The hustle and bustle of Christmas is now behind us- shopping for those gifts you knew would be perfect for the recipients even if that ended up being a gift card, baking and/or consuming those special holiday treats, spending time with family (my favorite), shopping those after Christmas sales, or whatever your traditions may be. All those activities left fewer hours to spend at the Garden- fewer but it was not totally neglected.
Harvesting for the pantry had completely ended. Now our attention turned to other activities such as continuing to remove pepper plants, cleaning up the hummingbird garden, shredding leaves, sifting compost (horse and rabbit), adding compost and manure to garden beds, planting cereal rye (elbon), organizing one of our sheds, painting, repairing the irrigation, weeding, etc. The time at the garden was not spent lounging around. Maybe we visited a bit longer than normal with fellow volunteers, but no lounging could be found anywhere.
Looking back over a few highlights this year, we remember the construction of 11 brand new, heavily reinforced garden beds plus a much needed awning over our weigh station (I’m not sure we would have survived the blistering sun this summer without that blessing.), harvesting hundreds of pounds of onions in the spring, the cold snap that robbed us of our plum crop this year, those fabulous Armenian cucumbers that rewarded us with countless bitterless cucumbers during the summer no matter what Mother Nature threw their way- (Our summer hero), the peppers that, although they slowed in the heat of the summer, came back strong when temperatures cooled a bit, even surviving some awfully cold nights, and the ups and downs of our efforts to control what is currently our biggest challenge -root knot nematode. And then who could forget this summer with its record breaking heat, day after day after day of 100° plus temperatures?
When it was all said and done and with the obstacles we faced, we can’t help but be thankful for what was accomplished. Another year is in the books, and we were just a few pounds short of harvesting 7500 pounds of fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. Now we move forward, ready to experiment with some different varieties of produce, ( I can’t wait to try growing a new type of cucumber that is supposedly not only longer and sweeter than the Armenian cucumbers we fell in love with this last year but is heat tolerant as well.) hoping for cooler summer temperatures, fewer bugs, and dreaming of what we will accomplish in 2024. So, before Christmas, some people were dreaming of a white Christmas. After Christmas, here at the Garden, our dreaming has only just begun.