Garden Therapy

So the book comes out on Saturday, and basically I'm spinning like a top. And what's the best thing to do when I'm spinning like that? 

Go to the garden.

I posted earlier this spring about rearranging the backyard and installing new raised beds. They're all in, they're all full, and they are all planted except for one, which is getting a late crop of seed potatoes because my peas, which were doing so nicely, got eaten by something and now it's too hot and dry to start over with any chance of success.

The beds have two kinds of squash, two kinds of eggplant, cucumber, Lima beans, a variety of peppers from sweet to Mexican spicy, and far too many tomatoes. I planted three deliberately, and transplanted another seven of the volunteers that popped up.

What I finally have to do next week, when there is a little more clear space in my head, is order the wood chips to cover the weed barrier. I hate walking around on that woven plastic-y stuff. But I need to pick a day with a good forecast, and after a few days of clear weather because I don't want to shovel wet wood chips and transport them around the yard.

Pomegranate flowers

In the side yard, the blueberries are about half done. I want to get two more bushes to plant this fall, because I have spaces along the drive where other things didn't do well and they will. The fig tree is taller than I am and covered in little hard green figs. Now, I don't like figs personally, but my husband loves them, and I like to make fig jam. So it's worth the real estate. 

In the front, flowers are blooming away. The cherry tree actually produced cherries this year, but we didn't get as many as the birds did. I think this fall we'll trim it back so that it's low and wide enough to get a protective net over. Right now, I'd have to throw it from the second floor window, and my aim isn't that good. The peach tree isn't having its best year, but it had so much fruit last year that my neighbors were finding squirrel-relocated peach pits all up and down the street.

Overambitious fig

My favorite - although, like the figs, it's not my favorite fruit - is the pomegranate. Just because it feels so weird to grow pomegranates in Pennsylvania. We got 11 last year, and I'm hoping for more this year, because the blooms are crazy.

So that has been garden tour 2024. Inconsistent fruit, far too many tomatoes, and a backbreaking effort to not break my back again next year. We'll see. The whole point of putting in raised beds is to not rearrange things - or at least that's what I said 5 years ago, when I put in the previous raised beds.