Tricky Tomatoes

When we added onto our house five years ago, the builder told us he would have to resolve a drainage problem by burying a large perforated plastic pipe on the half of the front yard that slopes downhill, and covering it with material that was little more than 2-inch limestone gravel and sand. Since we live in an area of acid soils, our little alkaline patch presented a real gardening challenge. No amount of amending could ever make this into suitable “soil.” I experimented with a wide variety of perennials, only to have them all die within a couple of weeks.

I considered a gravel garden, but decided that the look of it would be jarring, given the Arts and Crafts styling of the house and the floral and foliage colors we’d chosen for the rest of the property. In the back of my mind, I kept thinking that this sun-baked site might be the ideal place for a modest vegetable patch.

Eventually, the spot disclosed itself to be the perfect location for a lavender border. In their second year, the plants grew large and fluffy, with tons of flowers attracting bees and butterflies. A photo of lavender used as a ground cover in a mail order catalog clinched the deal. This year, I planted three each of seven different lavender varieties. But because Dan needed to complete some hardscaping, I had only one day to get the plants in before we left on our next trip out of town.

With no time left to buy mulch, I turned to my compost pile for something to hold down the bare soil, opting for not-yet-decomposed leaf litter and shredded paper. Two weeks later, after returning from our trip and being laid low by a virus, I ventured out to weed my scraggly plot. I was still a little groggy from the head cold, but I suddenly realized that my garden was filled with healthy, foot-high tomato plants. Whether this is a demonstration of the power of intention, an ode to the genius of place, or the result of too casual composting, it works for me. I’ll learn whether tomatoes can grow here while I’m waiting for the lavender to fill out. If we’re lucky, we’ll get to eat some of those tricky little tomatoes.

Popular posts from this blog

Detention Basins: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Image
In our area, stormwater sewers that serve housing developments and some businesses empty into the dreaded detention (or retention, or infiltration) basin, a visually hideous engineered method of holding large volumes of water until it can safely disperse to groundwater, natural streams, ponds, etc. (top photo). These are generally grass monocultures or rip rap which, if not properly maintained become weedy, overgrown maintenance nightmares. Suffice it to say that anyone who can get away with not maintaining one will continue to not maintain it. Frequently, the town ends up owning and maintaining such basins, meaning that all the taxpayers pay. When grass is used as the only groundcover and pesticides and fertilizers are applied, they can contaminate the runoff. Regular mowing of the basins is difficult because of the steep sides and wet floor. This maintenance adds contaminants to the watercourse, as well. Grass basins also attract undesirable wildlife, such as Canada Geese, which ...
Keep reading

Please Garden Responsibly. Because What You Spray in Your Garden Doesn’t Stay in Your Garden

Image
American Lady caterpillar on licorice plant. Photo: Courtesy Missouri Botanical Garden Scores of their silky tents covered the licorice plant in the container on my porch. Inside the tents, something was gobbling up the leaves faster than I could pick them off. The plant must have been infested when I bought it. As I reached for my organic insecticide, I thought, “Wait, you don’t know what kind of caterpillars these are!” I recalled an article on pest management by a friend who cautioned: “Sometimes, the best treatment is no treatment at all.” It took the better part of the afternoon for me to identify the miniature mowing machines. In the meantime, half of them had started dropping from their perches and wriggling off into the underbrush. I hoped I had made the right decision. The licorice plant was devastated. But then I noticed that the caterpillars had not eaten the leaves all the way down to the stem. Possibly, secondary buds could sprout and still provide a silvery...
Keep reading

Musings on the Relativity of Time and The Arithmetic of Overpopulation

Image
I celebrated my birthday recently. Beyond a certain age, birthdays become a double-edged sword. You’re glad you made it to the next one, but realize that there are far fewer years ahead of you than behind you. The list of absent friends grows ever longer. Colleagues grow grey; everyone else looks like they just graduated from middle school. I used to console myself by calculating that I still had at least 2 5 more years to go, which made the end point seem very far off. But, now that would mean I’d live to an unrealistically old age, a concept supported by neither family history nor actuarial tables. I’m reminded of Einstein’s summary of his Theory of Relativity: "When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour." I guess I’ve been having too much fun. But that can’t go on forever. My immortality would not be good for the planet. It’s not sustainable. At the same time that medical advances have...
Keep reading