Fellow gardeners would agree (I hope) that the cycle of a garden season can emulate life in a lot of ways as it’s not so easy, especially when you’re just starting out, it’s never perfect and you can’t expect it to always workout how you plan it but if you persevere, you’ll be very proud of what you accomplish.
My pep talk is more for my own avail than for anyone else as I think back and realize that I’m currently on my fourth attempt this year to get cucumbers started. I’ll give you a quick run-through of the cucumber saga so far:
Trial number one failed on a decieveingly warm and sunny morning in March when I thought my two inch tall cucumber seedlings could handle a full day in the sun after I’d been nursing them along indoors and only setting them outside on the nicest afternoons. I set them out with confidence and left for work that day. Later that afternoon, I was peering out my office window at frighteningly dark clouds and then I saw it – snow. It was just barely a flurry but I knew that meant the temp had fallen far too low for my baby cucumbers to even stand a chance. When I got home, there they were, in a sad state, lying over, already turning shades of dead. Wasting no time, I tossed the hopeless seedlings and was on to trial number two which, sadly, ended in an unfortunate accident involving the lawnmower. Trial number three made it all the way from indoor seedlings and were successfully transplanted into the garden where an army of hungry snails was lurking, waiting for the tasty young treats and overnight, the third crop disappeared without a trace.
It feels a bit late in the season now but Steve Solomon says it’s ok so I’m going forward with a forth attempt and it looks like nothing stands in my way this time now that we’re safe from the threat of runaway lawnmowers, freezing weather (by all rational expectations in Seattle), and I believe I’m prevailing in the war against the snails but, with that being said, if this one fails, I may count my losses and give it a rest until nex
t year.
So far so good. These actually look healthier than any of the previous cucumber seedlings and they’re the first I’ve sown directly outdoors. It’s as if they were meant to begin this way.
Again, I’m growing a bush variety to conserve space. Bush Crop is the name and it did well for us last year (with far less trouble). It’s a 60 day so we’re looking at a late August harvest which, after all, seems about right but I’m famous for trying to rush things – in gardening that is. As for the other aspects of life, I’ve adopted a more slow and cautious approach but above all else, what I’ve learned so far is that in gardening, as in life, Mother Nature writes the rules.
