Plant Gardens 101

There’s nothing like the glow of deep virtue that comes after the new organic gardener gives up poison sprays. You are increasing the health of your family, producing vegetables with a more delicious flavor, and making the planet a better place.

Then your tomatoes wilt, your cucumbers ditto, and large numbers of seeds you plant somehow never come up. For years I planted sunflower seeds, thinking of those golden-bronze-red beauties in August, but they didn’t seem to emerge. I learned that, in fact, they had emerged but were eaten in the night by slugs that seemed to find them more delicious than all other mealtime possibilities.

In California the snails ate my baby seedlings; in Virginia it was their relatives the slugs. It was agonizing to wake up in the morning, go out to admire my baby plants – some of which I had nurtured for months in little peat pots – and find that THEY HAD ALL BEEN EATEN IN THE NIGHT. My babies! Gone! Dead!    (more…)

“Isn’t that beautiful corn in those people’s front yard?” I asked.

“I will not have corn growing in my front yard,” said my husband.

“Corn is a handsome plant. It gives a lush, tropical air.”

“I will not have corn growing in my front yard.”

So we didn’t have homegrown corn the next year. Our back yard was shaded, except for one part, and I had decided to grow roses there instead of corn.

The year after that I returned to the argument: “What if we planted corn in the side yard? It gets lots of sun.”

“I will not have corn in my front yard.”

“This wouldn’t be the front yard. It would be the side yard. And you remember how delicious corn tastes when you pick it five minutes before you cook it?”

He thought about how delicious fresh-picked corn tastes. “I guess the side yard isn’t the front yard,” he said. “Okay. You can grow corn in the side yard.” (more…)