Clueless in Gardenland 2

It is now almost mid-September and all the plants are dead or nearly so. There has been no frost, so that is not responsible. We didn't expect much from the garden and so were not surprised when it delivered just that. Everything was an open book, a learning curve for us and that was okay. I first learned after planting that the little plastic and tapered ID tags stuck into the containers actually had useful information on them: like how far that plant should be from other plants. It recommended, for instance, that zucchini should have 48' between it and the next plant...which was unfortunate since I only had 12' between it and its neighbors. That prompted me to remove five plants from the garden box, and my experience this summer validated that the tag makers know what they are talking about as the zucchini took half of it over...and isn't satisfied with that. As previously noted, the eggplant and snap peas had no will to live, especially after I transplanted them into the ground fertilized with mystery manure mixed with organic soil. I thought the three types of bell peppers might do something and they initially started to grow but stopped and began looking droopier and sadder as the weeks progressed. Eventually I pulled them after the zucchini claimed their space. Only the basil and the dill along with the zucchini provided for us, and both of them graced our sandwiches and were added to other foods for several weeks before the dill ran out of steam by flowering and dying. The basil is now gone too after it had been cut way down due to our harvesting. As for the zucchini plant, it didn't start producing right away but once it did became fairly consistent in providing for us one or two courgettes per week. I suspect that might not necessarily be worth crowing about but we were happy with it. However, it too seems to now be spent as I do not see any more courgettes.

As to the plants on the porch, the lettuce in the cedar box did the best and consistently provided us with leaves for our sandwiches for a number of weeks. However, the broccoli leaves were looking great until they were destroyed by a moth who laid her eggs on it and wiped it out. Of the three plants I transplanted to garden containers, only the oregano has proved fruitful and, although initially growing slowly but consistently, in the past few weeks exploded and took over the whole space. The cucumber and zucchini plants never recovered from the several weeks of high 90's - 100+ temperatures, even though I frequently shaded them from the brutal sun. Initially they were looking good, but when those temps stayed up day after day they were goners. Not only did I probably not water the garden enough to accommodate those temps, I was probably watering at the wrong time which was in the evening. I have since learned that it is better to water early in the morning. Of course, as far as the plants in the containers are concerned (as opposed to the herb), they may not have been the most suitable since they needed abundant space, but YouTube back-porch gardeners seemingly get a cornucopia from this type of gardening – and I have no doubt all of them know what they are doing much more than I do - and since I didn't have anywhere else to put them it was worth a try.

In summary, gardening this year was an astounding success! We got our kids thinking about how food is grown, where it comes from, and what it needs. Never mind that their parents don't have a green thumb. Fortunately that doesn't mean that we will always be doomed to failure but hopefully we can learn and build on the few successes.