I have also found that I lose at vegetable gardening. I think I killed my zucchini. Yes, the garden veggie that produces by the power of thought alone. Mine are on life support.
Now, I'd never grown much of anything before, so I didn't know that zucchini plants grow giant leaves that take over everything. I don't have a lot of space in my square foot garden, so when the zucchini leaves attacked, I put a tomato cage over the plant, and the leaves have more or less grown upward. I've been getting lots of leaves and flowers, but no fruit.
In my infinite wisdom, I decided that this must be because the raspberries were flopping over the zucchini and shading it too much. So I took a bungee cord and strapped the raspberries back against the fence, opening up the space around the garden. "Great!" I thought. "I'll just take the cage out, and the plant can flop all it wants!"
I was very pleased with myself. Then I pulled on the cage, and (duh) the entire plant came with it. I panicked a bit, stuck the whole cage back in the ground, mounded dirt over the poor exposed roots, and gave it plenty of water and Miracle-Gro. If the plants live, I might try pollinating the flowers myself. If not, I'm sure someone will provide me with zucchini this summer.
At least I'll have some basil and knowledge for next year out of the garden. The way things are looking now, that may be it.
Aside from killing vegetables, our weekends have been pretty busy. We went to the Schwarzkopf family reunion in Breda, Iowa toward the beginning of the month. The next weekend was the Minnesota Scottish Fair - nothing like haggis in 100 degree temps, aye? We also went to the Jensens' cabin near Hayward, WI, for a weekend. And look, there we are, feeding blueberries to fish! Thanks to Doug & Kathy Freeman for the pictures.
