Our garden saga

This is year #2 of vegetable gardening for us and we are still learning a lot. There are days I really find joy in the process, and there are others that vex the perfectionist in me. I have to remind myself that nothing is failure, so long as we come away with knowledge and experience.

Right?

Having learned the hard way last year that some things just can't be started from seeds-- even indoors (except for in a greenhouse)-- this far north due to such a short and cool growing season, we bought tomato and pepper plants and only grew our herbs, lettuce, and squash/zucchini plants from seeds. We looked to be on a much better track with everything, even with all the cool and rainy weather, so you can imagine our disappointment upon realizing that our tomato plants (particularly the cherry tomato plants) had been struck by blight. Already, we've pulled out one plant altogether and yanked numerous leaves off others. The fruit hasn't yet been effected, but I can tell that it's only a matter of time. Until then, I am ripping off every leaf that starts to go bad and harvesting each tomato practically the minute it turns red.

I'm trying to look on the bright side: now we know. I will probably always be on the lookout for blight after this and will hopefully be able to catch it early enough to treat it in the future.

The other thing I've learned the hard way is that I should have bought way more lettuce seeds than I did. I had no idea how easy it is to grow lettuce, nor how incredibly tasty fresh baby lettuce leaves are! Next year, I will stock up in the spring so that we can keep replanting.

And I will buy a salad spinner, because that would totally make washing and drying all that loose leaf lettuce a hundred times easier.

In the meantime, we are suffering from the basil-blues that it seems many gardeners are experiencing this year. My aunt thinks it's all the rain. All I know is that I miss harvesting huge basil plants and having the smell permeate my entire kitchen. The few measly leaves we get each week are hardly satisfying.

But we are enjoying some early-harvested peppers that I really ought to let stay on the vine and ripen to a nice red but don't because I'm just too impatient, and I have absolutely loved having fresh cilantro around for all my mexican cravings. And, not surprisingly, our zucchini and summer squash plants are gigantic and producing well for the second year in a row. Now I know why everybody has so much squash to give away each summer; I think it's probably nearly impossible to not have those things thrive!

All in all, it's been a good summer even though we are busily making notes for next year. Part of me wonders just how many years it will take before we move beyond Novice to Experienced, but it is a process and-- overall-- a very fun one.