Summer Garden Lessons

Beth at Plant Postings invited me to participitate in her meme on Garden Lessons Learned: Summer 2011. Here's a few things I learned. 

Veggie Gardening in Part Sun

You can grow many edibles in part sun. It took me years to figure this out -as a new gardener, I devoured the articles in gardening magazines and diligently followed whatever the experts said. I would read about heirloom lettuce or how to grow beans, and in my imagination, I was already cutting “claret-splashed, bright green” lettuce leaves and serving tender steamed heirloom green beans. My fantasies burst with the inevitable words: “needs full sun.” The sunniest part of our yard gets direct sun from noon to 3 p.m., well short of the six hours of sunlight called full sun.

The woodland vegetable garden

Cherry tomatoes, planted last week.

Like many people who live in older neighborhoods with established trees, full sun is a dream. You don’t get much sunlight when your house is surrounded on all sides by 50- to 60-foot-tall trees. But my husband wanted a vegetable garden, and two years ago, we stopped listening to the experts. We dug up an oval-shaped patch of weedy “lawn” in a clearing on the south side of the house, added lots of compost to improve the clay, and began experimenting.

Probably the biggest surprise was that cherry tomatoes do quite well in part sun in our North Carolina garden. We’ve grown “Sun Gold” and “Sweet Million,” both of which produced so prolifically that we had extras to give to neighbors. Last year I tried Roma tomatoes, which ripened into several batches of tomato sauce.

Free bamboo makes nice tepees for pole beans.

The general rule seems to be that plants that flower and grow large “fruit,” such as large tomatoes, squash, cucumber, melons, etc. do require full sun. But we’ve had success with smaller vegetables such as peas and bush beans. This year, we’re trying two different varieties of pole beans.

Greens thrive in part sun in our Zone 7B garden. Swiss chard has become my favorite green. It’s beautiful, with its bright red, yellow or orange stems and survives both summer heat and winter cold. If you cut only the largest leaves, it will produce for months. We plant collards and kale in the fall.  Although they stop growing during the shortest days, they survive brief periods of snow cover and are ready for harvest by March. I almost forgot the lettuce - I think it may prefer part shade in the South.

Parsley

Last, but not least, many herbs do well in part shade. I don’t know what we’d do without them – they’re especially valuable as flavor because my husband is on a low-sodium diet. We use them in almost every meal except breakfast. Parsley and oregano thrive with almost no care. Even with almost daily use, our two parsley plants grow faster than we can cut them. Our basil plants grew four feet tall last summer. Rosemary also has grown well in part shade. I just planted thyme and tarragon and look forward to seeing how they do.

One thing I know: I’m having a lot more fun as a gardener (and eating better!) since I started experimenting with the vegetable garden.

The Miracle of Seeds

I woke up to a sky of dark clouds and air filled with smoke from fires in a distant wildlife refuge. The atmosphere matched my mood. I drifted from one thing to another, aimlessly. Then my husband said, "Didn't you say you were going to plant seeds?"  

"Blue Lake" bush bean seeds ready to be covered with soil.

As soon as I began poking my finger in the earth, I felt happy. The soil was moist and warm. I dropped the bean seeds in one by one, then tucked them in with earth and patted the soil with bare hands. I planted a second row of Swiss chard, my favorite summer green. It's easy to grow and lasts all summer if you keep cutting the leaves. 

Swiss chard tastes great, takes the heat and is ornamental, too.

When I began gardening, I lacked faith. I couldn't quite believe that these tiny, dry, odd-shaped objects called seeds could transform themselves into plants. In those days, I bought all my plants at the nursery, where I could see them and touch them as proof they were real.

 Now I love seeds, and prefer growing plants from seeds because I still can't get over the miracle. How does a dry little thing that sits in a paper packet for months or years know when its day comes? How do seeds know how to grow?