Cold and Rainy

Cold and rainy. That's the best description of the '09 garden season. A few of the perennials were happy -- particularly the ones in the dry shade gardens -- but most of my flowers have been leggy and floppy, sporting powdery mildew and brown spots and slug damage. Then there are the vegetables. I will first say that I have been incredibly successful with summer squash (zephyr) and swiss chard, in addition to onions, garlic, basil, oregano, cilantro, and parsley. But the losses have been devastating, including the loss of most of my large tomatoes to late blight. I have a wealth of sun sugar and sun gold tomatoes, which seem to be resistant to the blight. My first planting of pole beans drowned. The second planting is just starting to flower, so I'm hoping for a late frost to have the opportunity to freeze some beans. Peppers and eggplants were simply sluggish to produce fruit because of the lack of warm days and nights. I'm finally starting to get a few, but the yield will be disappointing.

I have had perennial gardens for much longer than I have been growing vegetables, and have attributed my success to the following philosophy: If something grows well, plant more of it. If not, 3 strikes and you're out. This approach has worked so well that I have gained somewhat of a reputation as a master gardener among my garden-minded friends. Unfortunately, this summer has taught me that vegetable gardening requires the exact opposite approach. With the fickle weather and unpredictable insect and disease patterns, it seems that the best strategy for veggies is to plant a wide variety and see what does well this year. That way I'll have SOMETHING to put in the freezer. My husband has already announced that he's getting a little tired of squash, which is a real shame since we have a freezer full of it!