Mary-Mary Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow

When we lived in California many years ago, we had a mature orange tree that produced year round with no care.  We also planted a peach tree but only got one or two peaches off it after 3 years of babying it.  I did a lot of canning/freezing but the veggies and fruit were always given to us by others. We moved before the fourth year and don't know if the tree produced. I hope if it did that the buyers of our property enjoyed the fruits of our labor!

After 20+ years we decided to give gardening a try. Last year (2010) we planted zucchini in our back yard (the little yellow blossom you see peeking out from under the leaves on the right side is the start of a zucchini) but it never produced. We were disappointed but not defeated.  This year in April (2011) we got out our gardening materials and planted zucchini, yellow crock-neck squash, and another variation of zucchini.  We waited and we waited, then we watered and watered some more.  We gave them lots of  TLC but it took a long time (in our opinions) to get them moving.  Then last week we gave the plants a good talking to and said 'produce or else'!  We had tons of yellow flowers that looked very pretty but they were not producing what we wanted - food! 

A couple days after our talk with the squash we walked out to our yard and, voila, there it was! YEAH, our first zucchini!  It's grown a little since I took this picture but other zucchinis or squash have yet to pop out. We have hopes...we waited a long time for this one and we're excited about it.  Tenacity is the answer!  Hopefully we'll get a few more this summer.

We've recently planted spaghetti squash and our pumpkin seeds are ready to plant in July. And next year we're adding tomatoes to our list.

Mary Post Warren

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