June already?

Time has past, as you always hope it will, and both my garden and my blog have been neglected. I'll spare you the excuses.

I've become wiser. For one thing, seven tomato plants in a small garden is three or four too many. My entire vegetable garden is one solid mass of tomatoes. New knowledge item number two, people design, market and sell tomato cages for a reason. An indeterminate variety of tomato will stop growing and spreading never, a fact that one would think the word "indeterminate" would have adequately described to me. Determinate varieties are not much better. They have a set end point at which they stop growing. Depending on the plant, that end point is somewhere between bigger than you expected and big enough to obliterate any other plant three feet in any direction. Number three on the educational parade, tobacco hookworms are huge, disgusting and destructive - defoliating half a tomato plant overnight. I had read about them, seen pictures and all but I was unprepared for the reality of their presence in my garden, the first one I saw gave me pause. Four to five inches long, rearing back and roaring (inaudibly to humans, but one look at these monsters and no one can doubt that they at least occasionally roar). I will not dwell on how I deal with these pest, only to say my method is organic and chemical free, not counting any petroleum products used in the production of the soles of my shoes.

So my garden is somewhat of a monoculture. I have a couple of cucumbers, one courgette, one acorn squash, two purple hull peas and two okras. I've harvested many tomatoes of all varieties, excepting the Striped Germans - they were slow to bloom and I am not sure if I will get fruit from them or not. I cannot tell the difference in taste from one variety to another. I also cannot, in a very poorly designed and controlled experiment, tell the difference between homegrown and store bought tomatoes. I know that this makes me a base and pathetic gardener and human, but I guess I don't like tomatoes all that much. I am going to try a much larger and better designed experiment with fresh tomatoes, tomatoes in salsa and bruscetta and tomato sauce. Using myself and my co-workers I will see if there is something wrong with me or if, as my hypothesis will state more thoroughly in the final published paper, tomato mania is a completely contrived expression of humanity searching for bucolic comfort and simple summer afternoons that never existed. Feeling a little low and mean, I was, the day I formulated that hypothesis.

We've had two nice rains, about ten days apart, and my cottage garden continues to thrive. My roses are putting on a second wave of blooms. The Mexican Oregano and Russian Sage are both in bloom, covering one bed in a mass of pastel pink and blue that is very nice indeed. Mixed with some Catmint, both Walker's Low and Six Hill's Giant varieties (both named for gardens in England, yes!) and some Powis Castle (also an English garden, I am on a bloody roll!) Artemesia, the bed has a cooling feel that we in Texas can really use from June until September.

Today, weeding and watering and general maintenance before a trip to the lake to celebrate my wife's and my tenth anniversary. For those wondering "How does she do it? Ten years with this guy? Is she a saint?" You can stick it, I seriously doubt living with you is a cake walk (ummm, cake). And yes, she is a saint.