Continental climate is so shifty, unpredictable.  In Marseille, France, where I grew up, the weather cycles in foreseeable cycles.  In California where I first farmed, the only thing which could shift was the ground...  So when I settled in the Ozarks I was shocked by the randomness of the climate.  50 or 80 degrees in May? take a guess.  This kind of weather Russian roulette did not help my early gardens when early heat waves would decimate my peas or cabbages.

So we are at that critical time-juncture when we dance between Spring and Summer and we need to decide about our summer plantings.  This year it has been cool and wet giving us a more substantial Spring time: good for greens and peas.  On the other hand, early plantings of cucumbers or melons might have looked out of place (mine have) with plants not growing and yellowing.  My understanding of this sad happening is a soil temperature too low to allow for the plant uptake of nutrients, in particular nitrogen.  So, we have to learn patience and wait for the weather to stabilize above 70 degrees for one straight week before setting out our most heat-loving plants.  Using black plastic ground covers can help as well.

There are nonetheless summer plants which can ride cool weather better than others: tomatoes and beans for instance.  Beans actually are a great candidate for "succession" planting.   Try seeding  beans in waves  every 2 weeks from early May till mid-August and you might be blessed with a constant supply of fresh green beans from June to October.  Another cross-over strategy is to pick cool weather plants which can ride into the heat of an early Summer: variety-specific lettuces and broccolis for instance.  In sum, have a flexible garden, one which will bend but not break.

So  your timing is right and your soil is perfectly ready for your plants.  Your garden is a boxer entering the ring at the apex of its physical might, a race horse in its starting gate.  Plant there and then and something important happens: it grows... I mean IT GROWS !!!   Magically, breathlessly, like in a Disney movie. 

Many people have asked me how I coped with the unyielding insects: cucumber beetles, squash bugs and the like.  My stock answer is "try to grow your plants fast".  This is how it plays at the insect level: "Hey Bugsy! what was that on the left?  I dunno! it went too fast.. I guess I'll munch on that dead wood over there."

A garden where plants grow packed tightly in all directions at an amazing pace is a wizard's garden, in effect a replication of nature.  In such garden, all variables participate to form a perfect harmony: water is found as needed, nutrients are plentiful, insect pollinate and do not interfere, disease do not exist and the gardener becomes a removed and ecstatic observer.  In such perfect garden, your work is limited to setting things in motion.  No sweating , no back pain, just the sound of rain.

I  have had only glimpses of such miracle, sometimes in my own garden.  I long to visit other gardens to witness examples of this gift.  The best gardeners produce that effect more often than others; one of them was Fukuoka, a celebrated Japanese gardener (author of "One Straw Revolution").

But right now, my young garden is filled with growth pains. I can't read my green onion beds.  I exhort my peas to grow, I beg them...  And then I notice the fescue in the background, effortlessly lush and tall and I know there is my ultimate teacher, a blade of grass.

last modified on: Monday November 10, 2008 06:41 AM -0600