Maybe it was the rush with which we put things together, arriving in late February to our new home and throwing the garden together in less than two months. Maybe it was the myriad birds that call our property home, pilfering the seeds soon after we had tucked them into the soil. Maybe it was the deer who also seem to consider this place their own, ready to nibble the first fleck of green that peeked above ground. Maybe it was the 26 days of 100+-degree weather we had in June alone that withered whatever dared grow. But whether one of these excuses or another all together, the end result is the same - outside of the potatoes we planted early in the year, we won't be getting bupkis in crops this season.
It's the most confounding thing, especially since our garden last year grown under mostly similar circumstances in Portland thrived. Only half our crops actually sprouted this year, which makes us think thieving birds are the most likely culprit. At first we thought it might be the soil, but then we'd see green beans start to sprout in a box where the jalapenos never appeared. We saw corn get a foot high before abruptly cancelling it's lifespan, while in the same box carrots never took hold. None of our herbs came up, ditto our lettuce and Mesclun. And half of this stuff we planted twice, once on Planting Day back in May and again towards the end of June when the bust was beginning to make itself known. The only things that still show any vestige of existence are the ginger plants, a few green shoots still among them, the grape vines that haven't grown in size but still retain green leaves, and our pair of cherry trees, faring much the same as the grape vines. In these latter two instances, the native soil in which they're planted might be cause for some of the blame, it's very clay-y, to the point we abandoned plans for using exclusively native soil in the garden and instead went with raised beds and a potting mix. As for the rest of it, who knows, all we can do is plan more wisely next time, like replacing the garden-stake/netting deer fence we quickly improvised with a more sturdy and long-lasting one of posts and wire, and maybe laying down some windowscreen over the beds after sewing them, to prevent hungry birds from scavenging our bounty before it even blooms. Maybe adding a scarecrow for the same effect.
We'll try to sew some later summer/early fall crops in a month or so, once the heat has hopefully subsided to a steady low-80s, but other than that, all we can do is learn from our mistakes/bad luck and try to amend things so the next go-around is more plentiful. When we started this blog we said we were going to show you the highs and lows of getting adjusted to country life. At the least we stayed true to our word.
