Every year at this time I get out the seed catalogs and order seeds and plants for the vegetable garden, or, as we called it when I was a kid, the truckpatch. The pictures in the catalogs always look so good–big pumpkins, green cukes, ripe tomatoes, long red chilis and wrinkly Scotch bonnets.
And then I plant them, and it doesn’t rain and insects come and deer arrive and powdery mildew hits the cukes and a groundhog eats the tops off the red beets, and a rabbit eats the lettuce and a flock of Canadian geese land and pull out the seedlings. The weeds grow faster than the plants, and the whole garden looks nothing at all like the catalogs.
Every fall I decide not to do this again. And yet, here I am, ordering seeds.
My older brother grows vegetables and has pretty phenomenal success. He does his in the little front yard of his rowhome in the Philly suburbs. He doesn't complain about bugs, but I've always been surprised his neighbors don''t pilfer his peppers!
ReplyDeleteMost Pennsylvanians tend not to like peppers. Even I don't grow Carolina Reapers. Scotch bonnets are hot enough.
ReplyDeleteKyle loves your peppers.
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