When (IF) I’m eating fresh lettuce, carrots, beets and kale, I’ll be happy and will forget the hassle but . . my fall garden has been a miserable failure. Grab a Kleenex . . you may need one! 🙂
Towards the end of September, I planted peas, lettuce, carrots, beets and kale. Earlier I had started cauliflower and brussels sprouts in the greenhouse. When I planted the brussels sprouts and cauliflower, because there were still tons of grasshoppers, I covered them. While I was in Missouri, Vince told me on the phone that everything had sprouted and looked so pretty. Next day . . bad news . . the grasshoppers ate all the sprouts except the peas.
When I got home, I replanted. I also planted onions and garlic. Then came a 5″ rain. I knew there was a lot of water in the garden and I kept waiting for things to sprout. Yesterday I was in the garden and looked down where a water hose was stretched across the garden and . . what’s all that green stuff? Everything I had planted in about half of the garden, where water was flowing across it, the seeds had washed away. The garden hose had acted like a dam, of sorts and the seeds were all deposited there and sprouted.
Today, I will replant . . I will stick seeds in the ground for the third time. It all reminds me that I’m doing this because I love it . . not because I have to do it. In my grandparents’ days, and earlier in the days of our country, when the gardens failed, families went hungry. While I’m disappointed at the extra work, it isn’t a matter of life or death if the garden produces or doesn’t produce.
So we don’t end this on a sad note, the onions, garlic, peas, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and potatoes are doing great.
Potatoes
In the spring garden, I had about 200 potato plants. The fall potatoes were planted or transplanted from leftover potatoes . . ones that were left in the ground and sprouted. There are probably 30 or 40 potatoes in the garden now. Maybe 25 of them are in these two rows but others have popped up throughout the garden . . where the spring potatoes were growing. I’ve just left them there and we’ll see what happens.
Cauliflower
This photo was taken several weeks ago. The cauliflower is much bigger now. You can see the peas off to the right.
This year’s fall garden will probably not go down in history as being my best garden but it may be the that I’ve worked the hardest at getting anything to grow.
Debbie Rhodes says
We gave up on fall gardens years ago.. our summer garden has always done good. (30 years) but fall gardens never ever produced well… so we decided when you do something over and over and it fails time to stop doing it… less stress.. our summer garden does us proud. produce from the store just has to do in the winter.. otherwise we use what we canned or froze. I don’t use the outhouse like my grands did some things from progress are okay……
JudyL says
Lots of things from progress are ok but some day . . they may not be here. Believe it or not, we also have a plan for what we’ll do in the event indoor plumbing isn’t functioning.
Our fall garden last year (first one here) was so amazing that I almost gave up the spring garden, which is so hard because of the bugs and drought. Eventually something will sprout and the grasshoppers will leave it alone but for now, it’s a real battle.
sharon massena says
We found the potatoes that sprouted from the ones we managed to miss at the last digging were such healthy potatoes. I don’t pull them any more no matter where they want to come up.
JudyL says
Thanks for the encouragement! I’m real anxious to see what ours do. I’ve never done that before.
Sharon in Michigan says
This is probably a really dumb question… Can you spray your crops for the nasty grasshoppers?
Rebecca Grace says
You know, we are so spoiled today with our big grocery stores full of fresh produce year-round. Your post reminds me of what it must have been like before supermarket grocers and commercial farms, what it must be like still today in many parts of the world, where everything depends on the harvest and some years, no matter how carefully the fields were planted and tended, the harvest was compromised by bugs, disease, droughts, flooding, and other calamities outside of the farmers’ control.
But it’s totally okay if you need to cry about it. That’s a lot of work to put in, and it must be very disappointing when it doesn’t pay off the way you wanted it to.
Susan says
Third time’s the charm. I predict a great garden crop!
Nueyer says
I wish I had that much land to experiment with planting edibles. I haven’t been too successful with herbs in my apartment 🙁