Janet's Blog

It must be hereditary--that compulsion to grow tangled tomatoes.  When we lived on the farm, Mom and Dad grew a regular garden on the north side of the big red barn, with radishes, peas, beans, potatoes, lettuce, and tomatoes, all in nice, neat rows.(Even at the age of three, I was able to push each shriveled pea seed into the moist, brown dirt.) The sweet corn, with extra to sell, was planted on the edge of the adjacent corn field. When we moved to Norfolk, we didn't have any garden at all, and when we moved to Fairbury shortly after my ninth birthday, there was no place for a garden--until Dad bought an old house a block away from the Hotel Mary-Etta, where we lived, and where Mom and Dad both worked. Dad bought that dilapidated house to use for storage, but he was most interested in the sizeable back yard. The first spring he owned the property, he tilled up half of the backyard and planted several rows of sweet corn, and at least a dozen tomato plants. He probably planted a sho...

I've heard that it was a good year for pumpkins. Meagan grew more than 30 nice, orange pumpkins in her garden. My grandkids know that I never have much luck growing pumpkins, so they made my day when they brought me several from their abundance. I plant pumpkins and various squash every year, but I feel blessed if even one of the plants produces anything but leaves. You see, my garden is just too shady to grow much besides tomatoes and green beans. That doesn't stop me from planting pumpkins and squash anyway, because their vines produce some good ground cover even if they don't give me any squash or pumpkins. This year, I was thrilled to pick several zucchinis and yellow summer squash. The acorn squash I planted didn't grow at all, but I ended up with a prolific pumpkin vine that invaded the onions and green beans, climbed the tomato cages, and even scaled the wood fence that separates my garden from the neighbor's yard. Unfortunately, it was all vine and leaves, o...