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© Matt Sabo
A gardener should always expect the unexpected... corn damaged by a summer storm.
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© Matt Sabo
"When it rains here, it dumps. It’s not some gentle mist or lovely shower like I remember in western Oregon. No, it’s a river crashing down from the sky," says Sabo.
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© Matt Sabo
Jimmy Red Corn
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© Matt Sabo
Rattlesnake Pole Beans
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© Matt Sabo
A summer garden sampler.
"And this is how spring goes for me. I’m a candidate for the 12-step Gardeners Anonymous program. I’ve got no control. Where on earth do I put all these seeds and plants?"
I had a plan—a good plan—for my garden.
In the muted, earthy tones of winter, amidst all that brown and gray and the nakedness of trees shorn of leaves, I dreamt up my garden. Visions of lush plants bursting into bloom. Green. Alive. Satisfying. On those long, cold nights, my dreams took on a chlorophyll tint.
I planned for months. I drew up a garden schematic. Fine straight rows, properly spaced and aligned for optimal sun exposure. Plenty of room for the plants to breathe, grow and flourish.
I showed exemplary restraint after the seed catalogs arrived in the mail. Bought just enough seeds to sow in my confined plot, not thinking about how one of my kids or a neighbor would like just this one—or even 23 other—varieties of seeds. Secretly I think about making just enough space between the peas, beans, tomatoes, squash, onions, kale, basil, potatoes, butternut squash, sunflowers, peppers, sweet potatoes, poppies, cantaloupe and zinnias for more seeds. Watermelon. Corn. Spinach.
I tilled manure into the soil in early February. Secured two hefty bags of worm castings and a bag of fertilizer. I was ready and committed to the plan, even planting peas around the end of the month.
The Unexpected
And yet …
Mike Tyson once famously said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
For me, it wasn’t quite a Tyson right hook to the mouth. Rather, two unexpected events beyond my control walloped me. They left my spring planting plans, and my lovely schematic, in utter disarray.
Both occurred around the same time, February 24. Russia invaded Ukraine. A daughter who was to be married in a month dropped by unexpectedly.
Unrelated events, to be sure. But my daughter told me she would be moving into a D.C. apartment with her new husband after their wedding. She wouldn’t be needing these seeds. She plops a dozen packets onto my desk. Peas, beans, peppers, spinach. So many others. I couldn’t let them be orphaned.
Then Russia invades Ukraine. It’s horrific. My heart aches for the Ukrainians. In response, Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company announces that all seed sales between Feb. 25-27 would be donated to Ukrainian refugees. I had to do something. I couldn’t stand idly by. So I did the right thing and bought seeds. Actually, lots of seeds. Sunflowers of all sorts and Ukrainian varieties of tomatoes and eggplant, among others.
Uh, does anyone have a spare acre or two for all these seeds?
Is this normal behavior for a gardener? Are all gardeners’ eyes bigger than their plots? We have no defense against seed companies’ freaky mind control tactics. We can’t just say, “I have enough seeds. I don’t need another packet of striking black Mountain Morado Corn that’s ‘super anthocyanin-rich’ or Pusa Asita Black Carrots with their ‘amazing color and flavor!’” My back was on the ropes!
Know Thyself
Then on April 1, I made another mistake. I drove to Green Planters nursery in Gloucester Point to get two cubic yards of mulch loaded into my trailer. I should’ve stayed in my van. I prepped myself beforehand, saying over and over again, “I have enough seeds. I have enough seeds.”
I walk in to pay for the mulch and stop dead in my tracks. Purple seed potatoes. We’re talking dark purple potatoes. Just gorgeous. I envision them roasting beautifully next to supple, orange butternut squash, spicy red onions and tender sweet potatoes. A cornucopia of color and flavor. I literally say out loud, to no one in particular, “Well, technically they’re not seeds…”
While I’m at it, I buy some kale and red onion plants. I justify it by thinking I’m buying the kale and red onions for my wife because she really likes them. You know, thinking of her. Besides, I have a spot for them by the other red onions I’ve planted. Next to the rosemary and Brussels sprouts.
And this is how spring goes for me. I’m a candidate for the 12-step Gardeners Anonymous program. I’ve got no control. Where on earth do I put all these seeds and plants? The start of April rolls around and I’m planting green beans and pole beans, a seed every four inches. I mean, packing them in. I’ll thin them later. When later comes, I don’t have the heart to yank earnest little sprouts from the ground. Maybe the squirrels or bunnies will do it for me.
