The Musings of a Messy Gardener

Every year, up until this year, I have engaged in what I called “Lazy Gardening.”
Basically, I work my rear end off in the early spring so I can just sit idly by in the summer
and do no work. I kind of did that this year because we started the farm, but I did far
more infrastructure than growing. Here we are in the latter part of August, and these are
the things I have discovered in my garden.

1. Nightshade plants love to grow next to tomatoes in the garden. They have
berries that are very similar to tomatoes but are green with dark green stripes.
They are NOT edible!!! So, without realizing it, I grew a large crop of these.
Lesson…pay attention to the plants you didn’t plant! Sorry I didn’t take a picture before I got rid of it!

2. Butternut squash is a vine! Yep, I decided to grow it this year and plunked it into
the bed with the zucchini and crookneck squash. That, folks, was a mistake! I
was unaware, as I have never grown it before, that it is a vining plant and needs
to be trellised if you grow it. Needless to say, I have A LOT of vines in that bed.
Live and learn, right?

3. I grew Red Ruffles!!! What, you may ask, is a Red Ruffle? Well, it is a heritage
sweet pepper that is traditionally used to make pimentos, those red
things found in a jar. They are a specialty pepper that comes from Spain and on
a whim, I ordered seeds and grew them! They have not turned red yet, but I have my
hopes up!

4. Lack of pollinators equal a lack of fruit. Yes, I know you all probably know this,
but what do you do when you just don’t have any natural bees around? Well, I
reached out to some of the beekeepers around here, and didn’t get any takers to
put a host hive on the farm, but did speak with the director of Prairie Wind Bee
Supply, Paul Anderson (www.prairiewindbeesupply.com) who talked about how to attract
bumblebees and mason bees. I am now building bumblebee houses that
hopefully be attractive to bees next year.

So there you have it. Some of the many lessons that I have learned on the farm this
summer. I will be sure to do an end of summer follow up to share more learned
lessons!!! Oh, and we added to the farm doggie herd!!

Happy Gardening!
Jacki