Mushrooms etc.

It is August, and we have had so much rain.

I’m pretty sure we’ve had more rain this month than we did around this time last year, but I’m not complaining because I hate watering. It is one of those garden chores that sounds simple enough until you’re dragging hoses around every evening getting eaten alive by mosquitos. This year, the rain has been doing a lot of that work for me, and the garden has mostly been keeping itself alive.

This has easily been my best carrot year ever. I have never grown carrots this big before. I think all the rain helped tremendously with germination, but I also changed the way I planted them this year. Instead of just scattering the seeds into a flat bed and hoping for the best, I hilled the soil up first, planted into the loose mound and then covered the seeded area with cardboard until they started to sprout. I may have finally cracked the carrot code. Carrots have always been one of those crops that seem like they should be easy and then somehow aren’t, so pulling actual big, beautiful carrots out of the ground has been ridiculously satisfying.

We also moved the ducks and chickens farther back into the enormous tangle of Oriental bittersweet growing in the middle of the yard. I had scattered a few old, stray seed packets back there earlier in the year, mostly because I figured I had nothing to lose, and somehow that resulted in these absolutely enormous Swiss chard leaves growing among the weeds. They were gorgeous and huge, like prehistoric plants. Once the dinosaurs (birds) got access to them they were demolished but the stems are intact so they may recover.

While I was bushwhacking my way through the bittersweet trying to get the fencing situated, I also stumbled across an enormous turkey tail mushroom. It was one of those lovely little garden surprises that makes all the crawling through vines and getting smacked in the face with branches feel worthwhile. I harvested about half of it, dried it and I’m planning to grind it into mushroom powder. I’ve never actually used turkey tail before, so I’m very excited about that little experiment.

There have been a few other garden mysteries this month too. I had some plants growing that I originally thought might be kohlrabi, but now I’m fairly certain they are some sort of marrow-stem kale from another ancient seed packet I threw into the garden and promptly forgot about. This has been how I garden recently. Plant mystery seeds ->Forget about them -> Return three months later and attempt botanical detective work.

They absolutely decimated my squash plants. We managed to harvest exactly one zucchini before that plant keeled over and died, which is an extremely disappointing zucchini year considering zucchini normally reaches the stage where you are trying to leave it anonymously on your neighbors’ porches. I saw a tip online about burying the stems to try to save the plant but haven’t had much success with that.

The cucumbers have gone absolutely wild. At this point I basically have to eat one full-size cucumber every day just to keep up with them, which is both a blessing and a curse. Luckily the dogs like them too.

The cherry tomatoes have also started coming in, including this yellow-orange variety whose name is something along the lines of Sun Sweet or Sun Something. Whatever it is called, it is incredibly sweet, almost candy-like. I can almost eat them without gagging! Which, if you know my relationship with raw tomatoes, is an extremely glowing review.

The chickens have also discovered that the fence is more of a suggestion than an actual barrier. Several of them have started flying over it and then congregating outside the gate, where they apparently enjoy intimidating the dogs. Its weird, when the dogs are inside the fence they’re afraid of chickens but outside the fence they don’t care at all. I will never comprehend the whims of a Pomeranian brains.

Despite the squash casualties, we have actually been getting a pretty steady stream of little harvests. I harvested nearly a pound of basil recently and turned it into several different pasta sauces. We’ve gotten a few tomatoes here and there. The cucumbers are obviously trying to take over the household.

And I have one watermelon. I am watching this watermelon like a security guard. I am convinced that the exact moment it becomes perfectly ripe, some woodland creature is going to wander into the garden, take one enormous bite out of it and leave the rest behind specifically to hurt my feelings. So far, it remains intact.

The Three Sisters garden has been one of the happiest surprises of the year. The pumpkins and squash growing through there are enormous, sprawling everywhere and absolutely covered in flowers. There are so many blossoms that I may actually start harvesting a few just to eat with cheese because at this point I don’t think the plants are going to miss them. The corn looks like it is doing…corn things.

Overall, though, August has been pretty good to the garden. I’ve really enjoyed wandering outside and seeing what has changed since the day before. The harvests haven’t been huge, but they have been consistent, and there have been enough unexpected little treasures, giant carrots, mystery kale, turkey tail mushrooms, enormous chard leaves, to keep things interesting.

I’m also planning to stop at the garden center on my way to or from work this weekend and see if I can find a few replacement zucchini and summer squash plants. The vine borers have already done most of their damage for the year, so I’m hoping that if I put in some larger nursery plants now, I might be able to sneak in a second, smaller harvest through late summer and into fall. I refuse to accept one zucchini as my final zucchini harvest for the year.

The ducks and chickens have otherwise been doing well, and lately I’ve made one small change to the household routine that has helped more than I expected. My wife has taken over putting the birds away at night. It is such a small chore on paper, but I needed the break. After she was gone for two weeks, I realized just how much active management I had been doing around the house and homestead. Between being sick, keeping up with everything alone and dealing with the animal losses we had, I had gotten completely overwhelmed. So for now, nighttime animal chores belong to her.