Hard Gardening
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008It’s going to be a hard year for gardening, and I’m not alone. Just about everybody I’ve talked to has had the same problems I’ve had. The closest farmers market just had it’s first day this past weekend. Looking at the books from last year, everything is weeks behind.
This past weekend I replanted green beans, again. Late cold weather, after warm weather took a toll. Then it was the flooding that we usually get in the early spring / late winter took its toll. So here is the bean story, so far. I planted as planed on the same days as last year, with nothing but good weather in the forecast. The down went the temps and down went the beans. So cleanup, rework and replant. Then comes the big rains and rotted or washed the beans out. This is also about the time the tractor broke. So cleanup, rework and replant all by hand, which takes a lot longer. Now we have seeds in the ground about 2 weeks later than the time we were harvesting last year. Not good. And we are already really dry and really hot. We need some rain or this planting won’t come up either. But I just keep trying, and trying.
Not everything has done badly though. On another piece of ground where the peas are growing things are looking great. They started blooming and hopefully will be a good crop. So people will get more peas and less beans, not a bad trade off in our part of the country. Peas tend to be a more valuable crop anyway.
