Posted by melannen on October 01, 2013 at 17:25 and edited at October 01, 2013 at 17:26

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So I was two days' drive away from my garden for most of the summer, leaving it in the care of the other people who live here. Now I'm back! I have no idea how the garden went while I was gone - they claim they watered, but everything (as usual for the end of summer around here) was looking pretty crispy by the time I got back.

Anyway, here's the result of this year's gardening:

  1. Beans: we got maybe a pint of beans? they were pretty good, though! The bean plants were completely gone by the time I got back; I have no idea if there was any harvest after I left. Two of them were left in the refrigerator and dried completely, though, so I might try second-generation beans next year, just to see what happens.

  2. The squash bloomed profusely and then set precisely 0 fruit, and then withered away; there was no sign of it when I returned. Oh, squash. Zucchini is supposed to be the plant you can't not grow around here! Alas. Possibly part of the problem was that I planted them too far apart for pollination? IDK. If I try them again maybe I will attempt to hand-pollinate.

  3. Beets: here is the entire beet harvest. I… guess it could have gone worse for a first try at root vegetables?

  4. Tomatoes: The tomatoes have grown into a thicket. I have no idea how many individual plants there are. I am getting a bowlful of cherry tomatoes every couple of days, which is faster than I can eat them, if not fast enough to be worth trying to preserve any. There are plenty ending up on the ground for next year's crop, though. And in early October, the plant is still flowering profusely, so I suspect that, like last year, I will keep getting fruit for at least another month, in complete defiance of cold and dark and rational seasonality. It is pretty much typical of my gardening history that the plants I put basically 0 effort into are the only ones giving me edible results. Maybe I should just give up on gardening all together and fall back on gathering. (A post on that shortly, hopefully.)

Anyway, I am quite enjoying that this site is cross-hemisphere! Just as I am getting discouraged at this year's garden, all you Southerners are getting excited about your new ones! Maybe I will manage to plan ahead some more, maybe I will actually intentionally grow some stuff next year, who knows.