Last week, full-time wife Pat and I revisited the first-time garden (and the gardeners who try to keep the weeds at bay!) in our neighborhood. Reports and observation indicate that their garden was VERY productive, right up to the killer frost on the night of 07 September. Brian, Carrie, and Donna canned twenty-five quarts of green beans, and have eighteen large tomatoe plants hanging around indoors, with hopes the large number of greenish fruit will continue to ripen.
Good production was harvested from the rows of intensively-planted carrots, broccoli, potatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini, with a bunch of large, ripe squash (those last two alleged "edible" veggies are, of course, poisonous to folks with functioning taste buds 😉) to boot. Lessons learned for the 2021 garden include covering the plants with floating row cover (or light flannel sheets) when freezing temperatures threaten, increasing the amount of Spring-rototilled manure, better weed management, and planting fewer cucumber and zuchini starts. I mentioned to the now-seasoned gardeners (as I have to all garden club members) that this year's garden seed and plant start shortages will be repeated next year, due to increasing seed crop failures in both commercial and backyard operations - if you have a favorite veggie or fruit, this is a great time to order or at least pre-order those precious seeds and starts.
Here at Rancho McGinty, the early "mini-frosts" of 01 and 02 September, and the killer frost of 07 September (seems we have now have to plan for more and earlier frosts!) wiped out the squash vines, the corn stalks, and tomatoe bushes - Pat and I thought they were wiped out, anyway, as the plants have since come back to life, and are now producing replacement green leaves! I just left the "dead" plants in the ground, and I keep watering them in hopes of harvesting at least SOME ripe produce. Sigh.
I guess that's why we call it "gardening", and not "harvesting"?
jim.
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