All good things must come to an end, and that includes my steroidal squash plant.
Some may remember that my boyfriend, sick of the never-ending supply of crookneck, “pruned” the squash back to within an inch of its life. It hasn’t recovered, and although I feel a little bad saying it, it’s just fine by me. We still have a rather large bag of zucchini and crookneck we need to get through.
Other plants in the garden are calling it quits, too. The three bush bean plants took moderation to heart, produced just enough to make a lovely sauté, and then kindly gave up. I don’t think they would have raged out of control like the squash anyway, but I appreciate that they didn’t overstay their welcome.
The Swiss chard that sprang up from some seeds we planted two years ago wilted in the heat we had recently and hasn’t been able to recover. And while I like Swiss chard, I don’t consider this a huge tragedy. We were able to get some leaves for salads.
Now other plants are making their mark. We’ve harvested a few Anaheim and bell peppers to add to tacos or scrambled eggs; the honeydew is sprawling despite my dog’s efforts to trample it; and two pumpkin-like plants are unfurling their way across the garden path. I really hope they are pumpkins, but they could be any kind of gourd. Despite my best efforts to keep track of what we’ve planted, I really have no idea anymore what some of the plants are.
And then there are the tomatoes. The scrawny plants that teetered on the verge of death when I first stuck them in the ground are in no way waning. In fact, they’re just getting started. They’ve grown so big that they overpowered their cages, bending the flimsy metal supports to their growth whims. I have to admit, I’m actually kind of frightened by our tomatoes. They seem to have a lot of power, for a plant.
I’ve given up trying to get them to grow upright – next year I may try a tomato ladder as Keith Muraoka suggests in his column this week. I figure, eventually, if they don’t commandeer all available space in the garden, they’ll go the way of the squash plant. In the meantime, I’ll take what fruit they give and just try to stay out of their way.
