Well, over the weekend, mostly I planned. I've gotten several new gardening catalogs so far, so I'm planning a lot. I know next year I am not going to fight the bugs for squash family plants. This past year I did really great, waking up at 4:30 to pick bugs, water plants, and just check overall vigor and vitality. I had planted a huge butternut varity called "Argonaut" and acorn squash for winter squash, lots of summer squashes, a few cucumbers, and lots of melons. The year before I had gotten a honeydew that weighed 19 pounds and a cantaloupe that weighed 17, so I wanted a repeat show.
But long about the end of July, I had to go away for three days to a family reunion, which was painful enough in itself. Of course, it rained the entire weekend, as it was the middle of monsoon season, and although it didn't rain a ton here, it was enough that the weeds were knee-high when I came home, and in the weeds were a whole new colony of bugs-squash bugs, I assume. Sometime over the weekend or that Sunday night, the bugs infested my plants and I went out to find two zucchini and one straight-neck squash entirely dead. Just dead. They were fine the night before, then Monday morning, shriveled, white, and crispy-dead. No sign of squash bugs on any of them. Not a one. But the plants on the trellis were sadly misshapen, starting to wilt severely, and showing overall signs of distress. I lifted up one leaf, nothing. Another leaf, again nothing. But I got to the biggest, healthiest, longest plant (it reached the top of the 12-foot trellis, and hung down the other side) and it was infested. Adults, myphs, and eggs. I counted 28 adults, most of them with their butts glued together in their mating dance. They all died that day, but the damage had been done. I killed the bugs and eggs I saw, sprayed the plants with water to unearth any that had sought refuge in the soil, and killed those. I tore leaves off that looked particularly damaged, and burned them. But all this to no avail. Within a week, all the butternut plants were dead, and half the acorn squash. Another week went by and all them were gone, too. The cucumbers shriveled up and died sometime in those two weeks. I lost the last of the melons two weeks later. Two little squash plants that I had replanted before I left for the reunion were all that was left. Something like 40 cucurbit plants died in three weeks, and I vowed not to do this again.
So next year, I won't plant a cucurbit one. My hope is that after a year of nothing to eat, the bugs will find another place to overwinter and maybe I won't have that problem as bad the next year. Hopefully I'll be able to rotate my squash years and not have to deal with bugs as bad. Theoretically that should work, right??
So, back to the original story. I was looking through these full-color gorgeous seed catalogs, sighing at the squash, cukes, and melons I can't plant next year, planning out what I do want to grow. I figured the trellis will be a wonderful place for some pole beans, even though I don't really like most pole beans, as they tend to get too tough too fast for me. I go out one day and they are tiny toothpicks of beans, the next day the seeds have swollen in the pods and the pods are like leather britches. Yes, I'm only 32, but I know what leather britches are. But the big trellis will be perfect for pole beans, and the bench under the trellis is just the right place for me to sit and enjoy my purple, green, and gold edible gems hanging from the cieling.
We put in grape vines last year, in raised beds, too. So in between them, last year I planted 40 tomato plants. Now, I don't know how some people manage the feats they do, gathering buckets of tomatoes every day, even with a dozen plants or so. Last year, of the 40 tomato plants, I got about 10 gallons of tomatoes all year. Maybe. I had one golden ponderosa tomato that weighed over 2 pounds and was as big as a cantaloupe, and one Chocolate Cherry plant that seemed to produce 100 tomatoes every day, but I took every ripe tomato I had in early August and ended up with 5 pints of tomato sauce. That's it, that's all. I didn't have enough tomatoes to can, or enough to make spaghetti sauce, and only enough for 5 pints of sauce in August. A couple slicers in July, and a handful of yellow pears in June from my March-planted plants, but that's it. So...I'm going to do about 60 plants this year and hopefully I'll have enough to do something with.
I decided this year I'm going to do some old-fashioned root veggies, too this year. It's been 15 years since I ate a home-grown turnip, but I bought a few at Wal-Mart right after Thanksgiving, and that sweet, buttery flavor of roasted turnip brought back memories of Mr. Stevens and Granny sitting around talking about turnips and "Hanovers" or rutabagas. I'm planting both next summer for fall harvesting, as well as parsnips, which I've never grown, but learned to love after Virginia gave me some dried and I put them in my stew.
Beets and carrots are like underground jewels, so I know I'll grow them, probably also late into winter so I can have fresh food in the cold days.
I just dug the last of my potatoes on December 11. The ones closest to the surface of the soil had been frozen and were ruined, but underneath, there were probably 25 pounds of huge golden Yukon Gold potatoes and a large random Red Pontiac. I still don't know where he came from, but it works for me.
I did plant the last of my fall garlic and shallots a couple weeks back, so I don't have to worry about them until summer. Only I did find another bucket of seed garlic, so hopefully I'll get another good day pretty soon to put these guys out.
For now, I'm still planning. I've got some great worksheets I made on the computer that helps me keep track of where I plant what and helps me remember how to rotate my crops. It should be easier this year with no cucurbits to worry about, but the worksheets help. So I am off to write some things down, maybe turn the compost if it gets warm enough that I want to go back outside.
Happy Gardening!
Regina
