Overgrown Garden

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Now onto the story…

The garden had gotten out of hand early this year, I believe it started way back when I began planting.

For some unknown reason the spaces between rows just seemed off. I always try to think as I plant and space things according to how they grow. For zucchini plants that grow tall and round with those huge leaves, I like to give them a wide berth so they don’t feel cramped. The lettuce on the other hand can be squished and even planted along with the seeds of something like radish and can still produce an abundance.

But this year, the wide rows were not quite wide enough and the close rows were spaced too far apart. Then we had a good growth spurt with the tomatoes and those flimsy wire cages tipped over even though I had staked them multiple times. It was about that time that the beets outgrew their beds, the tall tops hid the monster roots below and surprised the heck out of me to find no baby sized ones at all.

The potatoes did a quick grow with thick foliage then did a quick die down. I started harvesting one tire (hill) at a time about a month ago, the potatoes are good sized but how they produced tubers so fast during their short growing season is another quandary. The green beans produced so prolifically that even with  several green bean emergency calls to neighbors and friends, they too got overgrown and stopped producing new, tender beans.

Even the weeds got out of control. I like to be able to wander up and down the rows and stop to pull a few weeds as I go, but with the high humidity level all summer, I could not keep up with them. I even resorted to mowing the weeds off between the rows when the weather the allowed but it seemed like when I had time to mow, the weeds were wet and when they were dry I didn’t have the time.

The cows from the show barn are getting the benefit of my gardening goofs this year.

Wheelbarrow loads of veggies get thrown over their fence and they come running to see what bounty-du-jour is in store for them. Today the feast is the overgrown green beans. The entire plant is pulled from the ground and pitched into the pasture. #47, Quiet and their calves make short work of my mess.