New England Gardener

It's All Over But The Brussel Sprouts

Just Add Water Garden In August

And Just as we did back in early May, my husband, son and I shoveled manure from a nearby horse farm onto the raised bed. The difference now is that my almost 4 year old has become a farmer. Without questions or whining, Zach went to the shed, grabbed his wheelbarrow and shovel, attacked the compost pile, only asking for direction once with a jaunty “where do you want it, Mommy?”
Now I can’t say for sure that it’s a summer’s worth of fresh organic vegetables that made the difference, more likely the passage of time, but it was a pleasure watching him grow along with the Just Add Water garden over the last six months.
I look forward to gardening with all of you again next spring!

Just Add Water Garden Early September

As you know, I started the season with seed suggestions and a 10′ by 10′ layout from the great gardeners at Johnny’s Selected Seeds here in Maine. For the most part, their varieties and succession planting ideas worked well, but I will make a few changes next year based mostly on personal preferences. (Click on layout to the right if you’re curious about what I grew.)

A Bouquet of Carrots, Red Lettuce and Chard.

I had bad luck with some transplants. Neither my cuke or basil seedlings fared as well as the plants that were sowed from seed into the garden. Next year, I won’t bother starting those indoors.

The peas, beans, lettuces and spinach have all been delicious. All will be invited back.

Thanks to the confines of the 10′ by 10′ space, I found I was much more disciplined about succession plantings. In the past I tucked veggies all over my garden beds and sometimes forgot about them. Not this year. Even in mid-September, every inch of the Just Add Water garden is still producing. Beans are coming up in the tomato graveyard. New rows of lettuce and spinach are launched next to the beans. I tucked in some discounted celery and cauliflower seedlings where the peas once grew. Those will be harvested in the coming weeks. The buds on my brussel sprouts are starting to swell. And the chard, carrots cucumbers and squashes are growing like gangbusters.

Cauliflower On The Way

What lessons does your garden have to share? If you’re like me, you won’t remember them in February and by then your garden won’t be in the mood for conversation.

Move on Charlie Brown. No Great Pumpkins Here.

Crop failure is always a disappointment, but losing pumpkins is a real bummer. I think those bright orange balls ease the transition back to the school year. Their promise of treats and after dark antics helps lessen the burden of homework and diminishing daylight after supper.

Thirty Seedlings. One Small Pumpkin.

The pumpkins were plagued with cucumber beetles, powdery mildew and too much rain this summer, but this isn’t the first year our patch has produced a scant crop. I’m hoping some of you pumpkin pros will have a few suggestions. We usually transplant seedlings into the garden in mid June and I wonder if we’d be better off direct seeding into the garden? Our soil is good, but maybe sidedressing with compost would help? The fact that we have so few pumpkins tells me we’ve got a pollination problem, but I find this hard to believe. There’s a very active beehive about 15 yards from the pumpkin patch.

We promise a “pumpkin for every child” at our fall Harvest Supper. Hmmm. Maybe I should start spray painting the zucchini?

Back off. It's Mine

And this Late Blight outbreak pushed me to do something I’m not proud of–purchase a non-organic product. Let me explain. I do most of my growing at my community garden which is strictly organic, but I had a few straggly leftover seedlings that were on their way to the compost pile. You know how gardeners hate to throw away plants, so at the last minute I stuck them in an old apple barrel planter in my driveway. I pretty much ignored them all summer UNTIL, I lost all my other tomato plants. Suddenly, those two plants became my only hope for home grown tomatoes.
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Blight, Black Rot,and Mildew all threatened to crash 2009’s garden party, but as I look around the community garden here in Maine, I see there are many more successes than failures. The corn has overcome its late start. The cukes and squashes are producing right on schedule. Lettuces are delicious and abundant. In other words, there’s more than enough to fill out a salad bowl.

As gardeners, we must learn from the farmer’s optimism and work with what Mother Nature has delivered. Yes, I did have to pull my blight-ridden tomatoes, but now I’m looking forward to a bumper crop of bush beans. After I yanked the tomatoes last week, I threw in some bush bean seeds and the seedlings burst from the soil yesterday, determined to deliver a crop before the frost hits.
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Lovable Lulu

Like many New Englanders, my family spends part of every summer at a small “camp.” If I were sensible, I’d forego gardening at a place where we spend just a few long weekends and a week in August, but I’m a gardener and I can’t relax without having at least a few plants to fuss over. That said, vacation home gardens must fend for themselves most of the time. Through trial and error, I’ve learned what plants are up to the challenge in our windy oceanfront location.

When it comes to perennials, Hostas, DayLilies, and Rudbeckia can’t be beat. I’ve also had very good luck with Astilbe and Delphiniums, but I put them in a spot where they’re guaranteed shade for at least a few hours a day. In fact, I don’t grow anything, besides a few ancient Rhubarbs, on the side of the house that gets sun all day long.
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