Dead and Gone?

The garden is now gone. If you look closely at the middle of the photo above, you can see the small patch of dirt that gave me several tomatoes and a couple scrawny ears of corn. (Well, it actually gave the corn to the possum who visits our porch nightly and so far has evaded my camera.)

I plan on putting in a larger garden next year, but in the same basic spot. I'll probably start almost exactly where this year's was and go up the hill from there. (The way the property line runs, this is actually partly on my neighbor's property, but he is a very nice guy and doesn't much care about us going a bit over the line.)

And this is what's left of my container tomato, all ready to go on the compost pile...once I get it started. Looks dead, don't it?

SURPRISE! I haven't gone near this plant at all. Haven't watered it, talked to it...nothing. Any yet, here are three tiny little tomatoes. (Looks like two, but there is a third behind the lower one.) Wonder how long they will last.

Harvest

And here is my harvest, such as it is. The two red ones were picked earlier in the week. The others I brought in last night. I happened to check the weather about 9:45pm and saw that we were under a frost advisory. I did not want to lose what tomatoes I had, so I grabbed a flashlight and my pruning clippers and headed out into the yard. Don't know if they will ripen, but at least I won't lose them without trying my best to save them.


And these puny things are my corn harvest. Not much, huh? Well, that's OK. Maybe the squirrels will enjoy them. (Or the little possum that comes around most nights.)



I got the last tomato off my container plant a while back. Now I've just been watching birds pluck leaves and pieces of string off of it before I toss it into a compost pile.

My garden is heading the same way. The season is over for me, but it was fun while it lasted.

Garden Thoughts

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden.

~Orson Scott Card

I had to smile when I found this quote. I lost my job last December, and if I hadn't I probably wouldn't have planted my garden...such as it is. Next year, employed or not, I will have a proper garden.

This is the scrawny tomato plant I moved from a bucket to the ground when it started getting sickly. The one tomato it had on it actually survived and ripened...


...into a tiny little thing. Wasn't much more than a cherry tomato, but it was my first harvest anyway. Now the plant is growing pretty well and has a number of blooms on it. Maybe there will be more to come.

Gardening on the Small Side

(My small deck and swing during a recent rain storm)

I have a small deck on the side of my house, and I love to sit in the swing there and read, surf the internet, write stories...whatever. Lately, I've been sitting there eyeing a spot in my yard where I feel a garden should be. Not a huge garden; just something small. Today, I finally gave in and planted some things I've had growing in containers. I picked up my small garden shovel, got down on my hands and knees and went to work digging and pulling up grass and clover.

And here it is. A very small patch in my yard with seven corn plants and a scraggly tomato plant. I put in the tomato plant that isn't doing too well. I figure there's nothing to lose that way. The other one is doing so well in the container, I'm afraid to move it.

I have to say, getting down on the ground and digging through the dirt was very therapeutic. This has been a hard month so far, and I have really been feeling down. But, when I started pulling apart that patch of earth, loosening up the soil with my bare hands, I felt so much better. It was as if all my troubles were put into perspective, and I realized there are things going on much bigger than my little issues. I knew in my heart...my soul...everything would be OK in the end. The feel of the dirt under my nails, the smell of the fresh soil, even the sight of all those earthworms burrowing back into the earth...it made me feel renewed.

Now, if I can just keep Muffinhead out of there... :-}