Waiting Game Gardening - Karen Goat Keeper

Much of the garden is producing enough produce to bury the kitchen. But I am doing waiting game gardening.

Summer crops are frost sensitive. They like it on the warm side of hot. Cooler weather slows those tomatoes and peppers down.

Speckled Roman tomatoes play waiting game gardening — The tomato vines know the season is ending as leaves turn brown from the bottoms of the plants. The tops ignore this warning and are still lush and producing tomatoes. There are some tobacco hornworms (often confused and acting the same as tomato hornworms) eating the leaves plus a few tomatoes. Earlier in the season I picked them off to the delight of the chickens. Now they are reducing the amount of plant I will soon have to carry out of the garden. I grow Speckled Roman paste (pictured), Pineapple, Abe Lincoln and St. Pierre. Cherry tomatoes come up on their own every year.

The plants seem to know their days are numbered. Their tops are still lush. The under sides are dropping leaves. The pepper plants have a yellow cast.

Tomatoes and peppers are ripening at smaller sizes. The long beans are producing seeds when the pods are still short.

Mosaic Yard Long Beans — Yard long beans look like beans, cook like beans, but must be different somehow as wood chucks don’t like them and eat other kinds. The flavor is a bit spicy. They stir fry well. They are still producing well even as frost is sneaking up.

Smaller okra plants have finished for the season. Bigger ones are still producing.

And I am playing the waiting game gardening routine.

In the never-ending war with weeds, my attacks begin in the fall. The beds are cleared. Manure is spread. Cardboard is put down. Mulch is piled on top.

Burgundy Okra playing waiting game gardening — The okra is now over five feet tall and still producing. I grow Burmese (green), Jing (orange) and Burgundy (red) okra. They turned an okra dislike person into an okra fan. It freezes well, if blanched.

Pathways have cardboard put down.

But the summer garden is still growing. Winter squash vines are invading as much area as they can. Their squash is still gaining in size and shelling.

Winter weather and temperatures are coming in soon. Clearing and mulching is no fun when it’s cold.

Waiting game gardening is frustrating.

It’s not that I want winter to get here. I don’t. I’m a spring and summer person. I love planting the garden and watching it grow. Fresh food is delicious.

The abundance now is welcome. It does get tiring eating tomatoes and okra every day. So squash is added now and then.

Seeing a garden jungle of productive plants is satisfying. Clambering past the spreading vines of squash and tomatoes isn’t annoying.

Tahitian Melon — A friend gave me some year old Tahitian melons. The goats loved them so I put out some seeds late. The vines are huge and aggressive. The melons are big. Most are hooked. I’m hoping they will shell soon.

But I know these abundant days are numbered. I know I have a big garden that takes a long time to get settled for the winter. I want to get started.

I can’t. Not until the summer garden is gone for the year. And that is so depressing.

There is the problem of waiting game gardening. One part of me wants the garden to keep going. One part of me wants to put the garden to bed for the winter.

The weather will determine the end of this game.

Competitive gardening for the county fair is part of “Mistaken Promises” Hazel Whitmore series #3.