It's official. No vegetable garden for us this year. We never heard back from the landscape guy about tilling up our plot (we can't do it ourselves any more). Now it's too late to plant; the seedlings have died. So, the garden plot will lie fallow this year, sort of. I'm still mowing it.
We're thinking now about how we can change our approach to the garden. Maybe by relocating it. Definitely by downsizing it (we've already started that). And likely by finding another gardener who'd be more reliable and responsive.* I'd hate to give up on backyard tomatoes and squash.
*He's always been reliable about the hedge trimming and taking down trees. Big jobs are more attractive than small jobs I guess. But he's the one who offered to till for us. He did it last year. I could understand if he's swamped (as it were) because of all the wet weather we've had this spring. Maybe he's lost employees. Maybe he's gone out of business. We haven't heard anything.
Walt, when we were in Leeds, we couldn't grow outdoor tomatoes.... too cold and the very sandy soil drained too quickly.
ReplyDeleteSo we grew them in the greenhouse and polytunnel in Growbags.... Growbags have only just arrived in France, and only one or two nurseries are doing them.... expensively!!
But we've gone back to the "growbags" principle... only I am using 50litre bags of cheap terreau which I have laid on groundcover fabric that I have placed over three of our 1x3m parterres. I have five bags in each, each with two plants and a marigold.... they are really thriving, the stems of even the apero toms are the size of my thumb at the bottom....
When I lift the toms, the bags will be emptied on three of the ordinary beds and rotavated in.
Our squashes and courgettes are in 10-American-gallon tubs as are our potatoes.
Today I am going to buy winter cabbijiz and kales and more lettuce which will go in two of the remaining oldstyle beds as I have lifted the leeks [failure this winter] and garlic [soso crop]... the only thing I am growing from seed are Red Russian kale... to be sowed this week as we are in the second half of the year!! And I have runner beans coming.
{Not true runners as they don't like France - but runner/French bean crosses} Next thing is get the peas in... bed is ready.... they might go in today.
I'll send Ken a photo of the pseudo-Growbag set-up and the spuds and squash tubs.
Such a disappointment for you this year. I don’t get these contractors who can’t just make a simple phone call or send a text if they’re not going to do what they say.
ReplyDeleteRaised beds? Smaller, easier to tend. Can be built higher to they are easier to tend as we get a little older. Container gardening, half a dozen tomatoes, a couple of squash and green beans?
ReplyDeleteDitto what Mitchell said.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry about your garden. As you say, maybe it’s time to rethink it. Raised beds?
ReplyDeleteBettyAnn
Sad Garden News for all of us (even if we only get to view the hard work and then the rewards). Raised bed and the garden bags sound like a possible alternative.
ReplyDeletetim, thanks! Intriguing ideas...
ReplyDeletemitch, judy, it really is maddening, not knowing what is going on. And waiting is such a waste of time.
travel, yes, an option. But I don't know how we'd till them each spring.
bettyann, maybe...
mary, something we'll consider, for sure.