The leaves are turning varying shades of brown and are dropping one by one. I’m not referring to the oak trees that line my yard, but to my tomato plants. It’s that time of the year when summer’s bounty comes to an end. Summer’s bounty? I hardly think my harvest qualifies to be called a bounty. Here’s an accurate recap of my harvest: My cherry tomatoes were not so cheery; my peppers were only a little peppy; my zucchini zeroed-out; and my cukes went cuckoo. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a brown thumb, a dark chocolate brown one to be exact.
Every year I have this primal need to grow vegetables and live off the fat of the land. This year I went to great lengths and purchased Earth Boxes after seeing the glorious ads of luscious tomato plants growing skyward and after reading scores of testimonials from people reaping bushels worth of produce. I set the boxes on the south side of my yard so they would receive plenty of nice hot summer sun. Following the directions exactly, by adding fertilizer strips and attaching drip irrigation lines to the water tube, I had great expectations. As each little blossom of potential fruit developed, I marveled at the miracle of nature. Then disaster inevitably happened. Appearing like a light dusting of snow on the leaves of my plants, white flies came from out of nowhere and sucked the life juices from the besieged plants. Bees started avoiding my crops. Were my crops inhospitable? I was forced to perform cross pollination on my zucchini blossoms using a not so scientific looking elementary school paint brush. Large and lovely tomatoes would form to perfection only to have their beauty marred by the ugly brown spots of blossom end rot.
My sister-in-law and I were lamenting the other day about the failures of our summer vegetable gardens. The only tomato plant that had performed well for her was a neglected rogue volunteer in the corner of her yard. I recited my gardening woes to her and humorously said that my husband and I could not live off the fat of the land unless we could survive on rosemary, which is the only plant that seems to grow without any effort on our part. She laughed and suggested I write a post on 101 uses for rosemary. That’s a challenge for the future!
Here’s a photo that puts my gardening skills into perspective. Although, I was very appreciative of my pepper plant’s effort to produce something, it was certainly not on a grand scale, especially when compared to it’s market counterpart!
I’d love to hear your vegetable garden “success” stories!
[…] are helpful to novice gardeners and experienced ones, as well. For someone like me, who could not live off the fat of the land, every little bit of advice […]
[…] already documented in my post “Living Off the Fat of the Land” my inability to grow vegetables of any quantity and quality, I’ve decided to focus my […]