I can't believe it is September already. Where oh where did the summer go? Given falls imminent arrival, I was very disheartened to go out to my "garden" tonight only to find that I still don't have any vegetables in my first attempt as a farmer.
Can someone please explain to me how I could grow up in a farm town and go to a high school with classes titled, "Future Farmers of America" and "drive your tractor to school day," and not be able to grow ONE tomato? Granted, I didn't ever take an FFA class or own a tractor, but I thought maybe by way of osmosis I would have inherited some of those farming skills. Hypothesis incorrect.
It all started when I decided to join up with Erica @ The Gritty Girl Blog for a zucchini growing contest. I thought it sounded like fun. It also sparked an interest in me to grow tomatoes, too. Unfortunately, I waited until the end of May to plant both my zucchini and tomato seeds.
Pat (and many others) told me over and over that it would be a lot easier to just go and buy tomato plants that have already matured and then plant them, or better yet, just go to the store and buy tomatoes that someone else grew. But I've never been someone that likes to make things easier on myself and it was VERY important to me (the stubborn person that I am) to be able to say that I grew them from "scratch."
There were a lot of different opportunities to win in the zucchini contest; most quantity of zucchini, biggest zucchini, and the most creative recipe using the zucchini. Unfortunately for me, to be eligible for any of the aforementioned categories, you must first be able to successfully grow at least one zucchini.
The contest officially ended on July 30, long before I even had a bloom. And here it is, September 2 and Labor Day weekend and still no sign of a zucchini or a tomato blossom. To add insult to injury, people continue to bring in their left over garden veggies to work for people to take off their hands. It must be nice to have an overwhelmingly large surplus of veggies that you just don't know what to do with them all.
As if that isn't bad enough, I can't even begin to tell you how much trash I have been talking throughout this gardening process. Note to self: use better judgement when thinking about bragging. Probably not appropriate to brag when trying something for the first time and/or before you have any signs that you will actually be successful.
First, I bragged about how many tomatoes I was going to have. I believe I even said, and I quote, "I'm going to have the most tomatoes in all of North Olmsted." And when people would laugh about how little my plants were in July when I should already be picking tomatoes from them, my comeback was, "You're going to be jealous when your tomatoes are all gone and mine are just starting to bloom." If only we had about two more months of summer, maybe that would prove to be true.
I also went around asking various people for zucchini recipes because I was so confident I would have more zucchini than I would know what to do with. I look forward for the followup questions from them about how the recipes turned out and what I ended up doing with my "zucchini surplus." At this point, I'm not above lying.
Pat, trying to comfort and console me, told me that he gives me an A for my effort. I practically slaved over those tomatoes all summer long. But an A for effort has gotten me a big fat 0 amount of fresh vegetables. He also tried to tell me that this is a learning process and that I can use what I've learned this summer to do better next year, yada yada yada.
That all went in one ear and out the other. Instead, I'm thinking about what I can replant my tomatoes in so I can bring them in our sun room and keep them warm until they blossom. Determined and persistent or ignorant and afraid to fail? It's a blurry line.
I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses, even though I totally am, but I don't think Mother Nature is completely innocent in all of this. She had a serious case of PMS this spring and just rained and rained and rained and it wasn't until the end of May that it was even close to being dry enough to plant anything. She's up there on my s#&t list.
Truthfully, though, I did learn a thing or two from this process. I learned that I need to plant my seeds MUCH sooner and that it's probably not best to even mention having a garden to anyone until after I've picked at least one vegetable from it. Here's to next year....
Can someone please explain to me how I could grow up in a farm town and go to a high school with classes titled, "Future Farmers of America" and "drive your tractor to school day," and not be able to grow ONE tomato? Granted, I didn't ever take an FFA class or own a tractor, but I thought maybe by way of osmosis I would have inherited some of those farming skills. Hypothesis incorrect.
It all started when I decided to join up with Erica @ The Gritty Girl Blog for a zucchini growing contest. I thought it sounded like fun. It also sparked an interest in me to grow tomatoes, too. Unfortunately, I waited until the end of May to plant both my zucchini and tomato seeds.
Pat (and many others) told me over and over that it would be a lot easier to just go and buy tomato plants that have already matured and then plant them, or better yet, just go to the store and buy tomatoes that someone else grew. But I've never been someone that likes to make things easier on myself and it was VERY important to me (the stubborn person that I am) to be able to say that I grew them from "scratch."
There were a lot of different opportunities to win in the zucchini contest; most quantity of zucchini, biggest zucchini, and the most creative recipe using the zucchini. Unfortunately for me, to be eligible for any of the aforementioned categories, you must first be able to successfully grow at least one zucchini.
The contest officially ended on July 30, long before I even had a bloom. And here it is, September 2 and Labor Day weekend and still no sign of a zucchini or a tomato blossom. To add insult to injury, people continue to bring in their left over garden veggies to work for people to take off their hands. It must be nice to have an overwhelmingly large surplus of veggies that you just don't know what to do with them all.
As if that isn't bad enough, I can't even begin to tell you how much trash I have been talking throughout this gardening process. Note to self: use better judgement when thinking about bragging. Probably not appropriate to brag when trying something for the first time and/or before you have any signs that you will actually be successful.
First, I bragged about how many tomatoes I was going to have. I believe I even said, and I quote, "I'm going to have the most tomatoes in all of North Olmsted." And when people would laugh about how little my plants were in July when I should already be picking tomatoes from them, my comeback was, "You're going to be jealous when your tomatoes are all gone and mine are just starting to bloom." If only we had about two more months of summer, maybe that would prove to be true.
I also went around asking various people for zucchini recipes because I was so confident I would have more zucchini than I would know what to do with. I look forward for the followup questions from them about how the recipes turned out and what I ended up doing with my "zucchini surplus." At this point, I'm not above lying.
Pat, trying to comfort and console me, told me that he gives me an A for my effort. I practically slaved over those tomatoes all summer long. But an A for effort has gotten me a big fat 0 amount of fresh vegetables. He also tried to tell me that this is a learning process and that I can use what I've learned this summer to do better next year, yada yada yada.
That all went in one ear and out the other. Instead, I'm thinking about what I can replant my tomatoes in so I can bring them in our sun room and keep them warm until they blossom. Determined and persistent or ignorant and afraid to fail? It's a blurry line.
I don't want to sound like I'm making excuses, even though I totally am, but I don't think Mother Nature is completely innocent in all of this. She had a serious case of PMS this spring and just rained and rained and rained and it wasn't until the end of May that it was even close to being dry enough to plant anything. She's up there on my s#&t list.
Truthfully, though, I did learn a thing or two from this process. I learned that I need to plant my seeds MUCH sooner and that it's probably not best to even mention having a garden to anyone until after I've picked at least one vegetable from it. Here's to next year....
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