I've learned that I'm not a good plant pruner. Partly because I'm not sure of the exact right way so clearly I couldn't just give it a try and see what happens, but also it always seems like I shouldn't prune because that branch might bear good fruit so clearly I shouldn't cut it off....I should let it live!
There's probably a spiritual lesson in there somewhere.
Aside from tomatoes, beans and one pepper....our garden has produced no other veggies......not even the zucchini or yellow squash which I was under the impression were impossible not to have an overabundance of. Everything grew, everything flowered....then flowered again.....then again.....then.....nothing. Well, not nothing; the zucchini and squash plants did shrivel up and die so that's something I suppose. I'm not sure where we went wrong--our climate or our soil mix or my sad gardening skills, or a combination of all three?
The things that grew best are the beans, which of course are the things I like least.
And, as if it wasn't already bad enough that we have to pick our tomatoes before they are perfectly ripe to stop the raccoons from feasting on them, this week, to add insult to injury, our very best tomato plant was attacked by this horrifically disgusting worm.
He took out half the tomatoes in one day.
So we put him in a time out.
Delicious. This was cuter when it was happening in The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
I think we are going to pull out the sad garden soon, reassess the soil and put in our "fall garden" which apparently is something you can do when you live in Florida. Since I'm planning on doing some intensive Beatrix Potter reading with the boys for the start of David's not-really-Kindergarten-year I'm thinking carrots, lettuce, cabbage and radishes are all in order.
Hopefully we will have better luck and I can stop despairing at my total and complete lack of gardening skills and also maybe learn to prune a plant with reckless abandon.
I'll keep you posted.
ha! We have a hungry catepillar, too.
ReplyDeleteOur squash weren't too good this year either, maybe just a bad year?
Better luck with the fall garden!
Well if YOU can't grow squash then there's no hope for me!
ReplyDeleteLol! Welcome to the Deep South with our fall seasons, or as I like to call it, the do-over season. We have not had much luck with our small garden in our small backyards in the past so it makes total sense that we would move onto 1.5 acres and expect a bountiful harvest. We weren't able to go a single squash so you fared better than we have.
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