Eternal Hope of the Gardener

Prolific Peas

Early Garden, Nice & Tidy

My vegetable garden is not what I planned this year.  As I mentioned before, I had a massive seedling loss this spring.  Not only did a mouse eat all of my eggplants and peppers (a not so uncommon phenomenon I am finding out), something was not right with my seed mix.  My seedlings emerged from the soil, showed their seed leaves and then true leaves and then completely stopped growing and turned yellow.  My careful plans, starting with seed catalogs in the winter, a mapped out plan and dreams of certain varieties have been thrown to the wind or rather the compost.

The good news is my gardener friends have made it possible for me to have a full garden without spending a ton of money on plants.  Their extras- tomatoes, tomatillos, eggplant, peppers, and broccoli have come my way.  And I am not talking about one or two measly plants.  I have 28 beautiful tomato plants in the ground.  I did buy a few plants I always start from seed, such as celery, parsley, and basil, but this allowed me to support some of my favorite local farmers whose plants I usually drool over, but must restrain myself.  As a result I have more of some things and less of others, varieties I have never heard of and many plants whose varieties are a mystery.  There has been much on the spot planning, sticking in a basil, melon or cabbage here and there.

And so, despite the loss and regain, and then the business of spring, weed pulling, animals to care for, the transition that comes with the end of school and (did I mention?) a new baby due to arrive in July, my garden is coming together.  And it is coming together in a way I could not have imagined- a surprise I am loving.  I finish a row of weeding and look over the neatly planted rows and imagine pumpkin and squash vines three feet high loaded with hidden fruits, red peppers and ripe tomatoes filling my harvest basket, cucumbers of many varieties hanging heavily from a yet to be built trellis and every row and pathway perfectly weeded, mulched with compost and trimmed.  We wouldn’t be gardeners if we didn’t dream like this would we?