Inventory

Perhaps when one is choosing what to let go of and what to hold onto, one should not hold onto something that is dependent on the weather.

I’m scaling back my garden plans. Friday it got up to nearly 90 degrees, and nearly wiped out my greens in one fell swoop. I got Steve and Jeff to take the cold frame lid off that afternoon, and by 10:30 a.m. Saturday when I went out to harvest greens, a rabbit had eaten most of them.

I got out for about 20 minutes of watering Friday, but I can’t do that every day. It still means running a light hose and a couple trips up and down a (small) hill to turn the faucet on and off. Good days on good weeks, yes. But not any old time it decides to shoot up to 90.

Even in good years, I’m at the mercy of the weather with my garden. Today, looking at my little tomato and pepper seedlings on the windowsill, I had to ask myself: “What the heck am I thinking??”

So let’s do this: let’s cut the number of beds we’re going to plant in half. Two already have maturing garlic in them, one is taken care of with asparagus.

Let’s plant kale, and sprinkle the seeds for greens, lettuce and carrots, and see what happens there.

For the rest, let’s plant some green beans, zucchini, cucumbers, and winter squash. Sow some dry beans like Jack and let the bed go to weed or cover if it must– if there’s anything there late August, that will be nice. If not, legumes help the soil. This year we’ll have eggs.

Let’s give up beets. Give up the Brussels sprouts. Give up peas. Give up eggplant and parsnips and cabbage. Let’s give up most of the tomatoes and peppers. Focus on  a few hardy cherry plants and some sweet peppers. If the weather goes bad, I’ll let go of the tomatoes and peppers, too. If I’m in a place to can in September, I can buy a case of tomatoes that someone else grew.

Let’s set different goals for now: reading a book, say. Keeping rested. Taking walks. Keeping my skin cared for. Let’s nurture the body instead of the garden, just this year. Watch the weather do what the weather does. Go to the Farmer’s Market on Fridays when that works. Next year I’ll be back to the dirt. Next year I’ll grow the food.

Postscript: 

Steve set up a fence around the garden beds late this afternoon. I warned him that if he left the chickens and the transplanted broccoli without fencing it would all be eaten. He went to a store for two more fenceposts, and… they didn’t touch the cauliflower, but we’ll see if the broccoli comes back.