You may recall that in the early spring Troy and I put quite a bit of effort into removing a bunch of old yucky dirt from our side yard in hopes of having a more successful garden there. It's been a long time since we have had much thrive or produce well in that dead soil. We took out literal tons of dirt, and tried to pep up the soil with our own compost and the goods found on the floor of our chicken run. Troy tilled it thoroughly and in early May I planted several kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, some herbs, tomatillos and some giant pumpkins.
At first I was really quite disappointed. Nothing seemed to be taking off or really flourishing. We decided that maybe we just hadn't pepped up the soil enough and would have to try again next year. I did add a little organic fertilizer to the plants, which smelled the same as the chicken poop, so it had to be good, right? Also, we had an epiphany about watering. For a while we were watering a little almost every day. But then Troy tried something new. He must have gotten sick of holding the hose over the sagging pumpkin vines. So he set up a sprinkler and let it run for a good 20 minutes. The ground got well and truly soaked. And we didn't have to water again for 3 or 4 days.
Around the time of the watering change and additional fertilizer, something kicked in. Maybe the roots of the plants finally dug deep enough to hit gold, but about mid-summer, everything kind of exploded. All except this one tomato plant which just stubbornly refused to either grow or die. It just stayed like a green twig sticking out of the ground. But everything else flourished before our very eyes. Every morning it was so fun to go outside and see how far the pumpkin vines had reached and entwined themselves with everything from the fence to the tree 20 feet away, from the neighbor's brick wall to the other plants. We had to fight them off a little bit. The tomato plants were so dense and heavy with fruit that they basically flopped over on themselves until they had vines trailing out alongside the pumpkins. Cucumbers began to grow and you had to find them quickly before they grew as large as runaway zucchini. So delightful. Plus, we have sunflowers that reseed themselves in the area every year and there were masses of them just towering over the garden. Talk about a happy place.
Not everything went perfectly - the summer was so hot that the actual pumpkins on the vines would die and rot before they got bigger than a cantaloupe. And though there were dozens and dozens of tomates, they wouldn't budge from their state of greenness. We had a few wars with grasshoppers, but luckily we have chickens on our side and they seemed to clear them up. On the downside, they also cleared up all of my fresh herbs. They loved the parsley, oregano, thyme and tarragon. I guess I'll plant the herbs on the other side of the fence next year.
Happily, as soon as August ended and the air started to cool off just a little, the pumpkins were able to survive and we now have four fat ones looking beautifully orange all nestled in the vines. Almost time to harvest those. And the tomatoes did start to turn red and yellow and it's been many weeks now since I have started gobbling them up on a daily basis. My favorite is either tomato toast with mayo, then slices of the delicious brandywine variety, topped with an over-easy egg, or a grilled cheese sandwich with tomatoes in the middle. I'll never get sick of them, and every time I pluck one of the warm beauties from the vine, bring it inside and slice into it, I know I'm summoning the spirit of my father to come enjoy them with me. Tomatoes were his favorite too.
I'm so happy. Gardening makes me so happy. I wish I knew more about it, and I have many goals of becoming a really good composter (why does decomposing waste make me feel giddy?) and becoming an expert in growing food that sustains the family. I might be a tad idealistic. But seriously, being around growing things just lifts the soul!
This was the first tomato of the year, which Troy picked and ate. But not before he posted a photo of it on instagram making reference to a certain celebrity's back side.
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