Desperation gardening

[pegkerr]

I have gotten off to a really bad start this year.

I didn't plant any spring vegetables at all--no peas, no lettuce. Just couldn't seem to get around to it. The strawberry patch, after producing faithfully for eight years, died entirely away. Two of the four asparagus plants I planted last year came up, but the stems were too small to be of any use--I understand it really takes several years for asparagus to really establish itself. Working overtime to try to bring in more money, too depressed, too broke, too distracted (by LiveJournal, among other things) meant I just couldn't get out and get stuff planted. My plant order came in, and all the basil and the bush beans died before I got them into the ground. Thirty dollars wasted. I have two trays of impatiens I need to plant in the front garden, but I've just been watering them sporadically for almost a month without planting them. I made the mistake of planting daffodil bulbs in that bed, but it's too shady for them to do very well, and so they just send up sickly green leaves without blooming, and I keep waiting for them to bloom before moving the impatiens in. So the impatiens still isn't in.

The garage garden is a mess of weeds. I have about half the seeds left from last year for a Burpee-designed cutting garden that I'm planning to put in there, although I haven't weeded/sown the flowers yet.

The pink garden on the south side of the house (which Fiona calls her garden, although that doesn't mean she ever really works on it) is very puzzling. I planted a mixture of seeds (annuals and perennials) last year in three rows of graduated heights: short, medium, tall. I got them in rather late, so not all the seeds got a chance to bloom. The zinnias, cosmos, dianthus and lavatera did come in, and were very successful. The sweet william looked rather discouraged. Never saw any results, however, from the poppies, candytuft, sidalcea or erigeron I planted at all. I haven't nearly as much experience with flowers as I do with vegetables, and so although I can recognize where I planted the speedwell, the echinechea, primroses (frighteningly muscular) and the other-pink-thing that I got at Karen's (minnehaha) plant swap last year, I look at all the other stuff coming up there this year and wonder: are those perennials from last year that I should leave alone? Or are they weeds?

Anyway, I went to Bachman's this afternoon and got two geraniums for the two pots bracketing the front door. I got four tomato plants which I stuck in the vegetable garden; not sure I will plant any other vegetables this year (unless I want to drop another thirty dollars on basil--I LOVE homemade pesto). I got a six pack of pink petunias, which I stuck in the pink garden. And I got a mess of pink seeds (cosmos, amaranth, foxglove), and two packets from different companies, titled simply: pink garden. Stuff that's pink. Alyssum, candytuft, cleome, gypsophilia, larkspur, malope, phlox, silene, statice, vinca, zinnia, love in a mist, calendula, clarkia . . . . 8" to 4'. Now I won't even have plants graduated by height. I just blindly scattered seeds on the ground and flung about a half inch of topsoil over it all. I can just imagine what Sam Gamgee would say about such haphazard planting methods. Will water it and watch. What will come up?

(Am listening to October Project again. Rob gave this album a truly Minnesota compliment: "It's the least offensive thing that you've been listening to lately." My husband is not Into Music.)

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

[aome.livejournal.com]

It always amazes me how the garden shifts focus from year to year. Two years ago, we drowned in tomatoes. Last year, I planted them in a slightly different spot, and a smidgen too close together, and we got almost nothing. But the beans went into overdrive -- we're *still* eating them! This year, something is eating our bean plants - I suspect there won't be so many this time.

Too bad PA isn't closer to MN -- our strawberries would take over the planet, if I let them.

As for beans and basil - we got an unexpected final frost and I hadn't covered things up, so we lost our fledgling basil plant, but I've put in some seeds (only $1.29!) so I'm hopeful I can reclaim them that way. And we plant our bush beans from seeds too. Early June planting would mean a later harvest, but you should be able to still get *something*, wouldn't you?

Sorry your garden has been thwarting you. Haphazard flower heights might still be pretty, though -- free and unstructured and just plain beautiful. :)

[(Anonymous)]

Gardening is such a lovely Minnesota ritual, and I am so incompetant at it. I like thinking about gardening, I love looking through seed catalogs, I can have a lot of fun planning the garden, and I usually enjoy the springtime stuff: turning over the soil, raking it out, planting stuff. After that, I lose interest. Weeds and zucchini battle it out for world supremacy, or else everything dies because I forgot to water it. It doesn't help that for years, our garden was in our back yard, which is very shady, so even when I watered religiously and the weather was perfect, we'd get a half-dozen tomatoes (off of seventeen tomato plants -- yes, really) and no zucchini at all (just lots of pretty yellow flowers).

Last year, I moved my garden into the front yard and made a bit more of an effort to at least vaguely keep it up. I've accepted the fact that I am a very bad gardener and no longer try to plant anything terribly exotic. It's worth making an effort for tomatoes, because homegrown tomatoes are so much better than anything you can buy in a store; it's less worth it (to me) to make an effort for homegrown cucumbers, since I find grocery store cucumbers to be perfectly acceptable (ditto grocery store carrots, melons, pumpkins, etc.) We plant basil to go with the tomatoes. Frustratingly, we STILL didn't get enough tomatoes. But, we really like tomatoes. A lot. I'm not quite sure how many would be "enough."

I finally got the tomato plants in yesterday -- a four-pack of Early Girl and a couple different interesting looking heirloom varieties. I had intended to plant some spring vegetables (sugar snap peas) and even bought the seeds, but never got them into the ground -- funny how hard it is to get motivated to garden when it's cold and dreary for most of May. Since the weekend was supposed to be nice, I ran out on Friday just before the garden store closed and bought the basics: tomato plants, basil seeds, marigolds (to repel pests) and morning glory seeds (for the trellises; this is a FRONT yard garden, so I have to have SOMETHING decorative). Oh, plus a few more herbs -- they had thyme, rosemary, and lemon grass in pots. (Now, lemon grass would be worth growing for ourselves! We cook a lot of Thai food, and those herbs-in-plastic-boxes at the grocery store are expensive.) I got it all planted in a few hours on Saturday. Now I have to get motivated to go back out for petunias sometime this week (to fill in the blank spots) and put them in the ground, and then I'll be done except for the hard part -- watering and weeding. (And the fun part -- picking and eating stuff, like tomatoes.)

My mother's garden, meanwhile, looks like something out of Midwest Home & Garden, that "look how the other half lives" publication you get bundled with Minnesota Monthly when you give money to public radio. Sigh.

--Naomi

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Weeds are clever things. They'll always grow next to something you want to keep, and they'll look just like it until they're established and harder to pull out. By the time you recognize them for sure, they'll believe it's too late. It's important to remember that you are the gardener, and the weeds are nothing but fodder for the compost pile. You have to let them grow a while until you're sure, and then yank them out.

You're not the only one with plants that go unplanted. I lose things most years to having made other choices for my time. I always have that 'eyes bigger than my stomach' problem when buying plants. And I generally have the space; I just don't get the work done.

If you want some gardening company, Peg, I'd be happy to put in a hour or 2 at your place. Maybe weed the garage bed, or whatever feels urgent.

K. [be warned, however,that the urgent thing in my garden is pulling creeping charlie]

That would be fun

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

to get together to garden a bit.



Not sure exactly when, as I have weekend plans the next several weeks which I have to work around (which is why the garden is looking so neglected). But I would appreciate your help identifying things. I'll give you a call one of these days.

And everyone, yes, Bruce and Karen really have the loveliest garden, which would make all their friends curse them in envy except that they're much too nice to curse, and how you possibly curse people who host such lovely garden parties?



Cheers,
Peg