Those of you who are kind enough to follow The Kale Chronicles as it morphs from a twice weekly blog to a monthly blog will have noticed that it did not make its May deadline. It was inevitable, given some things that are going on and it may be rocky here for awhile. I have not had time to take pictures, much less paint them in the last week or so — I have barely been able to attend to the garden (I just spent an hour on my hands and knees, pulling out burr clover).
But I harvested at least half a basket of Sun Gold cherry tomatoes tonight from the plant that has dynastic ambitions — having taken over as much of the fence line as possible (I think), it has shifted its focus to growing out over the patio. Johnny said it had to be cut back, but I am not going to do that. Perhaps I should have put in more stakes or a tomato cage, but it is too late for that now. It swallows up and shades everything in its path with abundant foliage and hundreds of yellow blossoms. It is the biggest tomato plant I have ever seen and I fear to think of what my Amish paste tomatoes and my Principe Borghese plants are going to look like — both of them have larger tomatoes than the Sun Gold.
I have pepper plants hardening off and chard that is bolting. We can eat lettuce from the garden now, as well as chard and kale and tomatoes. I set out some new Thai basil seeds because the Thai basil I planted before is underneath the giant tomato. In the process of digging to enrich the soil for the basil I discovered concrete about a foot down at the end of one of the bean rows. Uh-oh. I have not yet determined how far the concrete extends (I’m not that fond of digging).
My green bean plants have little tiny green beans and the Scarlet Runners do too. My pinto beans and black-eyed peas seem to have hybridized in a giant tangle: when they started out they looked like bush beans, but then the bush beans grew tangled vines that refuse to take to the supports I gave them. Meanwhile some of the butternut squash plants are growing through a row of green beans and I can no longer walk on what was a path in that part of the garden. I think that I saw some tiny butternut squash tonight, although I have seen no squash blossoms, which makes no sense — the only things in blossom are the tomatoes and various beans.
I need to know a lot of things. I need to know how to confine indeterminate tomatoes (and perhaps how to prune the non-bearing branches). I need to know how to encourage the butternut squash to fruit and how to protect the squash as they grow. I need an advanced placement course in staking and supporting plants because muddling through it on my own was not adequate (I have raised indeterminate tomatoes before, thank you very much, but only in ten gallon buckets, where they stay put, where, in fact, they were spindly and only produced a few handfuls of tomatoes. I love the abundance, but I am afraid we will not be able to walk in our yard by August and I feel sorry for the other plants that have no chance and no space to grow. I need to know what particular horrible garden pests or diseases have been plaguing my red cabbage plants, which may not be long for this world, although I have not had a single cabbage.
I sort it out as best I can. The garden is my refuge from other difficulties and I love going out and picking or cutting things to eat. Last night I made a chicken salad that incorporated cherry tomatoes and lettuce from the garden. I also used plain Greek yogurt, Madras curry powder, lemon juice (lime is better), celery and golden raisins.
May highlights included a visit from my best friend and her husband on the day that twenty-six mph winds blew the tomato trellis down and ripped stakes through the ground and my guest appearance with Johnny’s band, Johnny Harper and Carnival, in Sebastopol. I sang “Evangeline” by Robbie Robertson, which Emmy Lou Harris sang in “The Last Waltz.” The band has been doing a special series of shows featuring the music of The Band, while incorporating some of Johnny’s original compositions. Johnny is hard at work on a CD, to be released in October if all goes according to plan.
I hope you all are enjoying your late spring/early summer.
Sharyn (aka The Kale Chronicler)
thekalechronicles 
Wow Sharyn, you are an Eve in an Eden run amok. But what a fertile and wonderful amok it is. So lovely to hear from you and your latest adventures, always so inspiring the way you live your life to the fullest whatever form it takes. I truly hope the unrevealed troubles pass peacefully away. Thank you for sharing yourself and your passion with us through your posts, even if they are only once a month, better than never at all. You are so very special…
Thank you for your kind words, John. The garden was truly wonderful in its way, showing me what I needed to learn.
Gardens have a way of doing that…hugs…
Lovely to hear your garden news Sharyn. I’m not great at tomatoes, I just usually give them one big stout stake at th ebeginning and that’s their lot, oh and a few picnhing out bits. and if there are too many leaves or the stems look miserable out come the scissors! Maybe I’m too harsh with them…….
With squash plants it’s all about pollinating the females (usually there are more male than female flowers) an dI know some people later in the season will trim off long stems that don’t have any fruit on them so th eplant concentrates its efforts into fruit production. Oh and I place a brick/stone or straw under the emerging fruit.
as ever your inventiveness with your food (your salad) dressing) sounds perfect to me.
Thank you, Claire — it was a lovely and challenging garden for me: I wish there had been a way to keep it going: I wanted to harvest all of those beans, squash and tomatoes. But who knows what is in my future.
Wow Sharyn, it sounds like your garden is doing well. I’ve never succeeded in tomato growing. however I had my first strawberry yesterday from the garden and there’s a small handful of raspberries awaiting me when I get home too. I’m enjoying the.monthly blogs. I’m finding it difficult to bake and blog regularly at the moment but continuing to.enjoy it when I do. I look forward to your next post.
Thank you, Lauren. The garden did indeed do well, surprising me with its vigor. I’ve never grown strawberries or raspberries — wish I could.