End of the Garden

It's already September and the summer has flown. Amy is back at school; Alyssa is still with us, working part-time and going to school.

The garden is beginning to fade. Overall, because the weather has been so cool and wet, the vegetables have been a disappointment. Poor tomatoes. We had a decent crop of leaf lettuce, but the onions and radishes didn't produce anything edible. A few pathetic cucumbers. A handful of green peppers. A steady few bits of broccoli; never enough for a batch to cook, but plenty for tossing into salads. Something kept nipping off my zucchini blossoms just as they were fading, so the plant never yielded any fruit.

The herbs did pretty well though. Lots of flat-leaf parsley which still persists. Tons of chives and oregano. The cilantro bolted right to seed and never produced anything worth eating. The basil is still looking good and growing well. Tarragon is coming along too. The thyme and sage in pots are also fine and I'll be wintering them over inside the house again this year. My rosemary died, however. I repotted it and realized too late that the pot wasn't draining properly, so the plant drowned. Ken drilled some holes in the pot, so I may buy another plant and try wintering that over.

In the spring, we replaced the dying holly "bushes" with yews. They've been taking hold well and I expect in a few years we'll have to prune them back to keep them from growing over the front window.

While the cool temperatures were a blessing for the low electric bills, I can't help thinking we didn't have much of a real summer here in Michigan.

Comments

[cindy]

the same here in northern michigan....cold and rainy. our garden is a disappointment too. we've had 6 wood stove fires this summer in the morning to get the chill out. on the plus side....it has been beautiful the last couple of weeks. but not enough to salvage a dismal summer.