adventures in gardening

there has been an on-again, off-again frost warning hovering around town lately. I took that as my sign that summer was over, and it was time to "harvest the garden".

Note to self: next summer, less tomato plants, spaced further apart. Buy the tomato staking cages *when you see them*, don't wait until later, when you can't find them and try bamboo stakes instead, which don't hold up to a couple of seriously windy days/storms and blow over, making your tomatoes turn into a matted mess of vines all over the ground.

After picking up the boy from school, the kids and I all headed out to the yard to pick vegetables/ride bikes/fight/throw sand/annoy mom. I should have remembered that I still need mosquito spray, even if it's getting cold, so I don't die from West Nile Virus (roll eyes, but I still got bit) My tomatoes were everywhere, and were a total mess. A very productive mess, but still a mess. I had to really work hard at pulling the (still very green) tomatoes off the vines, while weeding out the ones that were icky because of the vines sitting on the ground. I was filling up my large bowls at a speed that I didn't quite believe. All while trying to remind the girls that I was not in swing pushing mode, that they would have to wait until dad finished mowing the front lawn.

Tomatoes everywhere. Tomatoes beyond my wildest dreams. Tomatoes that should ripen, eventually...I hope. Lots still in the garden too - the icky ones.

I picked the peppers. My yellow peppers were much bigger than the red peppers. However, colour is a moot point, as August wasn't warm enough for them to change colour anyhow, and they are all still very green. I don't think they will change colour, like the tomatoes will. Lots of peppers, so that was exciting.

My zucchini plants seem to have tapered off...I think. That's taken care of. The last honeydew was picked. It was small, but I picked it anyhow, didn't want the frost to steal it away.

note to self: less zucchini plants next year, and don't forget to pick zukes before going away for a week - 5+ pound zukes aren't as nice to eat. Also, don't plant zukes too close to pumpkins.

Then it came time for the pumpkins.

What can I say? The zucchini plants are aggressive and took over a lot of the garden. The pumpkin plants tried to hold their own, weaving around the bases of the sunflowers, but ultimately retreated. Under the fence. There were at least 2 pumpkins on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, the neighbors behind us do not seem to exist/ever go outside/speak English, and also have a closed off yard that one cannot sneak into. So I decided (in my infinite wisdom *roll eyes*) to climb the fence.

I am scared of heights. Wait, specifically, I'm afraid of falling from heights, and a 5 foot chain link fence does indeed count as a height. Just like the top of the dishwasher was when I worked at Starbucks. I grab the ladder, and an accomplice (Rob, who has now finished mowing the lawn, and has been roped into being chief swing pusher) and decide to go over. Well, I sure didn't pick a good spot to climb over. You would think that if one were to climb a chain link fence, one would decide to do so where there is a support bar, you know, like there is every 10 feet? No, not me. As I climbed up the ladder and got to the top of the fence, I realized that I could step down onto the fence, both because it wouldn't be comfortable on my feet, and that where I was (right in the middle of two support bars), it was wobbly. When faced with a wobbly footing, I'm likely to fall. Falling isn't my strong suit. Somehow, I managed to hang myself over the fence, by holding the ladder, and dropped down into the neighbor's yard.

When then made me feel like a criminal. Even though I was getting MY OWN pumpkins, in broad daylight, just being in a neighbor's fenced yard felt very, very wrong. I managed to pick the pumpkins, hand them back over the fence to Rob, and pull out the vines that had migrated under the fence to toss them back into our yard.

Then I remembered that I had to get back into our yard. Couldn't go around, because I could get out of the backyard. Had to go over. I pulled the ladder over the fence, and climbed back up. This time, I moved the ladder over so that I was able to stand on the supporting bar. Smart move...except that this time I chose to jump down. Um, not so smart. 5 feet down didn't seem like such a bad idea until I did it. Silly me

So, my house is filled with produce, some ready to eat, others not. I have learned a lot from my first year of gardening. Including lessons like I don't like to weed, cucumbers are hard to grow, and tomatoes can indeed be too much of a good thing.