So how did your garden fare this summer?
I have several losses to lament. One: my sage plant. For the last four years I have maintained a small four foot square garden space that contains a sage, a rosemary, an oregano, a thyme and a lavender. Three years ago I lost half the rosemary to a major snowfall, but the thyme and sage survived beautifully. Then last year, no major snowfall or severe cold spells, but I lost the thyme over the winter anyway. Through all that, the sage thrived and was a source of fresh herb all winter long, but over the last four-six weeks of our best summer weather it has turned yellow and died. It's not my garden--all the other plants are doing splendidly; in fact the rosemary whose recover was iffy last summer has rewarded my patience and is a healthy plant once again. Does sage have an automatic timer in it that prevents it from lasting more than four seasons? I'm crushed by this loss--it was magnificent, about two feet in diameter.
My bay leaf plant has dug in very very well. Along with Jo Ann's encouragement, a local friend named Linda told me about hers. Like me, she was also told that this plant is ever so 'tender' so she planted hers in a fairly exposed place she wouldn't have planted it had she thought it would last more than one season, but not only did it last it thrived and eight years in, it's quite a showstopper.
My two grape plants didn't do so well in that they didn't set fruit though there were some promising looking baby bunches that developed after the first bud, but I'm sure they needed all their energy for establishing a good root system and more will come next year.
But here's the saddest thing: my tomato plants are just spectacular, loaded with fruit and good sized fruit at that. But are we eating tomatoes? No. (I have to laugh because I have no idea what I have: though I bought two yellow, two early girls and two Joe's Specialty, I ended up with three plants with colossal, beefsteaky fruit, one plant that grows about 15 or 20 small pointy-bottomed red tomatoes that all ripen at about the same time off on three or four shoots off of one central stem, another that grows large and wide pointy bottomed red fruit, and two more about which the jury's still out. Could turn out to be yellow yet, but they don't look like last year's yellow tomatoes.) But the sad part is that it's been a cold summer and here we are at almost September 1st, and know how many ripe tomatoes I've harvested? Three. Well, three of the bigger ones. Also two stems of the pointy bottomed little ones, but they're so tasteless I deem them of no importance. Whereas the big beefsteaky ones are incredibly sweet with terrific acidity. How many more will I get? Well, as I type, it's almost 10 a.m., rainy and blustery, and only 55 degrees F outside. It was supposed to get to 62 today but it's already pretty obvious that won't happen. And the forecast is even more dire: by Sunday, the overnight temps are going to sink from the mid-50's to the mid-40's. My tomato season, which never really began, appears to be over. [crocodile tears]
I need sympathy.
