From the lack of posting lately, it's been safe to assume that not much has been going on in my backyard garden. That's partially true as the heat of August and our trip to the beach combined to pretty much kill off what was left of the garden, at least in the box. The peppers in pots on the deck are still producing, especially the Godfather variety. I'm just waiting on them to turn red before picking. The summertime lettuce experiment wasn't too successful. It grew just fine but the heat got to it and turned bitter, despite the claims of Cook's Garden. I've written before about my failure to properly sucker the tomato plants but it became even more pronounced as the summer wore on as each plant produced prodigous amounts of tiny fruits. They were tasty but just not much too them in size. I took down the pole beans this weekend. My lack of commitment to watering at the far end of the site contributed to their early demise, though we ate a considerable amount of beans from them this year. The teepee design for my son to play under never took effect. I just didn't plant enough of them to fill the netting. The hop vines did great and even produced a few flowers. These take a couple of years to get established root systems so I'm looking forward to seeing next year's growth. The star of the late-summer/early fall garden has got to be the pumpkins. Again, water was an issue so they never achieved their potential for size but we have three beautiful orange orbs that will make great jack-o-lanterns for Halloween, just the reason I planted them. All in all, I had a great first season as a vegetable gardener and I'll plan to expand next year and be a bit smarter about what and how I plant. The next step will be tilling under the soil and planting a cover crop to fix some nitrogen in the soil over the winter. Oh, and I want to plant some garlic, a fall bulb, to be ready for harvest next year.
