Monday, June 26, 2017

Goodbye Garden?


Remember my volunteer tomatoes?  Well, a memory is pretty much all they are now.  Sad.  Tropical Storm Cindy took a toll, and the tomato plants paid.  My yard has been very, very flooded (not deep but with water standing for many days at a time), and the tomatoes had planted themselves in anoxic clay soil.  They had a chance, though, and they had been doing well.  But the combination of the soil, the flooding, and whatever else (like cleaning chemicals) came out of my former tenant's septic outlet did damage.

I've watched the plants for a few days now, and the situation kept getting worse:  severe wilting.  There were a number of small tomatoes.  I figured that those would sap the last of the life out of the plants (which will allow withering to kill themselves to save the berry) and then the little tomatoes would drop off anyway, so I picked the lot, small though they are.



Ah well.  Stuff happens.  Looks like I'll be having pasta with green tomato sauce for supper.

Unfortunately (there's that ugly word again), the flooding has also played havoc with the few container plants I had managed to start.  Radishes, completely gone.  Sage which started late, gone.  Cilantro, gone.  Most of the peppers, gone.  Wax beans, very leggy.  Lemon basil, bless its heart, trying to hang in there.

Discouraging.  As the old saying goes, "there will always be weather whether or not" and we sure don't lack for rain here in South Mississippi. 

But we also have a very long growing season.....thus, I have rebelled:  I got a packet of seeds from the box I was given a few weeks back:  a really ugly looking squash that rejoices in the name of Red Warty Thing.  I kid you not.  I poked a few holes in the mud with a stick and dropped seeds liberally.  Covered them by treading on them.  There.  And I told the seeds, "Come up or don't.  Maybe the squirrels will eat you.  Do your best."



Life is good.
We'll see what happens next.

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