Planting a family vegetable garden is a ritual that looks attractive in the spring but creates extra chores at the worst possible time of the year.
Take a July holiday and you miss out on the luscious green peas. Take an August holiday and come back to over-ripe tomatoes and five-pound zucchinis.
When the fruit is ripe for canning or freezing, that’s when the rush of grain harvest, school launching and autumn activities begins.
This year presented some additional owies. Much of the prairie area had more than ample rain. This made for lush gardens and the sort of diseases and bugs that thrive in those circumstances.
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Various blights and blotches, aphids and slugs kept us occupied.
Perhaps we could solve the seasonal conflicts by getting our horticultural scientists to develop vegetables and fruits you get started in the late fall and then harvest around June.
This isn’t as far out as it sounds. On our farm we made a practice of leaving parsnips in the ground over winter and consuming them before they launched into the serious sprouting business in spring.
You can plant peas in the fall and get an early crop the following year. You might have to cover them if they sprout too early.
If you plant in the fall what do you do about that itch to get into the growing business come spring? Plant some token lettuce, radishes and parsley.
I have an acquaintance who rejects gardening entirely:
“I just drive to the nearest town supermarket and look at all the good stuff grown by farmers. They need my business more than I need to sweat over a hoe and rototiller.”
