New Year—New Plans

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.

The Deer War: War is Declared!

While my gardening didn’t start out in a war zone, there certainly have been skirmishes over the years. When we first moved into the old cabin on our land over 30 years ago, the previous tenants had kept a small vegetable garden surrounded by a rusted chicken wire fence. We continued that garden, curiously pulling everything from antique metal toy trucks to hypodermic needles out of the soil, for several years. However, the fence was so ugly that we took it down and began using hoops and netting over our rows. Besides, the Pocono deer problem wasn’t that bad in those days. Their population hadn’t exploded, and their habitat hadn’t been quite so decimated by development. So while we were aware that the deer could come in and wipe us out in an evening’s munching, we only ever saw only minor damage.

As the years passed, the deer damage increased. I added ornamental beds and other deer delicacies, and my frustrations with chew-downs only grew. Yet certain crops were off the menu. We always put our tomatoes in open beds with only an occasional bite out of ripe fruit and nary a leafy nibble. Tomatoes are in the nightshade family and can’t taste good..even to those damn ruminants! I knew I’d always lose some of my vegetable harvest to critters, but I liked the look of open beds and couldn’t really afford fencing. I used Liquid Fence and Deer Scram on my ornamentals with some success, but usually faded in my consistency as each summer progressed. I also had Bailey, my yellow lab, on patrol duty.

My vegetable garden of 2007 consisted of four raised beds planted with cukes, tomatoes, lettuces and other greens. I had hoops over the greens, but the cukes were on trellises, and the tomatoes were caged. I had around 10 tomato plants loaded with green tomatoes when my family went to Vermont for our dear friend Grace’s wedding in mid-July. My daughter Leah flew in from Portland, OR, to be in the wedding, and my other daughter Robin and her husband Sean drove to Vermont from their western PA home. We rented a house for a week and had a lovely family vacation. After the wedding, Leah was returning to our house with my husband Chris and me, but she had extended duties as a bridesmaid, so we got a late start home. Robin and Sean, who got an earlier start, were breaking up their journey by spending an evening at my house, and had arrived while it was still light.

When we finally returned home, Sean and Robin were well ensconced. Casually, Sean asked me, “Linda, why do you prune your tomato plants that way?” I screamed! I grabbed the flashlight and ran out to my raised beds. Denuded stalks with amputated branches appeared in my beam like grotesque alien growths. Sadly, I returned to the house to wait for morning and my grim damage report.

It was bad. Every flower was chewed down to a nub. My huge hydrangea which had been loaded with blooms was sheared like a crew cut. Even my holly bush was stripped of leaves! The only foliage left was on my peonies. Every cuke and tomato plant had been eaten to single bare stalks. My total tomato harvest for the entire summer was one cherry tomato that managed to survive.

I was pissed. It was war!

Hurry Up and Wait

Elections used to last about 6 months. This last presidential election was 2 years long. It used to be that Christmas shopping started after Thanksgiving, but now Jingle Bells are ringing just after Halloween. Everything is being marketed so much earlier, be it candidates or sweaters. So it was with a bit of annoyance and a dab of wistfulness that I found the first seed catalog in the mail before Christmas. That should be January. Definitely not December. It should be a rule. And yet, I have an eagerness to start my perusal.

It's not like I don't have plenty to do in the winter. Besides a full time teaching job, I am an avid skier who skis every weekend at Camelback in the Poconos and occasional weekends in Vermont. I'm planning a Vermont trip for weekend after next, as a matter of fact. I have way too much to do to be thinking about seed catalogs. But I am.

It is painful. I look through every catalog and make a wish list. Ridiculous. Even if I planted one seed from each wishful seed packet, I'd never have room in my garden for everything. So I start paring down. Do I really have the growing season and space for globe artichokes? What seeds do I have from last year, and are they viable? I compare varieties from different catalogs and look for similarities. I check number of seeds per packet and the cost. Are organic seeds an option? I check shipping charges, looking for a deal. Eventually, I try to limit myself to ordering from no more than 2 companies. It is a long process, but one I am totally engrossed in. But not yet.

Seed catalogs are for January. No sooner. It's a rule.