Winding Down

As is to be expected in mid-September, the garden is really winding down. Fortunately, the tomatoes, which were late this year, are putting forth a valiant effort at producing a modest harvest which is quite welcome. My late planting of green beans is also doing very well. The insects don't even seem to have noticed that there is a new crop and so far have left them completely alone. I have one last bright orange Thai melon yet to harvest. Other than that, the garden is pretty much finished.

Even though we really enjoy fresh vegetables all summer, I am not really all that sad to see the garden come to an end for fall. It really is true that to every thing there is a season, and now I am looking forward to the season to rest a bit, then start planning for next year. Truly, I don't think gardening would be as fun if I had to do it all year long.

This was my second season to garden in garden boxes, and once again I have learned a lot that I will apply to next year. The use of trellises with some of my boxes worked very well. My cucumbers and melons grew healthier and were easier to find and harvest by being trained on the trellis. My experiment growing corn turned our very well, too. However, next year I will put two boxes side by side, long ways, so they can support each other and I can grow a bit more corn with extra spacing. This year, the box would tip over once the corn grew tall whenever the water reservoir went dry. This happened several days in a row in late July when the weather was very hot and the corn was very thirsty.

I am still trying to find ways to be able to leave the boxes for more than a day at a time. If the boxes aren't watered daily when the plants are at their peak, the plants really suffer. This means that going away for a weekend is a problem unless someone can be lined up to water the boxes once a day. I am going to have to do some brainstorming this winter to come up with some solutions to this problem.

For now, I am just focusing on enjoying the last of my harvest, and cleaning up the garden boxes as the plants are finished producing. I enjoy garden clean up chores, because I can then look forward to having the boxes ready when I am this spring. To every thing there is a season.