” -- Steven Wright
IN MY GARDEN
It’s been several months since I updated this section of my website, and I’m sorry for that. However, the reason for the delay is simple – I haven’t really done much gardening since early May, which means I haven’t had a lot to say. I’ve spent hundreds of hours in the garden since then, but very little of it has involved what I describe as gardening. Rather, it’s been all about maintenance.
So am I just splitting hairs here? Well maybe. But to me there’s a difference between sowing seeds, planting perennials, or harvesting potatoes (that’s gardening) and weeding, spreading mulch, or mowing the lawn (that’s maintenance).
August 2009
Of course, all of those activities involve being in the garden, which is a good thing, but clearly some of them are more enjoyable than others. However, the truth is that after spending ten years creating my nearly two-acre garden, it’s reached a point where it has to be maintained. And that’s what I spend the bulk of my time doing – maintaining.
Now don’t get me wrong. I still enjoy the maintenance chores…for the most part, anyway. And I accept the fact that they have to be done. But there are those days – a lot of them lately – when I would rather be just gardening.
I did have good intentions, however. I had planned to move a number of plants in May and create two new gardens in the process, but 22 straight days of rain put an end to that plan. Spring then abruptly turned to summer, with 14 straight days of temperatures above 100 degrees – hardly the ideal weather for transplanting (let alone planting) anything. About the only things that thrived during that period were the weeds and the mosquitoes.
But change is on the horizon. The weather is getting cooler, and now, with most of my maintenance chores behind me, I can look forward to gardening. Real gardening. So just what do I plan on doing?
Well first, I’m going to plant my fall veggie garden. My summer crops did well despite the heat, but most of them – beans, eggplant, melons, peppers, squash, and tomatoes -- are fading fast, so I’ll rip them out and sow seeds of carrots, lettuce, spinach, and a bunch
I’ll also move several of the plants I had hoped to move in spring, getting them in the ground several weeks before the first hard freeze so they have time to develop a good root system.
of other cool-season crops. With any luck, I’ll find transplants of broccoli, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, and cauliflower, all of which taste better when nipped by a light frost. And I’ll leave room for a large planting of garlic, which I’ll plant in November.
And I’ll…wait a minute. Why am I telling you what I will do? After all, in this section I’m supposed to be sharing with you all that I’ve done. So stay tuned, and I’ll keep you posted on my (gardening) progress.
Archive In My Garden
