Monday, September 13, 2010

Beyond control


This is what my garden looks like right now.  I haven't weeded in weeks.  I stopped spraying Bt after my sprayer broke two weeks ago.  This is the time of year where it all gets beyond my control.  I am harvesting as much as I can, but there is only enough time in the day for cooking and preserving.  In another few weeks we'll get our first frost, and the squash, peppers, beans and tomatoes will come to a grinding halt.

This is the time of year when I start daydreaming about next year's garden.  Nevermind that this one is still running rampant and wild.  I long for the contained, elegant, controlled gardens I see in my gardening books, the gardens belonging to people who don't have:  a) a job; b) young kids; c) livestock; and d) finite (one might say almost meager) monetary resources.

I've got to make myself focus on the remainder of this year, and get my garden pipedreams under control.  Plenty of time for pipedreaming when the snow is swirling around the home and the wind howls through the eaves, and this year's mistakes are buried under a slumbering blanket of white. 

4 comments:

Erin said...

Mine looked the same way until last week (funny how that coincides with the kids going back to school!) One thing I noticed is that I had to throw everything in the trash this year instead of compost because of miscellaneous symptoms and pests.... makes things slow going when I have to bag it all and wait for trash pickup!

Leigh said...

Whew. Glad to know I'm not the only one with that problem! Once the harvest kicks in to high gear, it seems impossible to do anything else out there. I'm hoping to get more of my garden mulched next year before it starts producing so much.

Lucky Lizard Ranch said...

I know that look!
No real frosts here so we have to kill it with black plastic, my new best garden friend.
Do you have a dehydrator or lots of screens you can strategically place about with herbs and such drying?
Fall is coming....
:-)

Jo said...

Hey Erin -- I'm debating the compost vs. trash thing too. The only big disease I had was the wilt/blight thing. And I know that's already in my soil, no matter what I do. So I'm planting my maters and taters in another area of the yards next year. We'll see what I have time for!

Hello Leigh -- Mulch is indeed the answer. I always neglect to re-mulch, after the first go-through. By the end of the summer a lot of it has broken down.

Hi Liz! Good to hear from you again! I'm thinking of using more black plastic too. It has done wonders with weeds in your garden! Of course, I said I'd use it this year and never did, so so much for my intentions. Ha!