GARDENING

I really love to garden and slowly over the past 20 years I have gotten better and better at it. Still not very good but at least I get to eat some vegetables from my garden. This year I have had a handful of strawberries, quite a few peas, lettuce and radishes. Later I should have some tomatoes, beans, carrots, cucumbers and zucchinis. I'm still working on getting some peppers, swiss chard and beets to grow and one of these years I will be successful. They are three things that I seem unable to produce. I used to be able to grow swiss chard and for some reason I just can't anymore. I read, I pamper and I wonder....

I'm always very proud of my impatients that I hang from my front porch. I save seed and start them new every year. They end up looking pretty darn good.

I always try something new every year. Last year I started asparagus from seed and I'm happy to report that it at least survived the winter. I also started strawberries last year and added some more this year. I'm hoping for a bigger crop next year. This year my new and interesting projects are an upside down hanging tomato plant (not doing so well) and iceberg lettuce.

For many years I have grown tomatoes and tried to grow peppers. For many years I didn't know that cutworms existed until last year when I READ about them. So I thought "what the heck, I might as well put cutworm collars on my tomatoes and peppers". So last year I did. This year when I transplanted my tomatoes into the garden I put cutworm collars on them. I got lazy when I transplanted my peppers. Why worry, afterall, so many years without a cutworm collar and no problems. Well, I lost two of my peppers to cutworms. Its almost as if they came to my garden eyeing those cutworm collars saying "we'll just wait until she slips up". Its weird if you ask me. Almost as weird as the fact that I used to be successful with swiss chard and now I can't grow it. I know experienced gardening people might say "how can she NOT grow swiss chard?" Well, I can't, but SOMEDAY I will!! So what if my rhubarb looks half dead. So what if rhubarb is one of those plants that most people can't kill if they tried. Well, I could kill it if I tried!!