Cait's Garden

I feel pretty good about myself as a flower gardener. Perhaps “Flower Goddess” is a bit of an exaggeration, but on good days, I do feel that way. Give me perennials and I can make something beautiful happen. But vegetables, ah, vegetables. They are a mystery to me. Unlike my perennials of choice, they are not indifferent to weather and watering. They are, like farmers’ crops throughout time, susceptible to the slightest weather issues. You have to baby them, give them regular water, monitor for bugs and blight. And after all that, you still might not get a good result. Vegetables are complicated, and I know I am too ignorant of their ways, even after attempting a vegetable patch for many seasons.  This year, I have a revamped veggie garden with a partially raised bed to improve drainage. I also planted fewer plants to give things room to breathe and I tried pole beans for the first time. So far, frequent use of organic anti-fungal has kept the dreaded tomato leaf diseases at bay, but the pole beans are showing signs of some sort of leaf infection at their base. So I am picking off the yellow leaves, spraying anti-fungal, and hoping I don’t have an empty bean trellis this year. That’s why I have so many flowers around my vegetable garden perimeter. It’s my way to insure that my vegetable mistakes are blocked from view by my proven winners.