Vacation Gardening

Why is it so many people want to invite you to weddings and parties and dinner and concerts in May? We've been having a great time at lots of May events, but what about the garden?

Ah, the dedication of a gardener knows no bounds! Right? The only way to get my garden chores done was to take a week of vacation to do it. And I'm happy to report that my karma was right: the weather cooperated with beautiful, hot, sunny weather all week, I didn't get any major injuries, and nobody dropped in to thwart my plans for any of the days.

I used to pay attention to the established tradition of having all veggies planted by Memorial Day, but the stress of doing that finally got to me and I gave it up. Now I rationalize that our season is longer, thanks to global warming, and that I actually have all of September for growing. (Those of you who understand global warming no doubt are shaking your heads at my irrational assumptions, but hey -- it saves me a few years of stress to lie to myself this way, so leave me alone!)

So what did I do that whole week? Well, I'd already planted the broccoli, peas, and cabbages. But here's what I planted my week off:

• snap peas and snow peas
• beans
• carrots, turnips, beets, and fennel
• brussels sprouts
• kale and bok choy
• cilantro, dill, and cukes
• potatoes and onions

The potatoes went in first. I dig short trenches, plant the seed potatoes, and hill the trenches up a bit. I usually run out of time to hill them more than once, and I've lately been using the horse manure I get from the Cornell polo barns to hill them. Last year I used compost, but that's because I actually had a good amount of compost (a real rarity for me!).

Mike chose not to take vacation with me, but he'd tilled another bed the first weekend, and that's where next I planted the snap peas (two rows), kale, and bok choy around Monday. Tuesday I planted the long row of snow peas (it's in a partly shaded bed, so hopefully it'll be cooler and more like early spring), and I started the beans that day as well. I finished them Wednesday, then put in the zukes and radishes nearby, since the beans didn't completely fill the bed.

Wednesday was time for the onions -- yellow, red, and white sets. And carrots. I'm excited about carrots this year, since I ordered and planted red and purple varieties along with my standard Sweetness II and Scarlet Nantes. I also found a spot (finally!) for the beets and turnips.

And finally Thursday found me planting the fennel and brussels sprouts. That final crop was a killer, though. I needed to till the bed, and the tiller just would not behave. The completely bent wheels don't help, but one of them finally broke off, which meant that the only way to make the tiller work was to pull it backwards. I had to stop at the end of each row, huffing and puffing over the energy exerted. Then, on the fourth row, the handle bar jumped out of its slot and banged the spark plug cover, which popped off the plug and immediately shut down the engine. After a break and a beer, I picked up the shovel and tilled the bed the old-fashioned way: I dug it up. But it worked and I finished the brussels sprouts.