2020 Has Been A Strange Year
As you all know, 2020 has been a rather strange year. Our garden was our salvation. Remember, a couple of weeks ago we were sitting around the Samhain fire reflecting on the garden. In the last blog we mentioned some of the things that made it good. But, the madman can always find some bad things. And, I’ll throw in a couple of uglies. It’s been that kind of a year.
Since the madman blames anybody but himself, he blames a large part of the bad on Mother Nature. You know, things like wild animals, heat, drought and storms.
Wildlife Misbehavior in 2020
We’ve always said we garden for the native wildlife, but some species plain out took advantage of us. For example, the rabbits and deer in the moon garden. In our last episode, we told you what a great idea this garden was, but for a while we had our doubts. It seems rabbits took a shine to the cypress and passion flower vines, eating them back to the ground on one side. Since replacements were hard to come by, we ended up with a small void on one side. The madman said, “That’s what extra hot peppers are for.” If the rabbits weren’t enough, deer decided to sample the growing tips of several shrubs and went so far as to steal the madman’s figs.
Early on, even the madman inadvertently tried to sabotage the moon garden. Our first cosmos transplants struggled thanks to a combination of bugs, animals and cold. When it came time to replace these, the madman gave me plants with the comment, “I think these are white.” By the time we found out that his labeling system failed him again, it was too late. But, lucky for him, the overall effect was still quite nice.
2020 Transplants Were a Bust
The moon garden was not the only garden where early transplants were a bust. In the beginning of the season, zinnia transplants in the side beds were nibbled by something and/or stripped by bugs. Upon further examination, the madman realized that they went for the exotic ones, the more common varieties that the birds prefer were untouched. Gone were the fancy Zahara and Cactus flowering varieties. The madman says that for next year we’ll go for the more common varieties, but I know darned well that between now and next April he’ll secretly acquire some fancy seeds.
Actually the side beds were a bit of an issue this year. The old potato bed over there has become the madman’s play area. Last year he planted Blue Hubbard squash as a trap plant for the Striped Cucumber Beetle (Acalymma vittatum). The squash flourished and did their job. But this year, Mother Nature had different plans. The seeds came up like the madman expected. Then the weather turned hot and dry. Between the Striped Cucumber Beetle and the drought, the Hubbard squash didn’t have much of a chance. Throw some hungry deer into the mix and they were doomed. But the deer didn’t stop with the Hubbard squash.
Sweet Potato Snacks
The madman had decided to try sweet potatoes this year. Master Gardener and friend Chantal Foster has good luck with this crop and has been trying to convince him to grow them for years. So the madman decided to plant sweet potato slips in his play bed, along with the Hubbard squash. Two things turned out wrong with this picture. As the weather turned hot and dry, the madman painfully realized these plants were the farthest away from water. Despite his lugging water over to them, it wasn’t enough. But then, one day as the deer were nibbling the Hubbard squash, they noticed the young sweet potato vines. At least they removed the need to haul any more water. I do wish he’d taken his own advice to site a garden close to available water. In his defense, all the other areas were taken and I wasn’t letting him infiltrate the moon garden.
Dry, Dry, Dry
Lack of rainwater during the summer (by the end of the season our deficit was over 12”), coupled with the extreme heat caused a lot of plants to underperform. We had enough produce to eat over the summer and fall, but we didn’t have as much excess to freeze or give away. It seems that the peppers, both hot and sweet, were the only crops to rebound when the heat left us.
In the middle of all this dryness a tropical storm was predicted. The madman was expecting wind and much needed rain, but Isaias changed its path. We didn’t get the rain, but we did get the wind – enough to keep us without power for 6 days. The winds blew down three of our four pole bean towers. We managed to get them back up, but a good portion of the plants were damaged, cutting into bean production.
More Wind Damage
But the winds didn’t stop there. They visited the side garden and knocked over the morning glory pole, breaking vines and pulling out plants. Try as we might, we couldn’t fix all the damage. The storm’s aftermath left us without power for almost a week. Relying on well water as we do, the garden had to be content with the ½” we got from the storm. And, this was not nearly enough. After the storm, a high pressure weather pattern settled over Connecticut. Once again, we were hot and dry.
Drought Turns Ugly in 2020
The hot and dry ushered in the ugly. Fear of running the well dry prevented us from watering anything but the essential crops and the moon garden. The madman made sure his second planting of potatoes was in the ground before Isaias hit – the predicted 2-4” of rainfall would help produce a bumper crop. What we did get was not nearly enough and these potatoes definitely disappointed the madman.
But things in the garden really turned ugly when the madman discovered what happened in the berry patch. In the spring we had noticed tons of flowers on these berry plants. The madman so looked forward to a bumper crop – plenty for both him and the birds. Then one day he clomped into the house to announce, “All the berries have dried up!” Actually, they didn’t all dry up; we did get a few, just not nearly enough to preserve or share.
Back to the 2020 Samhain Fire
Sitting around the Samhain fire, the madman thought back to the early days of the master gardening program. “Remember when they started taking about the three essentials for plant growth – sunlight, nutrients and water?” The madman has learned that perhaps water is the most important of these three elements.
All living things need water and plants are no exception. Water brings nutrients from the soil, traveling from the roots to the leaves and growing tips of the plants. It is an essential element of photosynthesis, the process by which a plant feeds itself. As it travels through the plant, water keeps the plant strong and healthy. When a plant doesn’t get enough water, the stems and leaves begin to wilt. We can’t control rainfall; that’s in Mother Nature’s hands. We hope not to see another drought like this for a while, but the madman has started to think about how to water efficiently while protecting our well. I expect that the thinking will be done over a lot of hot cocoa this winter; it’ll give him something to do over the Persephone period.
And speaking of hot cocoa, it’s ready.
