Keep it Simple: A mid-season garden report
Even after 45 gardens here in Northern Michigan I can report I still have a thing or two to learn and new things to try. It's as simple as that. I once read somewhere (or maybe I made it up) a good gardener should try something new every year if they want to stay at the top of their game; or something along those lines. A new, never grown vegetable, planting or weeding method, even a new variety of the same-old, same-old green beans can count towards fulfilling the "try something new" adage.
nullThis year in the new department I have planted white beets next to my tried and true traditional red Detroit beets and I have what looks to be a good crop of never before tried fennel bulbs growing next to the row of tomatoes. Not sure yet what I will do with the fennel but I imagine something along the lines of the salad my youngest has brought to Thanksgiving dinner the past two years.
On a whim last winter, I purchased a pack of artichoke seeds I found at a family owned hardware store in downtown San Francisco. New indeed! I don't know anyone back here in Michigan who has tried to grow that decidedly west coast delicacy but you can now add me to the list of mitten state artichoke wannabe growers. To date I have two baby artichokes; about the size of golf balls growing amongst the spear shaped fronds of leaves in the raised bed which receives special attention throughout the year, reserved for things like eggplant and green peppers. Add artichokes to the list.
The biggest "new" thing in the garden this year has been my wildly successful fence to keep rabbits from nibbling my lettuce greens and other wascally wabbit sensitive vegetables. Early in the spring I closed off a 10-foot by 25-foot section of the garden and planted lettuce, spinach, carrots, beets, green beans, cabbages and any other vegetables the rabbits have typically had their eye on during the growing season.
The fence worked like a charm; why I didn't try this years ago is anyone's guess. The result has been I have had more lettuce than I know what to do with and carrot and beet tops are impervious to the munching of my local "wascally wabbit" population which have been heeding the NO TRESPASSING sign on the new fence. Try something new indeed!
But the biggest new thing on the gardening front isn't anything going on in my garden but the fact my 10-year-old granddaughter Callie decided she wanted a garden of her very own to take care of at her house in Midland. Her parents purchased a postage stamp sized raised bed kit from a local garden center which we filled with topsoil and in May planted leaf lettuce, carrots, peas, pole beans, cucumbers and summer squash.
I gifted the budding gardener with a started tomato and green pepper plant which were planted in a flower bed near the raised bed — the space of said garden already crowded with the aforementioned vegetables.
To date my granddaughter has harvested lettuce, peas and some lovely pole beans. The cucumbers and squash are loaded with blossoms and the carrots are zeroing in on finger-size length. She is already talking, here in mid-summer, of convincing her parents of the need for another raised bed and is thinking of commandeering more space in her parent's flower bed for a few more tomatoes and maybe some asparagus and raspberry plants.
The best new thing in the garden this year has been Callie's interest in gardening as evidenced by the first thing she wanted to do when she came to our house for a recent visit with her brother, which was to check out my garden and help pick potato beetles off my two rows of potato plants.
I can hardly wait for next year to see what will be new in the garden plots of this seasoned veteran and his novice acolyte.
— Michael Jones is a columnist and contributor for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at mfomike2@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: A mid-season garden report
