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Nose for News by Sarah Stultz

By this time most years, I’ve finished with the canning of my green beans, I have at least 30 loaves of zucchini bread in the deep freezer and I’m inundated with tomatoes. I’ve typically frozen a couple bags of diced green peppers, enjoyed some jalapeño poppers and made a batch or two of cheesy broccoli soup.

But this year in the garden has been like no other.

In all of my years as a gardener, I haven’t quite encountered as many challenges as I have this year.

Early on, it was the deer, and then came the rain, and more rain and even more rain.

The fruit production of my plants has seemed stunted all season, and while my neighbors’ tomato plants seem to be doing well, my plants didn’t quite shoot up with the same fervor. While my neighbors are seeing loads and loads of red tomatoes, most of the tomatoes on my plants are still green (and we even planted around the same time).

Once we got out of the wet spell, then the weeds exploded in growth, and the squash bugs surfaced to my zucchini and pumpkin plants. One by one they started dropping like flies.

After starting with four zucchini plants and two pumpkin plants, all the plants died, and I ended up with just two zucchini for the season.

Not to mention this year we had some other rodent of some form building large mounds across the edge of the garden (we think it might have been a gopher). Those critters uprooted a few of my pepper plants in the creation of their mounds, and some other kind of critters chewed up my cabbage plants.

I find it ironic that the year I spent the most on gardening supplies, pest control and other resources to have a successful garden, I ended up with the worst garden in my history.

All I can do is laugh at the outcome.

As the gardening season winds down over the next month and a half, I’m already trying to plan what I can do differently next year.

I’m considering trying out a plot at a different location that may not have the same bug problem that my current plot seems to be plagued with. I’m thinking of planting all of my squash-related plants in that plot and the rest of my plants in the other plot at the current community garden.

I’ve also daydreamed about having raised flower beds as my backyard is too full of clay to have a garden there in its current state.

To handle the weeds, I’ve thought about putting down the black landscape fabric or grass clippings to hinder the growth of those relentless weeds.

There’s always something to learn as a gardener, and while sometimes it is frustrating to be faced with a challenge, it is rewarding when you can overcome those challenges and find success.

Though that didn’t happen this year, I’m hopeful for a new year.

And if you have any zucchini you’d like to get rid of, feel free to ding-dong ditch at my house any time.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Wednesday.