Oh our tomatoes! I think the gardener's heart in me might just be breaking.
This year we built a large, very large by our standards, bed for these babies of ours and in the late spring, I faithfully transplanted all (or most) of our volunteers to their permanent {summer} home. Because I have never grown tomatoes from seed before, I knew that this year would be experimental for me {and that there might be some casualties) but I never dreamed of this!
Nearly all of our tomato plants are dead! Ack! AND to add insult to injury, the hens are pecking away at the few that are indeed ripening! It feels like such a sad climax to what has been an only mediocre season in our garden.
The late coming of spring, the extraordinary amount of rain, the hens, and my relative inexperience have ensured a pretty poor showing from the garden this year. I suppose I have learned a few things (note the grumbling and arms crossed) and have made some mistakes that I won't make again (keep the hens out of the beds, for one). Most importantly, though, it is another lesson in relinquishing control (for me). Some years will be good; others won't.
8 comments:
Oh so sorry! We have had very similar garden experiences this year. When I saw our first yellowing leaves and spoiling tomato my heart sank. Such high hopes we had. Each year we learn something new and hope that the next year will be better.
a couple of mine got blight too, but not all of them. we have enough for lots of brushetta and salsa. i hope you have better luck next year, this gardening thing is a learning process! i cannot tell you all i had to learn the hard way this year! lol
:)
jen
Oh, I am so sorry about the tomatoes! I know how it feels to become so invested in the garden, and to feel that disappointment when something just thwarts you like that!
We are learning every year- getting a bit better at it, and losing a lot each time too. This year we're losing our winter squash to voles, and lost our beans to them earlier. I found myself obsessing over the loss, as I had planned to put by a lot of it.
I am having to learn to let go and focus on what did work for us in the garden, and I am surprised to learn it is not so bad.
Next year, I already know what I'm going to do differently- and am writing it all down in a seasonal journal we started last year.
I put new dirt in new pots this year and added very healthy looking seedlings that I had started myself, but they are mostly 'blighty' now. A groundhog is living under my deck and eatin my squash...I have 1 pepper out of 5 plants...not a banner year for my little garden..
BUT next year, I'll do it all over again!!
That is SUCH a bummer! And started from seed? HUGE double bummer!!!
Oh no, I'm so sorry. That is heartbreaking.
I had trouble keeping the chickens out of my garden, too. We harvested a lot of tomatoes, but then a few weeks ago, my plants also became blighted. Darn! Very disappointing. But, I have learned a lot from my garden this year, and hope to avoid some mistakes next season (of course, next I'm sure I will learn a lot next year, too.) Despite the ups and downs of a short, wet growing season, I have discovered that I really do love gardening and raising chickens. We're thinking that we might get a bunny this fall (for fun, not food :-). My mom said that I should have been a farmer.
Oh, my tomatoes look the same. I'm with you on the lesson and to add another quote -- it's the journey. It was fun to plant four varieties of tomatoes but so saddened with not even one. Too much rain, too cold of nights but, it sure was fun to wait and wonder, right?!?
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