The End of June in the Garden

This sprouting garden is a new thing for me. I had no idea how truly badly my vegetables were doing the last two years, until this snowy, rainy spring. I’ve watered no more than ten times since April 1. Is this what it’s like to grow a garden in Ohio? I was a kid and not paying any attention to it when I lived there. I suppose we could’ve cultivated a few plants in college—we had a big backyard. But there was no time, no sense of responsibility, no point, with Laura’s terrific parents bringing squash and hay bales. And the new-found pleasure of grocery shopping for ourselves.

I planted eight asparaguses in the side yard. It was a gamble; Mom said they’d like a lot of sun, and that’s one of the few spots we have that doesn’t get baked to a crisp all summer. It would be perfect for flowers—if it weren’t behind a gate and next to the house, where no one spends any time. That narrow bed is also not technically big enough for asparagus, which might grow to four or five feet! But they all came up, and are bending their ferny leaves and stalks over onto the footpath. The Gribble method will again apply. Thrive, or die. I have just enough time for this stuff, and no more. I don’t have time to mulch and tend the soil and worry about fragile little plants. (Although I might be spoiled after this glorious spring of growth!) I hope they’ll thrive, but if they die, I’ll plant strawberries there instead. Plenty of room to spread.

In the front room, I’ve replaced the artichokes and eggplant with tomatoes and peppers. I’m going to start hardening them off this week; they’re growing like crazy and I want to put them in pots on the deck. Again, sun is an issue. There’s no shortage of it, but the house shields the deck. The front yard would work better, but I don’t feel like dealing with them up there. I bought a kit to grow one tomato plant upside down. I hope it works; I’ve been reading about that, and it sounds like they dry out pretty quickly. I don’t want to ruin one of my cherry tomatoes, since those grow so well. But I don’t want to overload my hook either, so I’d rather try a plant with smaller fruits.

In the garden, the corn is up but will not be knee high by the fourth of July. Maybe that’s only corn in the Midwest? Or corn for sale by the bushel? My corn did just fine last year without growing that quickly. We’ve been eating lots and lots of lettuce and spinach. The first round of spinach is bolting, but I’ll be picking quite a bit for a couple of shared meals, and I read that I can continue to harvest as it grows tall. The peas are so beautiful and delicate, and they have pea pods now! The never-thinned radishes have flowered. Several have been round, but most have been skinny little roots. Nice and flavorful, but tough. My calendar tells me that the carrots should be mature, but I don’t think they really are. I keep trying to thin them but I feel too sorrowful after pulling out a few cute little carrots. I hope at least a few of them will get bigger so I can make carrot ginger soup with plenty of cayenne. I did down-select the squash to one plant per hill. (Murder!) There’s only so much squash you can give away, and we’re going to have more than that. Yesterday a fellow gardener tried to give me some lettuce, and I just laughed.

One thing I didn’t fully realize before I started gardening on my own is that we would have a glut of each vegetable all at once. I understood that our holidays, Thanksgiving in particular, featured foods that were ready to harvest in the fall: squash, corn, beans, turkeys. But now I’m wondering how the heck people used to make recipes that require vegetables that mature at different times. Well, I guess they developed good storage techniques. And they also learned how to extend the growing season with cold frames and greenhouses. And a long time ago, each food was a particular pleasure when it ripened, not to be seen again until next season. Which is kind of good, you know? We really appreciate a ripe strawberry or tomato. We still crave those winter comfort foods in the winter: squash, potatoes, beef. The winter substitutes, trucked in from Mexico or California, are no substitute. I’ve always thought broccoli was delicious from the store. Well, this year I’ve eaten fresh broccoli for the first time. The color is just delightful! I’ve never liked green all that much, but this lush green is gorgeous.

I want to make hot sauce with carrots in it. Carrots mature both before and after peppers and tomatoes. So I guess I’ll be making judicious use of the freezer. I think that even our crawlspace under the house will be too warm to store carrots, but I’ll keep experimenting.

Back to the garden. The second set of carrots I sowed didn’t sprout. Too late. Too warm. The beets are gorgeous, and I made some borscht from a recipe in a book I’m reviewing. It included beef stock, which I don’t think I’ll use again. It darkened that beautiful pink color and made the soup a bit greasy. The artichokes and eggplant, both transplanted from indoors, are limping along. Too late? Too hot? Too wet? We’ll see what happens. There are a few that will survive, but might not make it to fruit before the temperature becomes inhospitable. The bush beans are doing fine, as ever, but I just don’t seem to have any luck with cucumbers. I’ll have flowers soon, drawing attention away from the weeds (hooray!). Green onions and squash would, I believe, grow in concrete. They’ve sprouted and flourished. I put onions in everything these days, and I’d like to learn to braid and dry them like they did in Little House on the Prairie. Now that I’ve plucked some healthy squash plants from their birth mounds, maybe my heart will harden and I’ll be able to thin the radishes and carrots for the fall planting…

I think I’m ready to make noodles again, too. I could make a delicious pasta primavera with garden veggies and homemade noodles…if you’re reading this and want to come for dinner, come on over! We’d love to have you. Dave will put some music on the stereo and we can walk over to water the garden after dinner. It’s only a mile from home.