Sturdy Stuff
Sometime in April, I did the labor to plant a vegetable garden out back. I don’t have much of a green thumb personally, limiting myself to hard-to-kill houseplants, but Christina is a different story. She bought seeds all spring, and planned out where everything would go. Since my backyard was filled with weeds and lawn, I rented a roto-tiller and tore up the perimeter, tilling rich black compost and horseshit into the clay soil. It was a real workout: I’ve never used a roto-tiller before, and grass roots are a real bitch to destroy. The strip of land I was tilling ran the length and width of the yard, about five feet wide. It took about ten passes before the ground was anywhere near ready to plant in, and even then it’s been a battle with the weeds ever since. Once throughly chopped and tilled under the soil, most of the grass dies, but some clumps of sod are stubbon and try to claw their way through the soil. The there’s this incredibly tenacious vine, which I want to say is kudzu, but I’m not up on my flora (it seems kudzu is Philadelphia’s fault. Typical). I’m constantly on my knees yanking it’s progeny from the ground before it goes out of control.
And that’s the thing: for the past month, Christina’s been really busy on her thesis and moving her stuff into the house. The weeds aren’t difficult to pull, but they’ve gone unchecked for way too long. She’s in Texas since Wednesday for a wedding, and left me some baby tomaters that have to go in as well as some hot and sweet peppers. They’ve been sitting out back in those little peat cylinders you use to start plants, and what with the heat, they’ve needed water. Which naturally, I forgot about until Thursday afternoon.
When I went outside to see how the babies were doing, my first thought was “Oh shit.” The weather has been in the high 80s, and the starters were as dry as the Dust Bowl. The tomaters and the peppers were completely wilted, the leaves shriveled and brown. Shit, I thought. Then I looked out at my field of weeds. Shit, I thought again. This is going to suck. I hung my head and tromped down the steps into the yard, pulling on my gloves and picking up the trowel. I started with the toms, pulling out enough weeds to make room for the two suffering bastards to go in. Then I did the same for the peppers. I actually began to get a little annoyed at how many weeds there were: the pole limas had been utterly overtaken, and I wasn’t even sure if they had sprouted. So I got to work over there too, and after about ten minutes of pulling, I found that at least five of the beans had gotten started! Today I continued my jihad and found five spinaches!
Anyway, I decided then that I should clear more land for the tomatoes: the babies were so small and wilted, and almost certainly wouldn’t last the night, but I wanted to give them at least a fighting chance. Besides, with all the weeds I might not even see the things and pull them out by mistake. This was doubly true for the peppers, which were in even worse shape. In fact, after the peppers went in, I nearly forgot where they were, they were so small and shriveled.
I must have pulled weeds and watered for about an hour or so. I also made a point of hitting the plants with some fish emulsion, which smells about as good as it sounds. Late last night, it rained for a little while.
And damned if those practically dead plants didn’t look a bit happier this morning. And double-damned if they didn’t look happy as clams this afternoon! One of the tomatoes is standing straight up now, as are all the peppers. Another tom is still struggling, but looks like it’s winning. Those little plants are made of some sturdy stuff!
4 Responses to “Sturdy Stuff”
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June 1st, 2007 at 7:58 pm
OT: We ought to get together this weekend if it’s not too late to make plans…
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:22 am
that’s probably bindweed you’ve got, not kudzu.
aka wild morning glories.
also you will find that rain does way more for the garden than any amount of watering you do. one of the beautiful mysteries of gardening.
June 2nd, 2007 at 9:34 am
Sir Oolius: It’s 9:30 AM and Saturday and I’m getting ready to leave within an hour for boston. I have Anita Job’s phone, and will call in a few minuites.
Somegirl: whatever the weed is, it’s a pain in the ass and tenacious. It’s like fucking spontaneous generation.
The rain is definitely great, but sometimes we go days without, so watering become necessary. I found another half-dead pepper yesterday and planted it: sure enough, it was looking better this morning.
June 2nd, 2007 at 10:28 am
Make sure that when you do water, it’s either really early in the morning, well before the sun rises or preferrably, in the evening, after the sun has dropped low enough that it’s not shining on your plants.
The biggest mistake people make when watering their gardens and lawns in watering in hot weather when the sun is up, which effectively turns every drop of water on every leaf or blade of grass into a tiny magnifying glass in the sun.