It's that time of year when gardeners are reaping the fruits of their labor. Usually we are picking enough tomatoes to make a new batch of salsa every other day, making it the season of salsa. A real gardener can't pick his zucchini fast enough.
But this year, the one inch high cucumber plant, planted next to a towering trellis, expected to reach the top, heavy with baby cucs., is alas, still only one inch high. Most of the tomato plants have only reached the bottom rung of their cages, and those which have grown to the top, have only born a tomato or two.
Where did I go wrong? I ask myself.
The answer comes in the word tend. It is called tending a garden for a reason. I failed to tend my garden.
In the spring, we found the drip irrigation system needed an overhaul. Tired of watching the planting season pass, I made my annual pilgrimage to the garden store and invested in the future. However, without a regular watering system and my hit and miss watering, the plants didn't get off to a good start. When the system was fixed, I didn't check to make sure the plants were receiving enough water. Then we left for a month.
I'd hired a gardener for the month we were gone, so I expected her to salvage the rough beginning and I expected to return to a mini-jungle, big green plants flourishing with buds and the beginnings of our dinners at summer's end.
But the gardener had gotten another job and apparently came to my garden when she could fit it in. I came home to some shriveled plants, but mostly the garden had reached a stalemate. In it's sorry state, knowing its greatest growing season had passed, I left it mostly alone to flounder and produce what it could. Since that time, I've picked a handful of cherry tomatoes, three stunted zucchini and am watching a squash develop--as to which kind of squash, is long forgotten.
~~
Last night our daughter emerged from her part of the house to tell us her husband had called and told her to get ready for a surprise date. "Dress like you're going camping," he'd told her. When he arrived for their date, he'd pre-shopped for a barbecue in the canyon.
It must have been past 11:00 when I was on the verge of falling asleep, when I heard their soft, happy voices come through the front door, reaping the fruits from tending their garden.
But this year, the one inch high cucumber plant, planted next to a towering trellis, expected to reach the top, heavy with baby cucs., is alas, still only one inch high. Most of the tomato plants have only reached the bottom rung of their cages, and those which have grown to the top, have only born a tomato or two.
Where did I go wrong? I ask myself.
The answer comes in the word tend. It is called tending a garden for a reason. I failed to tend my garden.
In the spring, we found the drip irrigation system needed an overhaul. Tired of watching the planting season pass, I made my annual pilgrimage to the garden store and invested in the future. However, without a regular watering system and my hit and miss watering, the plants didn't get off to a good start. When the system was fixed, I didn't check to make sure the plants were receiving enough water. Then we left for a month.
I'd hired a gardener for the month we were gone, so I expected her to salvage the rough beginning and I expected to return to a mini-jungle, big green plants flourishing with buds and the beginnings of our dinners at summer's end.
But the gardener had gotten another job and apparently came to my garden when she could fit it in. I came home to some shriveled plants, but mostly the garden had reached a stalemate. In it's sorry state, knowing its greatest growing season had passed, I left it mostly alone to flounder and produce what it could. Since that time, I've picked a handful of cherry tomatoes, three stunted zucchini and am watching a squash develop--as to which kind of squash, is long forgotten.
~~
Last night our daughter emerged from her part of the house to tell us her husband had called and told her to get ready for a surprise date. "Dress like you're going camping," he'd told her. When he arrived for their date, he'd pre-shopped for a barbecue in the canyon.
It must have been past 11:00 when I was on the verge of falling asleep, when I heard their soft, happy voices come through the front door, reaping the fruits from tending their garden.
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