I was really having trouble thinking of a catchy title to this post. That’s about as good as you’re gonna get at this point! Anyway, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a thing or two on what I’ve learned from gardening this year, for my sake as well as anyone else who might be interested (that means you, Cara! just kidding).
1. You shouldn’t dig up your garden when the soil is too wet. This can create big clumps of dirt that turn rock hard when they dry.
2. Lettuce is so neat! It grows and then you cut it, and then it grows and you cut it, and then it grows and you cut it, and so forth. I don’t think I’ll be growing this next year though and will explain why below.
3. Radishes and lettuce do not do well in hot weather. When the weather gets hot, radishes get hotter (spicier I mean) and have a woody taste. Lettuce begins to flower and that’s how you know it’s done for the season. You can grow this again in the fall when the weather starts to get cooler.
4. For a family of four (three of which don’t like zucchini), 9+ zucchini plants is a little, shall we say, excessive. I had NO idea that zucchini plants produced so much zucchini. For next year, even if I do plant zucchini, I will probably only do one or two plants.
5. Zucchini plant leaves get HUGE! I had a strawberry patch in my garden and also an area where I planted some jingle bell peppers. They are now lost underneath the leaves of my zucchini plants.
6. Green onions are great from the garden! We have had green onions dipped in ranch dressing as part of our dinners this year and there have been quite a few mornings where I’ve woken up with onion breath. Combine that with morning breath and it’s amazing David still wants to be in the same room with me! But I digress…
7. Lettuce, though really neat, has little creepy crawlies on it that are the same color as the lettuce leaves and are hard to see. After David found a caterpillar in his salad one night, my excitement kind of dwindled over the lettuce. I will probably not plant lettuce next year and plant more spinach. The spinach tasted great. I used it to make a vegetarian egg casserole. Yummy!
8. I need to get over my issues with bugs. Those of you who know me understand how difficult a feat this is. Sigh. Regardless, since gardens are outside and bugs live outside, bugs are going to be in my garden despite my dislike of them.
9. If you want to grow peas, they need to grow up something, kind of like a vine. I didn’t know that they needed to do that and my peas ended up in this twisted up pile. I got a few pea pods off (they were SO good!) but not as many as I could have because some got piled underneath the vines.
I am going to go do some dishes and will continue this post another time. Good night!
Quote: “Anyway, I thought I’d take the opportunity to write a thing or two on what I’ve learned from gardening this year, for my sake as well as anyone else who might be interested (that means you, Cara! just kidding).”
Hey, that’s what friends are for!!! 😉