Garden Story

I wish I could tell you some wonderful fairytale about my garden and how it fed our family all summer and turned into a beautiful little Eden in the valley. Instead my garden's story is more like one of Aesops Fables... you know where one animal fails miserably and the more clever (usually smaller) animal succeeds and there is a very clear moral at the end of the story. So the groundhog and the deer succeeded. They ate most of my tomatoes AND tomato plants. They ate my broccoli and peas too. I found the ground hog's hole, right behind my compost pile which is about 8 feet from my garden and was enraged! So you ask, "Clare, Clare, skin so fair, how did your garden grow?" And I say, "ASK THE GROUNDHOG!" because my garden was really his. And the moral of the story?

"Don't lift the hoe, because your garden won't grow unless you first build a fence."

So that is Nick's winter time project. But it doesn't end there... because the clever Clare did not put all her eggs in one basket, or all her seeds in one garden. No, I made 2 gardens. One was going to be the "herb and green" garden which I planted close to our house. The soil wasn't as rich, but everything did really well. I had Lettuce all spring... I mean tons and tons of untouched-by-ROUS (because that's what groundhogs really are) lettuce and arugula. I picked up some herbs, and started a few from seed and had basil, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, mint and sage all summer long!! I even harvested seeds from my lettuce, arugula and cilantro and started a fall planting. AND my friend gave me some tomato plants that I threw in the ground near the lettuce and no one messed with them! So I finally got some tomatoes. And I had Cucumbers... at least a dozen from one plant. And I have some squash and melons that might make it... we shall see. So I didn't really fail. I just learned very clearly what not to do next year! A somewhat sad story with a semi-happy ending. Happy Harvesting to you all!