O.K. I started Garden2009 with the best of intentions. I started tons of little seedlings—literally hundreds of herb, flower, and vegetable plants. I also bought tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and many others from the farmer's market, too. I spent whole days tilling, sifting compost, planting.
I got some really nice early season arugula, salad turnips, a little spinach. Then the bunnies struck! They chewed through the deer fencing that had worked so beautifully me last year. I rewrapped the fence, and they chewed through again. I planted my squash and zucchini outside the fence, because nothing ever touches them. The deer mowed them down. No zucchini?! No zucchini. I battled and lost—all well documented in The Pocono Record, which was featuring local gardeners throughout the season.
And then there was the blight. I didn't get any potatoes in, and it was just as well, because a tomato/potato blight blew through, and my vines just withered. Out of 15+ tomato plants, I harvested a handful of cherry tomatoes. That was it. Garden2009 was a complete and total bust. Except for the garlic. Beautiful White Porcelain garlic…which I waited too long to harvest because I went back to work, so Chris dug it up, but didn't clean it. The cloves are big and beautiful, but the bulbs are a little spread out, and very dirty. The flavor is excellent, though. Unfortunately, I was so pissed off at the wildlife, that I declared that I wouldn't be gardening again this year, and I didn't plant any garlic for Garden2010. Obviously I'm a glutton for disappointment, because the catalogs are coming in, and Garden2010 is in the planning stages. With improvements in fencing.
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