I don’t know where it came from. Just a bowel deep growl that took me as I tapped it into first. And knowing I hadn’t seen a cop or commuter or a minivan in a few minutes I felt compelled to twist the grip until the back side slid and caught with a high-sided snap and the rear wheel gripped.
I watched the pointer of the tach jump.
The needle of the speedo gyp’d passed all the lower numbers and the cuffs on my pants danced on my shins and the cool wind flapped up my jeans like water under pressure.
The road took on an amplified quality each tiny motion building on itself each small bump rippling into a panic attack each twist a thought less effort each thought an immediate order to be obeyed-- consequential.
And when I hit the Ton the smallest touch on the grip swore to the road and explained itself like a spy who shit in his pants when the gallows floor dropped. I was affraid to look down. To confirm. I could only see where I was going and had not one care for where I had been.
It is near the end of August.I have not made an entry in about a month.I suppose a rainy, Sunday morning (7:45am) is the perfect time to “catch up”, though sitting here I am not sure exactly what it is I have to say.
Ben and Liz are both upstairs sleeping away.I came down as quietly as I could and fed Sylvester and made a pot of coffee.
The week-long drought has broken with a gentle gray morning rain and the raggedy looking garden is getting what it needs to complete its mission.The fruit was waiting for this boost to push it into final plumpness and color.This year the garden has been amazing in its bounty.All I had to do was the usual weeding and tidying up with stick and string to keep it tied…Oh, and labor like a coolie to keep it watered in the face of Nature’s stingy rationing of rain.But it has paid off.The tomatoes are bursting and red.The eggplant (purple and white) and summer squash big enough to bust the limbs of the plants and plentiful enough that I wish I had another freezer to hold them.There was broccoli and three kinds of peppers (green bell, pale green banana, and the brightest, red-est, devil’s peppers, who’s taste and heat delight me) as well as a crop of butternut squash yet to come.The butternuts are my favorite and they are lying all over the floor and in the fence of the garden waiting for the umbilicus of their vines to brown and wither while they tan in the sun and bath (today, anyway) in the rain.I can’t wait to taste them.
For future reference I allow the following as the reasons for the success of this year’s garden:
1)Hot, dry weather.Without a doubt the single most important factor.Of course if I had not hosed and bucketed amazing amounts of rescue water the whole thing would have withered, but that is not important.There was no blight.The rot that affected almost everyone last year was kept away by the sun and the drying breezes.Last year I got a few middling fruit on each of my tomato plants and the rot took the rest.This year I got pounds and pounds of the plumpest, red-est tomatoes that I have ever grown.The same for the rest of the veggies.The only plants that did not thrive were the peas and the beans, and I blame myself for that.When they needed help I was not in the mind to lend a hand.I was too busy with the other plants and I suppose I am not all that fond of peas and beans.I hope there is no place in hell for people who don’t care about beans.
2)Unusually good placement of the plants and good varieties as well.It was luck, mostly, and the barest bit of intuition on my part that the plants found enough sun and enough room and support to prosper.No, actually it was all luck.
3)The butternut squash found it’s own way to grow up into the space between the fence and the netting around the fence.There it hung like sailors in hammocks and they grew plumb and healthy.The deer fed on the fat squash leaves that grew out through the fence but they had no way to get to the fruit.It looks like a “squash hotel” out there now and next year I am going to try to plan a long fence like that on the inside of the garden and see if the butternuts will do it for me the same way.
4)Fertilizer.Not much-just a spoonful per plant when I put them in the ground-but what a difference.This fall I plan to get a small load of manure and turn it into the soil instead, but I am not ashamed of the fertilizer I used this year.Nor am I ashamed of the newspaper or the shredded Microsoft Word documents, or the chopped leaf mulch I experimented with for ground cover.I have learned that newspaper is my friend while Bill Gates is not.
5)Minute use of insecticide.Last year I had two eggplant.This year I had over a dozen and more are coming on the tree-like plants.The reason-insecticide.Just the tiniest amount at the right time.Last year the flea beetles ate the leaves of the young plants (turning them into lace doilies) while I struggled to defeat them.I tried all the internet/hippie/organic methods to control the pests but nothing worked.I struggled with the tree-hugging instincts of my 1960’s philosophy and returned the unopened box of “Sevin” to Walmart and, as a result, the plants punked out.This year I re-bought the poison and lightly dusted the affected leaves when the beetles struck.One application and the bugs marched down the driveway and ate my neighbor’s dog instead.I ate eggplant!!! I am now a “Goldwater Republican” in the garden.Nuke ‘em!!!
6)God helps them that helps themselves.Especially when it comes to cut-worms.These little buggers chop through the tender trunks of newly planted peppers like chainsaws.Again, thanks to the use of newspaper, they were defeated.A cylinder of newspaper around the base of the new plant stops the cut-worms cold.It seems they are a lazy species and a mere two inches of barrier is enough to send them off to find easier pray.By the way, I do not like to buy newspapers so I steal one of my neighbor’s instead.That seems very ecological to me (toilet paper roll works as well! But again, nothing from Microsoft seems to stop cut-worms).
Well, that is pretty much it for another year of gardening.The fall will be here early this year.The leaves in the trees are already tired of hanging on and are dropping for lack of water.A prelude to the real thing…and then the snow.I am looking for a suitable substitute for my gardening-something that will give me the same sort of occupied feeling during the cold weather.I am open to suggestions.
