OK, so just when I had all but given up on the prospect of making anything this year in the garden, it rains! Peas and butter beans are starting to bloom again, giving me a small ray of hope that all is not completely lost. While the local weatherman predicts dry heat for the next five days, I find myself a bit more optimistic than the last post.
But it's hard to find much optimism when everything is so parched. The potato vines had died down to crumbly brown stalks, almost impossible to even find among the wheat straw. Dad and I figured we might as well dig them up to see if they had produced anything at all, and I was determined to eat anything resembling a potato, even if it was no bigger than one of the few peas we have managed to squeeze out of the patch. The first plant had one potato about the size of a quarter, and the results didn't do much to boost my confidence at all. But by the time we were three or four hills in, each turn of the fork was revealing a few nice plump red blobs, and in the end I walked away with several pounds of both Pontiac Red and Yukon Golds. Not a total loss, but certainly not what I had hoped for.
With that task completed it was time to really survey the damage. 20 rows of corn, dead. 50 paste tomato plants, withered and lifeless. Black and Calypso beans, utterly consumed by the drought. Green beans and Yellow wax beans, alive but barren. two 75' rows of Okra, hanging by a thread. Squash and cucumber, not even a trace. Mississippi cow peas and Jackson wonder butter beans- green and blooming again. Potatoes, in the bag. Bell, Jalapeno, Habanero and Chilli's, alive and producing.
I have learned first hand what it is like to totally rely on Mother Nature and I'm not satisfied with the odds, as the road to self reliance is long, hard and dusty. But I take a little comfort in knowing that I successfully planned, planted and grew an entire garden from seed. Had the rains come it would have yielded enough to make a huge dent in our food consumption. That much I am confident of, so next year irrigation is top priority. A lot of hours have ticked away since march when I started sprouting seeds indoors and in the end, knowledge from lessons learned has come at a cost. But that knowledge and experience is something the drought cannot take away, in fact, it only makes me more determined and confident.
Do you remember when we were kids, Daddy Bill would get Mr. Raymond's mule and plow up the potatoes? We'd walk behind them, our bare feet leaving little prints in them moist soil, with the smell of freshly-turned earth filling the air. Then he would put the potatoes under their house, and you, me, Shay and Jeff would sneak a few and eat them raw. I always loved how the ground smelled during plowing and harvest time. I'm sorry your garden didn't yield as you had hoped, but as you say, it is a lesson well learned. And precious time spent with Dad that makes a special memory for you to keep forever.
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