Autumn does not officially start until next week, but we have already had our first freeze/snow.
After getting our 65 heirloom tomatoes in the ground (see my previous post Digging in the Dirt) I was then able to plant seeds for several varieties of cukes, summer and winter squash, basil, borage and calendula. Everything was looking great and I was getting very excited…the tomatoes were growing, the seeds were germinating and I had visions of being buried under a mountain of produce and then WHAM! we had a HAIL storm aahhgghh!!!!
The garden looked like a nuclear bomb went off…leaves were stripped, stems were smashed and I felt like crying like a girl…Oh, that’s right, I am a girl!
I thought all my plants were goners but to my delight and surprise, the tomatoes slowly started to recover even though we did loose a few plants. I began to get excited all over again, but with the thought of less than a mountain of produce.
Then, another hailstorm!!! It was too painful to take pictures, so forward I went, hoping to at least have a few tomatoes that I could can.
Then we had gullywasher after gullywasher pretty much every day, the thought of building an ark did cross my mind, until the garden turned into a swamp. It did not get hot except for a few days and the evenings were cool…This was not the weather our veggies needed to thrive.
Then we had our 3rd hailstorm.
And finally, on 9/11, the last insult, a snow and a freeze.
I was able to harvest a lot of squash and 2 cukes (I only got 4 all summer) the night before the weather came in.
So, did we get any ripe tomatoes you may ask…No. They never ripened due to the weather and the late start we had on planting. The summer squash did fairly well as it is pretty much a weed and the winter squash was on it’s way to producing nicely until the freeze…I may still get an acorn squash or 2 but that is about it.
Next year, I plan to start planting earlier with the help of row covers to keep the plants warm and cozy and probably scale back on what and how much I plant…we’ll see…hope springs eternal with all gardeners.
Happy Trails…Diana
