It was about 20 years ago that I had a wonderful tomato garden behind our home in California.
I had eight plants, and in a wonderful California summer I harvested 240 tomatoes. My work schedule changed the next year and I never did the garden again until this year in Georgia.
Well, either I’ve lost my touch or growing tomatoes — and other stuff — is much different in the Deep South than in the Southland.
All my tomatoes died, as did most of the rest of what I was trying to go. As of today, I have a strawberry plant just starting to show fruit (strawberries) and a yellow squash plant that’s growing very large but not really showing squash yet.
As you can see from the picture at the beginning, some recent neglect left me overrun with weeds. The garden isn’t at my home where I would see it every day and just step into the backyard to pull a few weeds when they popped up. It’s off in a remote part of our community and I have to put aside time and make the effort to go and work.
I went a couple of days ago and spent two hours weeding, and I wound up with the picture below.
So I cleaned it up and spread a 50-pound bag of fertilizer. It’s a bad time of year to plant any other fruits or vegetables. The only plants they had at Home Depot were aloe vera and collard greens.
I have packets of seeds that say September and October is another good planting season here, so I suppose I will do my best to keep the weeds cleared and wait until September.
With all the plants that have died, it would be easy to feel frustrated, say “what’s the use” and walk away. But I’ll try and be like Thomas Edison when he failed to invent the light bulb in his first 200 tries.
At least I know several things now that won’t work.
Sooner or later my garden will light right up.