The peas are a few inches high. The spuds are in the ground, poking up and getting frosted tips on the freezing March mornings. I mound up dirt for a hill of summer squash. I’ll transplant tomatoes and peppers later in April as the warming spring sun heats up the soil, and the bugs awake from their winter slumber, hungry and vicious as ever.
Heavier Rain
I mound up the soil and work in worm castings and nitrogen-rich fertilizer before I plant. Every three weeks until the plants start producing, I side dress with more fertilizer. I mound up the rows of plants because it’s Virginia and you absolutely must leave alleys for water in your avenues of veggies.
When it rains here, it dumps. It’s not some gentle mist or lovely shower like I remember in western Oregon. No, it’s a river crashing down from the sky. I tell friends out West the rain here is unnaturally violent. Angry, even.
Although my sandy soil drains fast, the ominous, heavy storm clouds that thunder in are merciless. Just in March, we had three separate storms that dropped 1.5 inches, 1.4 inches and 2.5 inches of rain, altogether 6 inches in the month with other rain. I have no frame of reference for this hydrology. My hometown of Bend, Oregon, gets 10 inches of precipitation a year.
Spring is when I get down and dirty. Literally. Early in the mornings, when it’s only slightly unbearably hot, I hunker down in the rows and pluck evil little devil weeds by the dozens, hundreds and thousands. My strategy is to bear down now, endure the aching back to give my sweet young plants room to stretch out. No competition is good for their roots.
As my garden plants grow they crowd out the weeds. Later in the summer, when it’s hot enough to roast squash outside, I have fewer weeds and easier maintenance. In theory at least.
I also eat garlic, hoping the pungent aroma seeps through my sweating pores and offends lusty mosquitoes. Alas, it appears there’s a strain of mosquito that loves garlic. So I wear long sleeves and lube up with bug repellant.
Harsh Reality
It’s a war out there in the garden. Gardener versus rodents, bugs, mildew, disease, storms and relentless sauna-like heat. Climate studies show the length of the Chesapeake Bay gardening season is 30 days longer than a century ago, with a month’s more “tropical heat” nights and 30 fewer frost days. While a longer growing season means I can get two crops of dry beans a year, fewer cold days in winter and spring basically means more bugs. So I kill bugs and grubs with gloves on my hands. I kill them early in the season, and often. Mid-season and late summer into fall, too. It’s cold-blooded.
Even without the bugs, there are other threats looming. One day last summer, I spied a large torn-up patch of my blossoming green beans. Tears in my eyes, I saw how a bunny burrowed in and made a nest in my row, depriving me of sweet, purple green beans. My neighbor’s garden is literally right there. Why my garden?
Later in the summer, one of my sweet potato plants started shaking violently. There’s no wind. What the—? I grab a trowel and root around, pulling up a large, half-eaten sweet potato. The voles! The ruthless voles! “Sharing is caring,” they say. No, it’s not.
Sweet Victory
By mid-June, my peas surrender to the heat and die. I pluck them out, work in more worm castings and fertilizer, and plant dry beans. Sorana, Tiger’s Eye, Borlotti, Rosso di Lucca. I love dry beans and their myriad colors. They grow like green beans, but I don’t harvest them until the pods are bone dry and crackle like paper. The dry beans will store beautifully all winter in jars, decorative accessories to anyone’s kitchen. For eating, I soak them in salty water for eight hours and simmer for another hour before adding them to soups or risotto. There are few substitutes for the humble bean.
By early July, I’m harvesting onions, tomatoes, peppers, pole beans and potatoes. I start planting butternut squash and even more dry beans, and I daydream about fall crops: kale, more peas, broccoli, Brussels sprouts…my mind wanders. In the shirt-soaking heat of summer, I’m in my element. Picking tomatoes, talking to my turtle friends, squashing bugs, bemoaning mildew, cursing rabbits.
And eating fresh produce. My veggies and me, sweeter from the work of my own hands. Triumphant, despite the odds. I hang onto these moments in late summer, fleeting as they are, and hold off the inevitable turning of the leaf.
Look for Matt Sabo’s Garden Guy update in the fall/holiday issue of The Local Scoop.
