When Kevin was a little kid growing up in Montana, they didn’t have Sesame Street, The Electric Company, or the Muppet Show. They had the Farm Report.
So as summer fades into autumn, the City Mouse1 and the Country Mouse2 pay homage to that venerable broadcast with a brief recounting of this season’s gardening wins and losses.
The beans we planted were not, as we thought, a climbing variety but rather a bush that skulked around the bottom of the trellis, grew stunted for lack of sun, and died nearly fruitless. Note to City Mouse: Do not trust Country Mouse; read the seed packets.
Our peas fared even worse – they grew a little, bloomed half-heartedly, then died without further ado. Country Mouse thinks we planted them too early, but City Mouse thinks they are dainty and didn’t get enough water; we were unable to come to an agreement about this, despite fist-fighting3 in good faith.
Our eggplants are still just kinda sitting there, all stems and leaves. Maybe the fruit grows underground? We’ll give it another week or two before we get out the spade.
Our sunflowers didn’t grow as big this year as last year4. Country Mouse accidentally pounded a stake though the rooty heart of one of them so we had to pull it up. Have you ever watched a sunflower die a slow death? It’s a terrible thing.
But all was not sourness and ruin: Our tomato plants are fixin’ to tip over, so heavy is their bounty; between them and our gangbuster basil, we’ve had plenty of fragrant pasta sauce and pesto to stuff in our gobs.
A cautionary word about oregano: Pots! We cut ours down to the ground three times this season, but that only seemed to strengthen their resolve to take over the world, one garden at a time. Oy.
The Spanish lavender got a little overenthusiastic and had to be restrained from smothering the neighboring lemon thyme, which appears to bear it no hard feelings.
The bay tree is recovering nicely from the clumsy haircut the City Mouse gave it last year.
Our cucumbers, though ugly and mishapen, are nonetheless plentiful and tasty.
We’re relieved to report that the rosemary planted by Country Mouse in memory of the one killed by City Mouse is doing very well.
And finally, our first-ever pumpkin plant would make Linus proud. We originally planted three, but they all grew quickly into alien, leggy creatures and we had to pull out two. The remaining plant has proceeded to hop the garden barrier and invade the lawn, where its tentacle now snakes through the grass like a spiny garden hose. Its fruit are deep green orbs with promising streaks of orange.
On Halloween night, you’ll find the City Mouse camped out in the garden, waiting expectantly for the famed Great Pumpkin.5 Our garden may not be perfect, but it’s nothing if not sincere.6
[tags]The Great Pumpkin, gardening[/tags]
- Uppity [↩]
- Kevin [↩]
- our Conflict Resolution Method of choice [↩]
- though they sure are a pretty yellow. I couldn’t resist taking this photo, though the bee didn’t appreciate the rude interruption and chased me angrily around the back patio but ultimately let me off with a warning. I guess I got spoiled by that imperturbable mayfly, who let me practically bonk him on the head with the camera lens. [↩]
- From Wikipedia: According to Linus, on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch he deems the most sincere. The GP then flies through the air to deliver toys to all the good little children in the world. [↩]
- Footnotes are totally cool. [↩]