Making a List and Checking It...Over and Over and Over

I began my first free weekend in weeks by doing what I always do: making a to-do list. I should know better than to waste my time on this exercise, but I don’t. I’ve just gotten better, and I figure that the items that I put down after five minutes of compiling such lists aren’t likely to be done, and I edit down my list to the top ten pressing things. Well, this week, such practical chores such as “balance checkbook and pay bills”, “laundry”, and “start a simple knitting project” didn’t make the cut. The only thing that got less than half done was “work in garden and finish planting”.

By the end of the weekend, my garden looked like this:

I had planted broccoli, Swiss chard, lettuce, kale, and lemon basil. I also weeded. But I did not plant my mustard green seedlings, or direct seed my fall plantings of carrots, beets, and turnips. I did dutifully cover up my rows with row covers. Not only does this keep the deer away, but it also keeps the larvae of the cabbage moths off the broccoli and kale, and it prevents leaf miners from ruining my Swiss chard. It isn’t pretty, but it works.

Just a few days later, I beam as proudly as a mother whose child has achieved some milestone at my broccoli and lettuce (planted from seedlings).

The earlier plantings are doing well, and it is too bad that there isn’t much time left to the growing season. We had our first meal of zucchini yesterday, and it looks like we may be getting some cucumbers after all.

The deer had nibbled off the top of my bush beans before I had a chance to cover them up, but they’re rebounding and many have flowers.

And I’m still waiting with anticipation for my first tomatoes to turn red. I must have about 20 that look like this:

To pretty things up, I spared no expense and bought the 4-for-$10 mums that are now for sale at my supermarket. These are planted in a trapezoidal bed, and if they take, I’ll use annuals for a small border next year, and then plant bulbs between the plants. The deer got to them the night I planted them, and they now are surrounded by netting too.

I had extraordinary luck with 3-for-$10 mums a few years ago, and I really should have divided them this year.

Knitting was not so successful. It turned out that I didn’t fix correctly the stitch next to the mistake I photographed in my last post, and I thought while ripping back to make that change I should go for perfection and get the whole thing knitted right. So it took a couple of nights to rip back and replace the stitches accurately, and then when I started knitting back those rows, I made a few more errors. I use a simple Excel spreadsheet to count the rows, which enables me to keep track of those that need repeating. Here’s what it looks like for the Bee Hive section:

I don’t think 15 is my lucky number.

Comments

[Jenny]

You know you're going to get 20 red tomatoes all at once, right? That cuke looks YUMMY.

[Caroline M]

I'll have to take a photo of my butternut squash that is planning to take over the world.

I sometimes have the odd row of knitting that I never ever get right. It's usually one row of a lace pattern where I make the same mistake every time I come to it. I know that I get that row wrong, I know that I got it wrong the last time and I still get it wrong.

[tiennie]

I am so impressed with your garden! I would want one but I wouldn't want to do the work for one.

[WoolEnough]

Your garden looks delicious. And how nice to be getting tomatoes so late in the season.

[Dorothy]

Your garden is a work of art! I'm still mulling over plans for one. I think our only choice is going to be putting up a deer fence. But hubby doesn't want to go to the expense of putting one up until he knows a garden is going to succeed, but I don't think it will succeed without a deer fence. A bit of a catch-22, especially since we also are overrun with rabbits!

[Linda S]

I admire you for your optimism in planting so late in the season. I'm a gardener too but I don't plant vegetables (I did put in one zucchini plant, but I don't think that counts).
I'm also a maker of "TO DO" lists. It gives one a real sense of purpose, even if very few of the items are ticked off.