Garden Insanity





Do you remember when I told you that I bought mushroom compost and put it all over my garden in order to add more nutrients to the soil? Well, it's working. Everything is growing fat and huge and strong in my garden. I don't just mean the vegetables. The weeds and grass and caterpillars and toads and everything else that lands in my garden are also growing.
It's like a jungle in there. I can't control it or stop it. I obviously put my rows in too close together and now I climb under and through vegetable foliage like I'm on a jungle safari. Big heirloom tomatoes grow huge and red and purple under the dense vegetation and I have to snake my arms through the vines to reach them. The weeds are out of control. The grass is thicker in the garden than in my yard. It is lush and rich and totally untamed.
Nature is winning. It is hot out there. It is humid. I spend at least an hour out there every day and I don't even make an imprint out there. I am covered in scratches and weird rashes and dirt and caterpillar juice and heat rash. It's not fun. I love the fresh vegetables, but the summer gardening is hard! I don't know if I have it in me to dedicate the time it really needs. There's a huge part of me that would rather work out or play with the kids or lie by the pool and watch the kids swim and sip wine. But we were talking about the garden right? So here's what we have.
I'm on summer vegetable overload. I easily pull out half a dozen enormous heirloom tomatoes out of the garden every day. I have two gallons of purple and red cherry tomatoes sitting on my counter right now. I have pattypan squash and yellow squash and black zucchini and huge long okra spears and cucumbers and eggplant and onions. My basil plants have taken over and flowered and I can't keep up with them. And cantaloupe. Where do I begin with the cantaloupe. They have taken over their section of the garden. I probably have at least 50 almost ready to pick. What am I going to do with that many cantaloupe? And the butternut squash is working very hard to catch up with the acreage covered by the cantaloupe. They are huge and bursting with tiny butternuts on every available vine.
I've had mold and vine borers all over my squash and honestly I was relieved to pull several squash plants out of the garden just so I could have some place to walk.
My chard is being ignored. It's so tall and big. Does anyone want some chard?
Twice a week now I spend at least four hours cooking and preserving and trying to keep up with it all so I don't waste any of this bounty.
Yesterday I made tomato jam, oven dried tomatoes that I then put in pint jars with basil, garlic cloves and olive oil, two loaves of zucchini bread, squash soup, summer chicken chili, and a double batch of ratatouille. And yet, the top image you see is one of all the vegetables that I didn't use yesterday and still need to use/consume.
The fruit has been ripening as well. My uncle gave me a huge amount of plums and I made 12 jars of plum jam. I also was given two huge watermelons so I made watermelon Popsicles and watermelon puree and watermelon juice. My pear trees are about to explode.
If you live near me and want any garden bounty, please, please let me know. I don't know how long I can keep up this summer garden.

Comments

Mama Deb said…
You're my new hero!!
Seriously, I love plants, but life is not at the place for me to care for them right now. Overgrown or not, you're kicking gardening ass!

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