It’s been quite the growing season this year in my neck of the woods. We started with an unseasonably wet and cold spring that eventually moved into a hot and dry summer. 

 

 

But all in all, it’s been a pretty good growing season up on my roof. Every morning when I start my day by greeting my garden, I’ve come back in with an empty coffee cup and a basketful of fresh produce. 

I’ve been watering my garden nearly every day to ensure I get a good harvest. (The downside to using grow bags.) When your entire garden is grown in containers, one good hot day can easily wipe out a plant. There have been plenty of days when I’ve had to water both in the morning and the afternoon. 

My tomatoes, which I’ve taken to calling my special snowflake plants, can go from looking amazing in the morning to knocking on death’s door by late afternoon. But as long as I kept up with watering them, my cherry tomatoes were producing consistently. 

We won’t talk about the heirloom pineapple tomato plant that has all of two tomatoes on it. (They’re still green.)

I’ve been complaining about the heat, along with everyone else. We’ve all been talking about how we need rain; how things are looking parched. Boy, my garden could really use a good soaking, don’t you know? If we could just get a good soaking rain, everyone’s garden would be so much better off. And so on, and so forth.
 

 

And with Fred came the rain. And it did not stop. We had tornado warnings and flash flood warnings, and the rain kept coming. 

Suddenly my garden went from a parched and thirsty “Water…water…” to a firm but exasperated, “Please, stop. No, really, you can stop now.” 

In a matter of 48 hours, I went from cursing my tomato plants that needed to be watered twice a day to a basketful of split tomatoes—too much water, too fast. 
 

 

This is what it means to be a gardener. We show up full of hope and good intentions annually and do our best to exert our will over the land. Then Mother Nature comes along and reminds us (rather quickly) who’s running the show here. 

 

 

No, we keep coming back, year after year, ready to try again. This year I’m going to start my seedlings earlier. This year I’m going to plant my tomatoes in 5-gallon buckets. This year will be different. 
 

 

Every year comes with new challenges. Does this make us gluttons for punishment? Fools? Maybe even a little crazy?

 

 

After the rain has passed, here’s hoping the rest of your growing season is plentiful, dear readers. 

In the spirit of hope, we’ve got some great articles about what to do with all of that produce you’ve got growing.