Suburban Gardener—

The Veggie Patch

By Gerry McCabe

This gardener is never happy. Just a few weeks ago I was marveling on the exquisite summer weather we had been experiencing but I had to mumble the fact “We do need some rain.”

Well, the heavens responded and liberated the moisture from the clouds to the tone of “Have you had enough yet?” Yes, yes by all means, lets see some of that sunny, hot humid weather that makes our clothes stick to our skin, that makes an ice cube melt before it hits your glass, that makes your corn, peppers and eggplant grow and your tomatoes ripen.

No, I have not lost my marbles. Although we may complain when the mercury reaches 85-90 with elevated humidity, the truth is without that kind of weather, our veggies are going to be slow to mature if they do at all. Eggplant, peppers and tomatoes are hot season crops. They need those hot summer days and sultry summer nights to grow and develop their fruit.

The McCabe Veggie Patch is suffering this year. Not only because of the cool summer weather but also because of shortcuts, experiments in preparing the soil this spring and an overall anxiousness of the gardener to “push” the season. We have to face the fact that we are getting older and although we can still till the garden as well as we did ten years ago, we realize that there will come a time when we will not be able to.

Normally we plant a winter crop of Winter Rye on the beds and till that in the spring with our compost and a good horse/cow manure we “buy” from a farm in Watertown. This year we weed-whacked the rye right down to the soil, left the clippings on the surface and covered each bed with our own compost. We skipped the deep tilling and the manure (except for a couple of gift bags of composted chicken manure from a good friend).

The results were not good. Our corn, which is usually beyond “knee high by the Forth of July,” was about shin deep. Our tomatoes hadn’t budged and the lettuce was spindly. By the second week of July we said “We need some quick nitrogen,” so off we went to buy some pelletized urea (46-0-0) and speedily applied it around the plants just before the next predicted rain.

Since nitrogen in this form is quick released and quick to dissipate, we had to do this repeatedly each week. Talk about “shortcut”? I don’t think so.

Horse and cow manure are good sources of nitrogen and other nutrients. Because of its organic structure it is very slow to break down and is slowly released into the soil for absorption by the plant roots. An application in the spring tilled into the soil and another in the fall before you plant your cover crop should be all you need.

One drawback of manure is its nutrient reliability. Although we know that it is high in nitrogen, which makes the plant green up and grow strong, we don’t know the quantity of the other macro- or micro-nutrients contained within. After all, cows and horses do not walk around with 5-10-5 stamped on their backs. So it is always best to have a good organic fertilizer on hand just to give the plants a snack during the season.

As far as the “anxious gardener” goes, the fault of the poor growth of our eggplants and peppers falls solely on my shoulders. I was in a hurry to get the whole garden in early this year and I planted it all by the middle of May. Lesson learned. Peppers and eggplant should only be planted in the ground when night time temperatures will remain above 55 degrees, otherwise a cool to cold night may stunt their growth and they may never have the gumption to recover. Our peppers and eggplants look like bonsai specimens. I have begun to pull them out and plant fall crops of lettuce and broccoli rabe.

Lastly, I have promised myself I will get our garden soil tested this fall. The pH of the soil has a lot to do with whether our not the nutrients in your soil will be made available to the plants. I like veggies too much to be disappointed again.

(When she isn’t tending to her garden at home, Gerry McCabe spends some of her time continuing her gardening education at Naugatuck Valley College in Waterbury. Gerry can be reached at TNGCATS@aol.com.)