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1) That I can't or shouldn't get too upset about gardening....it is after all supposed to be relaxing and pleasurable.

This year my zinnias are frustrating me. The last two years they've grown straight up as a rod -- tall and sturdy. Well this year I apparently bought a different kind of seed and some are growing straight up tall -- and others are all crooked and winding (WYN-ding). (Flopping over, and the stems are almost like a 'walking stick' they bend and curve.

(Oh, they LOOK good, It's just that the way they're growing. IF they stood up they'd be just as tall as the all ones, but they crook so much the flower head is flopped over not much about the rim of the container. Just makes stuff look scraggy to me.)

I do think I recall buying two kinds of zinnias, or thinking "I've bought one kind before, let me try another this time." So I bought both. Well now I definitely know which I prefer.

That's the think about gardening the only way to know and learn .... is to try.

Any of your lessons?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: clbselah,

I've been growing Supersonic tomatoes for decades. They've always been our very favorite variety.

This year, decided to switch it up a bit... Trying other kinds that I might like even better. So I bought 3 Supersonics, one Beefmaster, and one with "Early" in the name I can't remember (but not Early Girl). Thought I'd get tomatoes sooner from an early variety. That one ripened at least a week later than the others, plus it has a strange mealy texture - like one of those styrofoamy hothouse things they call tomatoes sold in January. And, the Beefmaster has no tomatoey flavor to speak of, it's just 'there'.

Needless to say... I'll be back to all Supersonic plants next year. Why mess with success?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nettiejay,

I learned that 30 tomato plants are waaaaaaay too many for 3 people.

Which brings me to this little cartoon a friend sent me.

ve

I've learned that weeds are always with us and as long as they are weed whacked or pulled before they go to seed it's OK. I always knew that, just stressing less this year.

I've also decided that I don't have to take pictures of my garden every other day! LOL Haven't taken many at all this year.

Another lesson - I'll never again use well rotted manure as top dressing but will add it to the compost/mulch. The bed I top dressed last fall with WRM grew Lady's Mantle with leaves larger than I've ever seen and they are not as pretty as the others in beds that were amended differently. Didn't seem to affect the other plants tho.

quote:

Originally posted by vera ellen:
I learned that 30 tomato plants are waaaaaaay too many for 3 people.

LOL BTDT but they are really easy to freeze and nice to have in the winter.

VE... 10 plants per person? LOL

I clipped this from the paper years and years ago. It still makes me giggle, because I've been there so many times:

Tomatoes On My Windowsill
by Robin Benzle

Tomatoes on my windowsill,
Lined up like happy soldiers,
From pale green as key lime pie
To red as sunburned shoulders.

They seem to smile at the sun,
While they patiently a-ripen.
And when I do my kitchen chores,
I smile back, enlightened.

One by one I take them down
From their nest upon the sill,
And add them to a salad or
Perhaps a sauce with dill.

Then to my garden I return
To pluck another load,
And tenderly I line them up
On that shelf in my abode.

No sooner do I get them shelved,
Than my garden calls me back.
They're ripening all at once, I think,
As I stuff them in my sack.

So I give them to my neighbors and
I give them to my friends.
I give them to my enemies,
Just to make amends.

Soon, I note they're turning red
So fast it makes me ill.
From off the vine, they drop like flies.
My plot looks like road kill.

Tomatoes on my windowsill
All rotting in a row.
I never thought I'd say this but,
"Where the h e ll's the snow?"

oh nettiejay.. that is so funny. thanks for the laugh. i'm glad you kept it and shared it with us.

thats how it seems to be with zucchini out here. you can't give the stuff away because all your neighbors are growing it too. they also learned the hard way that two zucchini plants are one too many.

haha.. still chuckling here.

i'd say poor vera ellen but i know she's been working her tail off canning and preserving her garden produce. she'll have tomatoes, tomato juice, beans, squash, pickles, jellys, etc.. etc.. etc.. into the winter months when we will be at the supermarket with most of our gardens nothing but a vague memory.

oh.. and lessons learned?

1) i am never done in the garden. [not counting weeding, of course] when i put in a new bed and think thats it forever, i am just kidding myself.

2) i do get bored if things are the same for too long. the wallflower is only 2 years old but it has gotten humongous and outgrown its space in spite of my pruning it back last spring. yawn.. it has to go.

3) i admit it.. i want instant gratification. i do not have patience to watch a new bed fill in over a few years. why should i plan for something to be full 3 years from now? heck, i'm at the age where i don't even buy green bananas.

4) my plan to make permanent beds in the two brick circles in order to save spending money on new flowers every spring su*cks. even the perennials i bought in the past weren't perennial. so what if they don't come back year after year and i have to shop all over again? the thrill is in the creating.

5) most important.. don't see only what needs to be done. lets your eyes rest on what beauty there is right now and and enjoy it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: bana,

Nettie Jay - loved the poem, and that echos my feelings exactly. I laughed all the way through it because it totally summed up my feelings.

We have quarts and quarts of juice, whole tomatoes and frozen tomatoes and they are still producing. I am giving them away as fast as I can to anyone who will take them.

Bana, great thoughts and a whole lot of lessons learned!! You tickle me.


ve