Frustration in the Garden

It’s been a very busy past two weeks. After a weekend in Houston and a weekend in Oklahoma–meaning very little time spent in the garden–and a few rain showers, the garden was a mess. It’s taken us two full weekends of work to get it back in shape. It’s been a frustrating two weeks.

If I haven’t said it before, gardening is backbreaking work. I run 20-30 miles per week, walk around 10 miles a week, and do yoga almost daily, but nothing makes me more sore than squatting, bending over, and digging and hoeing in the garden.

The arugula is blooming--and thriving

The first weekend of garden reconstruction we did nothing but pull up weeds and grass. The grass has been unrelenting. We had an extremely mild winter and above average rainfall this spring, and the weeds have also been ferocious.

In addition, the bugs are out of control. We had some pest problems last year, but nothing like this. Something has ravaged the okra seedlings, chewing off half of each leaf. A few flower plants in the front garden have also been decimated, all their blossoms completely eaten off at the stalk and the leaves chomped up. It happened overnight, and I have yet to actually see what it is that’s eating everything.

Michael's pride and joy

Last week we had our first small zucchini appear on one of the plants. I have six zucchini plants with multiple blooms, but only one was actually producing a fruit. I checked on it one morning, and in the afternoon Michael asked if I had seen that something had taken a bite out of it. Sure enough, you could see a groove where two teeth had taken a bite. Four days later I noticed the same plant was wilted, and when I checked on it the entire plant had been sawed off in two.

Argh.

I’m going to make a guess that it’s cutworms doing the damage and put a ring of aluminum foil around the base of the plants.

After Michael inadvertently stepped on the two largest, healthiest okra plants, we moved the remaining poor half-eaten seedlings to another area of the garden to receive more sunlight. They look pretty distressed by the move, and the fact that their leaves are half eaten, but I have faith they’ll bounce back.

Could anything look more sad than this transplanted, munched up okra seedling?

Michael also transplanted all his pepper seedlings into the garden. We have one empty row of garden space left, to be filled with something that hasn’t been determined yet.

The tomato plants are tall and healthy and . . . barren. So far. None of the previous blossoms produced any fruit. Again, this was not a problem I faced last year. There are new flowers now, so hopefully some of them will produce tomatoes.

On top of all this, there’s a rogue chicken who has been roaming the neighborhood. I can’t help but wonder if the chicken is the culprit, especially in the front garden and the decimated flowers. And remember, we live a mile from the heart of downtown Dallas, so it’s not common at all to see chickens strutting around your front yard. And it’s not your average, run of the mill chicken either, it’s an ostentatious black and white speckled chicken that’s showy and noisy.

If I ever hear that chicken clucking in my front flower garden, all bets are off . . .

It’s only April and I’ve already had my first mosquito bite, but on a good note the fireflies have started to come out in the evenings. It’s strange, because I remember fireflies being a late summer treat from childhood. Fireflies in April already?

We do have one huge success: we’ve already had our first harvest of green beans. Other than lettuce, I can’t think of anything easier to grow than bush green beans. They’re like the gift that keeps on giving.

As for my front flower garden, it is thriving. It looks lovelier than it ever has. Last year I planted three delphinium plants. All three grew, but did not produce flowers. This spring the plants are HUGE and all three have big, beautiful stalks full of flowers. Best of all, the flowers are three different colors: white,  red, and pink. These things have quadrupled since last summer, and I’m pretty sure they will take over the entire flowerbed if I don’t stay on top of them.

I used to see these flowers when I lived in Switzerland. They didn’t bloom there until late July.

Seeds sown this past weekend: poppies and giant sunflowers, lettuce, and basil. Keep your fingers crossed.

Hopefully things will start taking off in the vegetable garden soon and the frustrations will end. I’ll be in Portland, OR next week running a half-marathon and visiting my daughter, and I’m expecting the garden to be a cornucopia of good eats when I return.