Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells and pretty maids all in a row.
I remember that from my first book of nursery rhymes.
I didn’t have much of a cockleshell crop this year, but my squash, cukes, tomatoes and okra have kicked ass. Several of my backyard gardener friends also admit to having one of their most productive gardens ever. The rain may have screwed up some picnics and hikes in the mountains, but it sent holy water to our lawns and gardens. I’m sure the bushes and trees have also enjoyed this, one of the wettest summers ever.
We were fortunate in our plantings this year. Nancy had a dozen pots on the patio with tomatoes, cukes and peppers and her tomato vines and cucumbers were producing before my plants had blooms. So we picked her veggies for several weeks and now mine are coming in. We have had four pickings of okra with lots more to come, plus my tomatoes are just peaking and should continue for another month. I have also enjoyed a bumper crop of yellow squash. Back in June, when we went a couple weeks without rain, I thought my squash would wither and die, but it bounced back to life when the monsoons arrived. The plants are still healthy in appearance and continue to produce. We are now planting some beets and peas in Nancy’s patio garden and hope to be picking those later this fall. I may even scatter some collard seeds when my cukes and squash give up the ghost.
It’s been a wonderful summer for gardening. We eat fresh vegetables every night, and that makes the small effort of growing a backyard garden well worthwhile.