There Is A Vegatable Garden In There

Trust me. There really is.

This is the okra and strawberry patch with a few self sown wild flowers I was unable to bring myself to weed out. I'll move them when they are done blooming.

When you turn and look in the other direction there it is, a nice organized and weed free roadside vegetable garden. The wild flowers I have been unable to weed out over in this direction are still pretty small. I'll move them as soon as I get the chance. Mostly I am finding Ironweed and I have found they do not like being transplanted once they get too big.

Today I actually harvested a yellow squash and two nice heads of lettuce. Mother did the same a few days earlier. That is the first produce we have eaten from the garden this year. Rows of lettuce went unused. Two crops of radish went to seed. The peas weren't shelled. The box turtles ate most of the strawberries. The vegetable garden was neglected.


When one hears the vegetable garden was neglected the first thing apt to come to mind is giant rampant weeds and spindly vegetable plants hidden in the tangle. With wood chip mulch I don't have that problem. Even in my neglect I can go through and weed the entire garden in less than ten minutes. I only did that every other week at best.

Neglect is beautiful produce left to get to old to eat in the field.

The sunflowers are still self sowing in the vegetable garden. Kindly, in this year of neglect, there was only a small crop. If there had been more, things could have gotten out of hand. I find it just as hard to pull the unneeded sunflowers as I do the wild flowers.

So I cleaned up the unused old crops today and sowed for a fall garden. The sisters are coming to visit next week and I told them we need to eat the food in the garden for dinner. Maybe that will get me in the habit of harvesting. Other wise I am planting vegetables just to watch them grow. Well for that and the box turtles and rabbits. The raccoons are gonna be pissed this year. No sweet corn for you!

I do have a legitimate excuse for my neglect. I have been busy gardening. I waited quite a long time to really be able to concentrate on developing the garden becoming. This year I dove in.

The enhancement and organization of the Lush is in full swing. Just this weekend I planted about 20 baptisia and milkweed each, maybe 10 liatris, campanula, the native ageratum and perennial lupine. I need more blue.

There is a garden in there. Trust me. There really is. I just need to find it.