Sowing Seeds and Dreams of Bounty

In April, I shared with you my ambitious plans for a vegetable garden and promised to keep you updated on how my own personal recession-buster project was progressing.

Thanks to an incredibly cool and rainy spring, we got off to a slow start, with practically every seed-sown crop failing to germinate. A five-foot row of snap peas produced maybe three plants that grudgingly emerged from the soil. The easy-as-can-be, cool-weather radishes seemed to flourish, judging by their leafy green tops. They’re quick growers, maturing in about 25 days, but when I pulled one after 30 days, there was no bulb, just a long, stringy-looking root. Week after week, I’d pull another “test” radish and get the same disappointing results. How embarrassing for a lifelong gardener. This past weekend, I saw the radishes were starting to go to seed, signaling the end of their lifespan. So I decided to rip them all up to make room for something else, and lo and behold, I got about a half-dozen radish bulbs!

I picked some red and green lettuce, along with baby spinach leaves (another very slow starter), and together with the radish tops, I marched into the house to make a salad on the spot. Those little radishes had none of the bitterness of store-bought varieties. They were quite mild and crunchy, not unlike a water chestnut.

So, back to the garden. The red potatoes are doing quite well, and I’ve already hilled them over (to prevent the tubers growing below from turning green) several times with pine mulch. Still, I have these nasty cutworms that mow down entire stems of potato plants overnight. I painstakingly covered the base of every stem with tinfoil, but still, those little suckers managed to get around it. That’s it. I’m getting diatomaceous earth, a natural dust made of crushed-up seashells. You spread it around your plants like a protective moat, and it’ll kill slugs and any other soft-bodies creatures that attempt a crossing.

I also see cucumber beetles are gnawing numerous tiny holes on the potato plant leaves, but I have plans for them, too. I’ve mixed a blend of onion, garlic, cayenne pepper and dish soap in water, and the pungent brown concoction, sprayed on my veggie plants, should act as a natural bug repellent. That is, if our torrential rains ever stop.

Yellow wax beans and string beans have emerged, but they, too, have been cruelly mauled by slugs, which I pick up and fling away when I find them. The garlic is growing like gangbusters, as are the tomatoes, which are sporting a few small blossoms. The bell peppers have been ravaged by what I suspect are slugs. Inexplicably, the zucchini, acorn squash and spaghetti squash seed I planted ages ago never germinated, so I replanted again yesterday, hoping there would still be enough time for the plants to mature.

I’m guessing the cold start to the growing season has also stymied other gardeners here in the Northeast. According to a Washington Post story, the demand for vegetable seed has skyrocketed this year, up 75% compared to last year at one longtime seed grower.  Contributing to the gardening mania are fears about salmonella outbreaks, rising food prices and concerns about pesticide use.

Some seed growers have even reported runs on certain staples, like beans, potatoes and lettuces, while certain varieties of other vegetables, like carrots, beets, onions and spinach, remain in short supply. Plants like melons, which require a lot of water and space, are not selling well.

My harvest to date? About three servings of lettuce greens with baby spinach and radishes. A paltry output, but hope springs eternal.

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