Tag: Kitchen Garden

Battle with squash bugs began this week. Egg laying is concentrated on the patty pan squash plants but they are throughout the squash plots. I am catching some of the egg clusters just as they are hatching. This year I am determined to get rid of them before I have to get rid of all the plants. Daily diligence in removing eggs and any squash bugs is the only way to do it without chemicals. Even that may not be successful. There were fewer eggs today than I found yesterday. I’m hopeful I can be master of my garden.

The main objective is to save the pumpkins and winter squash. A person can eat only so much zucchini and patty pan, so no loss there.

The onions are cured and ready for storage. I emptied the greenhouse Friday afternoon. Soon I will pack it away for the season. The main crops of peppers, eggplant and tomatoes are about to begin. There are many cabbage heads coming, kale, chard, and collards for leafy green vegetables. Potatoes will soon be ready to dig. There will be no shortage of fresh vegetables in our kitchen garden for a while.

There is more to life than gardening and eating the results. Not much more, though.

I just returned from my Monday morning trip to donate to the food pantry at the Methodist Church in town. They are open Monday afternoons for clients and accept deliveries beginning at 9 a.m. I donated cucumbers, zucchini and patty pan squash today.

Donating food accomplishes a couple of things. Clients really need the food they get at the food bank. By donating there, I contribute directly to someone’s good. When I want to preserve something — kale, cucumbers, vegetable broth, cabbage — I don’t know the yield, or how much I will need. The food bank enables me to grow plenty of what I need of a specific crop and find a home for the rest. By growing different things — patty pan squash, for example — I provide produce that is a bit different from what other gardeners may be donating. That give clients more diversity in their diet. More than anything, My donations make me useful in society.

I grow a garden for the fresh food. Being able to donate excess makes it feel like nothing is going to waste. That’s a good feeling.

For the first time since I began gardening in Big Grove, deer jumped the fences and began nibbling on my plants. Thus far, they got into two plots, eating peas, green beans and cucumber plants. I put up supplemental fencing where I thought they jumped over, yet I’m not sure that will do any good. I don’t have enough fencing to elevate the height to eight feet all around every plot.

What is going on? I haven’t changed anything. My instinct is the exceedingly dry weather hindered growth of their natural food supply and my tasty plants were better than starving. The damage of one eating session is substantial, and will impact yield. I need to do something.

I mastered the art of keeping rabbits out of the garden. By securing the bottom of the fence to the ground, and letting the clover grow in the yard, they have plenty of food without intruding on my vegetable patch. It is a success story. I’ve long realized deer can easily jump my four and five foot fencing, yet because of the how I planted, they haven’t… until now.

I’ll rig up some additional fencing after the sun rises and I view last night’s damage. What I believe would resolve the problem is getting a good, long rainfall.

A hummingbird dipped water from the leaves of cabbage plants throughout the garden. It has been a dry season, yet the bird found enough to drink condensed from the night and pooled in drops on the leaves. The garden is full of such life. By taking time to stand, listen, and look, we share in the experience. We become part of the garden, which is not nature, yet as close as we can get.

A deer was eating pea blossoms over the fence. I let it go on for two nights then installed additional fencing to make it eight feet tall and restrict access on that corner of the garden plot. It worked, but the deer jumped the fence on the other side and tried to access the peas from inside the fence. It ate one or two, leaving hoof marks in the fresh-dug soil where I planted spinach seeds. I wonder what happened that it only took one bite.

Predictably, I found the first little green worm on a kohlrabi plant yesterday. The egg-laying white butterflies have been thick in recent days. It was only a matter of time. The challenge now is to seek them out and pick them off in the mornings. Hopefully the organic insecticide I applied will suppress them. They arrive just as the heads of broccoli are beginning to form. Half the battle is knowing their behavior. It is a battle that can be won by diligent humans.

My daily morning walk through the garden is rewarding. Everything is growing and besides early greens, I harvested the first zucchini and patty pan squash. This is my first year growing patty pan or scallop squash. This first one will go into stir fry later this week.

Tomatoes and tomatillos are beginning to blossom. Onions are forming bulbs. Green cabbages are about three inches in diameter. Soon I will turn over the first tub of potatoes for small ones. Apples and pears are growing. There is a lot going on.

We are lucky to be able to age in place. I don’t think of the outside world when I’m in the garden. I listen, observe and experience the ecosystem I made while wondering how I fit in. It’s the wondering that’s the best part.