Failing Garden Journal: Fall 2015 to Spring 2016

I am a year late posting this, but I thought I'd put it up anyway now that it doesn't make me cry anymore. Something about a phoenix rising from the ashes? Whatever. 

This was supposed to be a post about my fall garden, but the word "fail" seemed more appropriate given my lack of gardening prowess and the fact that it is already winter. So here are the particulars of the journey since the devastation of August...

It was a hot September afternoon and I was watering the garden in my bathing suit when I felt a pinch on my thigh and looked down to see what looked like a bark chip. I swatted it with a gloved hand and the little sucker wouldn't come off. Full panic ensued, which is probably why I can't remember what it looked like except that it resembled a bark chip. There are lots and lots of bark chips in my backyard, so this has made gardening less of a joy. It did eventually come off, but it left me a little afraid of bark chips and swelled to the size of a dinner plate. An itchy dinner plate. I'm not sure yet, but I have considered the possibility that I was implanted with alien DNA. Only time will tell. I thought about posting a picture with this, but it wasn't very flattering. 

I had a small "harvest" of a few random miniature things. A watermelon the size of a golf ball, butternut squash the size of a tennis ball, and a giant pumpkin that wouldn't even pass for a soccer ball. Sad days, but I'm trying to laugh. The itsy-bitsy watermelon even contained mature seeds... I must be really bad at this!

Popcorn ears the size of strawberries and my "giant" pumpkin

itsy bitsy butternut squash

All I can say is, if I depended on my gardening skills to eat, I'd be dead. I think about Cuba's two year struggle to grow food after the fall of the USSR (which Cuba had formerly relied on for food) and shudder for them. My family wouldn't have made it. If my area is hit with a catastrophic event, I am not under the illusion that with a bag of seeds and some dirt I will feed my family. 

I can learn from my mistakes, it's just that there are so many!!

I planted kale and collards twice already this fall, once from seed and once from seedlings I purchased. Nothing can survive the birds. 

I planted kale and collards twice already this fall, once from seed and once from seedlings I purchased. Nothing can survive the birds.

These cute little shelling peas need to be planted, but the birds ate all of the last group. I am too afraid to plant them. They need a home...

A pleasant surprise. Maybe the birds don't like cauliflower!

Fava beans. I rarely eat them, but they're supposed to be good for the soil.

All things cabbage-y, and a borage plant that grew in a potted tomato. I couldn't bear to kill it.

But the best thing for me right now, the thing that warms my heart, is that the potato plants I killed last year all came back! Somehow, this year I will keep them alive. Experts recommend food and water, and here's hoping I can manage that. 

This is better than Christmas. This is a potato resurrection, and it makes me smile.

Maybe by spring this will be a legitimate potato tower. It. Could. Happen!

And in the greenhouse, I am trying to learn a few new tricks so that next summer will produce less death and more bounty. 

Here's a brandywine tomato that I nearly killed already. I cut off all the yellow leaves and did some research. Now I add composted chicken manure once a week. It's working, and the one tomato is promising to become a work of art.

And finally, my first healthy cucumber ever. It is covered in cucumbers, and I'm feeding it once a week along with the tomato plant.

Next summer is going to be amazing! And incidentally, if you read this far, I would like to add that there has been no evidence over the last year of alien DNA or Lyme's disease (that I know of).