I am trying very hard not to be sad that the summer is over.
Prince George is in the midst of the changing of the seasons and the mornings are cool and foggy and the nights are crisp and clear.
Harvest wise, our garden has been somewhat successful.
I have more yellow zucchini than I know what to do with so I have been picking a few of the courgettes every few days.
Once I have a nice collection, I've been shredding, vacuum-sealing and freezing the little buggers in order to forget about them.
As I discovered, there is a maximum amount of zucchini that a small family will eat before refusing.With my almost-two and my four-year-old, the amount of zucchini they will eat is zero servings.Yes to cucumbers; no to zucchinis.
So, shredded and frozen, the zucchinis are waiting to be secretly added to muffins or chili with no one the wiser.
I learned a lot about gardening this season.One zucchini plant is more than enough and it needs to be in a large garden box by itself.
Carrots take forever to grow larger (I'm still waiting).
Lettuce greens will only be picked if they are in containers sitting on the patio otherwise they will go to seed and were a waste of time. Watering is important. Watering twice a day during a heat wave is important.
Container vegetables need fertilizer if you want vegetables (my tomatoes were all plant and no tomato).
I also learned that the estimated size of the plants on the back of the seed packet is a lot more accurate than I had previously thought.
It turns out that the garden people who sell seeds and plants, actually know significantly more about gardening than I do.
My problem is that I think that all of my plants will die and nothing will work, so I double-up the seeds and plant a number of plants really close together to maximize their success rate.
Instead, nothing really dies (except for the pumpkin, for which I am grateful) and everything is crowded and stunted.
Unlike patio container gardening, I have also had to battle slugs this year via spray bottles filled with garlic water and little sticks to fling the disgusting creatures off the leaves of my precious vegetables.And, even with the best of intentions, I still had watering fatigue in early August.
By early August, watering the garden seems like a chore and my laziness takes over and I start to believe that the plants will be just fine if I go without.
They're not.
Happy harvesting, Prince George and if you're not a gardener (or marginally successful gardener like myself) make sure that you enjoy the fruits of your neighbours' harvests via the Farmer's Markets downtown.
It is far easier with a guaranteed happy customer.
