Garden fail

Back in September I planted a garden. The soil was mostly clay, so I was cautiously hopeful that my minor soil amendments would merit a steady supply of tomatoes and lettuce.

Eh...

The first disappointment was that the 8 Lebanese cucumber plants turned out to be English cucumbers and Australian cucumbers (also the standard cucumber in America).

The birds (I'm still hoping it was birds and not rats) ate the handful of Black Russian tomatoes produced before the entire plant died.




The single bell pepper plant still looks like this:

 I have a rosemary, thyme, and chive plant still living.

In what is probably the most humiliating evidence of the garden fail is that even the zucchini plant is dying. 

The pumpkins did quite well for awhile--though I planted eight pumpkin plants and only harvested four pumpkins. They aren't the kind that taste good, so I'm not quite sure what to do with them since it isn't the time of year for carving jack-o-lanterns. 

I think the fail is partly because I forgot to turn off the drip lines for many hours, drowning them in that heavy clay soil. Also, I've just been traveling an awful lot, so I haven't been able to tend to the watering like I should.

The lettuce and spinach did well for awhile until it was too hot. And the basil has been worth the money to have on hand. Those all grew in the "grow box" that used potting soil. I am now waiting for a handful of peanut plants to do their thing before we leave in August. 

Also, in a strange twist of bad luck, my pressure sprayer blew a gasket (or something) and now I can't spray the endless sprouts of weeds like I was doing. So here they come again.

But in spite of the fails, I still smile looking at my little garden of succulent starts. I'm going to clip them off when we go and get to bring them back! 

And that adorable little Christmas Tree I built from discarded succulents is alive and well! It's going to live!

I'm sad I am not able to start some tomatoes in my garden that will be ready for harvest right when I get back in August. I really want to top a piece of toast with a fat slice of Orange Wellington, or pop some SunSugars in my mouth directly from the garden. But I did manage to can 14 jars of salsa before we left last summer, so at least I'll have a little to get me by.