Garden Blogger's Death Day :: June 2010

Ding, Ding, Ding… bring out your dead!

Welcome back to Garden Blogger's Death Day! We're here to list our losses for June, 2010! This is the day for gardeners who overwater, underwater, maim, prune or otherwise neglect their plants to a state of dismal droopage or untimely death. This is the day for gardeners like me with black thumbs who kill more than they cultivate, for cadmium-green-thumbed gardeners who have a lapse in judgment and commit accidental planticide, and for any poor soul whose plants fall victim to that fickle mother who controls us all - Mother Nature.



June is the month where I realize it's time to give up the goat, throw in the towel and let the garden fat lady sing. I allow my garden to fall victim to the elements - the heat, the humidity, the heat, the weeds, the heat and the bugs. I can't go out in the garden during daylight hours and still remain conscious and coherent. My boys refuse to go outside too, so I have to visit the garden after they go to bed. They're still young enough that "before they get up" doesn't exist, so there's no visiting the garden early in the morning.

As any mother can tell you, that list of things you promise yourself you'll do after you get the kids in bed is really long. You have all these great aspirations of all the things you'll get accomplished once you have the house to yourself. You envision yourself waltzing around your house folding clothes, organizing closets, scrubbing floors and writing novels. The problem is that sometimes you become a victim of that Life-Sucking Vortex of Doom that lives inside your couch. You get the kids in bed, sit down on the couch for one minute, put your feet up and the next thing you know you burst back into consciousness, look at the pitch dark windows, realize it's 10 pm and you haven't moved an inch.


So after a few nights (weeks) of this, my garden has become an overgrown soupy mess of death that I have all but given up on. I'm not proud to admit this, but it's time I came out of the gardening closet and let you all see what my garden has become.


The beans are rusty, dried up and withered. The tomatoes are still producing - sort of. The tomatoes are tiny and covered in stink bugs, which I have yet to figure out a way of killing short of EG's method using the "thumb of death," which isn't really my style. The squash never produced anything but dead squash. The eggplants are turning a strange color. The cabbage is dead. The cucumber is dead and withered.


The grass and weeds are knee high. There is thick angry Florida grass coming up through the landscaping cloth (aka cheesecloth) in my raised beds. I'm embarrased to share these photos. I much prefer to stay in the gardening closet and give off the vibe that I've got it all together.


Okay, okay - yes, everything has bit the dust…

…except my leeks! I don't know what it is about leeks and my garden. They're like peanut butter and jelly - they just go together perfectly. So my leeks are looking fantastic. It's what I cling to until the Fall planting season, which for us is known as the heart of hurricane season.

So how about all of you? What fell victim to your gardening wrath this month? Feel free to leave a comment with a link to your blog showing what you killed or maimed this month. We're here for you. Let's not judge, but support each other like a good pair of pantyhose or a well-staked garden trellis.

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On a different note, are any of you bloggers having blogger issues? My scheduled posts aren't working anymore. I usually write a post the night before and schedule it to appear in the morning. They aren't appearing now. Like this post should have shown up this morning since I wrote it last night and it didn't. Hmph. Also, I approve comments right from my email, but lately when I log in to blogger it'll tell me I have 10 comments awaiting approval. When I click on the link, it comes up empty. Very strange... Anyone else?