By Lyle Hillyard
Utah Senate Gardener (and Chair of Exec Approps)

Update – August 29, 2010: Garden Woes

This year has been tough with the garden because of some mischief caused by Mother Nature. We had a late wet spring that caused storms on the days I and my brother-in-law were able to work on the garden so we ended up planting much later than normal. I expect and generally receive a frost the second week in September that ends the garden except for the few things we can cover or are underground such as potatoes.

This year we have four patches of corn. We have just finished up the first patch and will begin picking the second this week which my wife cuts off the cob and then freezes in pint bags. This is unbelievably delicious when warmed in the microwave during the winter. The other two patches are still a week or so off and that is too close to the fall freeze. You can’t cover corn like I do raspberries and tomatoes because usually the freeze only lasts one or two nights and then you are safe until the beginning of November.

Our pole beans also were late and we have not picked a bean although the blossoms have come out recently in great abundance. They are easier to snip and freeze for the same pleasure during the winter but unless they hurry up, the frost will get them. My wife tells me not to worry about the frost because maybe it won’t come this year. I should be so lucky. I don’t just plant things because we have been advised to but I also expect to harvest.

I was weeding the raspberries the other day and could not believe all the honey bees working the patch. These raspberries begin to come on about Labor Day and can be easily covered.

I should mention that our broccoli and tomatoes have really been good this year. The apples appear not as bounteous but there will be plenty of good ones to eat. We planted two honey crisp apple trees three years ago and they will produce about a dozen apples this fall for our first crop. After my brother-in-law convinced me to plant them, I bought one of the apples in the store and it was very good. Maybe things are not as bad as I fear.

I just wonder how my parents did it when they knew that basically what they grew in the garden would have to feed them and all us kids during the winter. I am sure Mother Nature could be as challenging and they had kids like me who hated to work in the garden. If my dad were alive today and could see the garden work I do and the produce we create, he would smile at the irony.

August 9, 2010

This year, the garden has been quite slow with the late coolness and rain that we had as the summer began. I did not dig any new potatoes until mid-July and we usually have the early crop all dug by then. The corn has suddenly begun to ripen as well as the tomatoes. The raspberries also appear loaded and, while they don’t usually come on until just before Labor Day, I have already picked some.

The rest of the garden is way late. The weeds are doing well in any regard. I have always told my children as we work together in the garden that a weed is any plant that is growing where it is not supposed to be growing. I hope to bring some new potatoes to the Senate staff this week with meetings at the Capitol so they should not feel like I have forgotten them.

I did miss a week of work when weeding was very necessary because my family made me do something that I had never heard of. It is called a family vacation. We went to Oregon. I quite enjoyed it. I might make it an annual event if I can just remember what it is called.

May 16th, 2010

With the cold and wet weather, I am having a hard time to get anything from seeds to grow. My apple trees are just now blooming and if we can avoid a frost for the next week, they should be OK. I have been told by a reliable source that corn will not begin to grow in Cache Valley until it reaches at least 70 degrees which hopefully will occur this week. When our first frost comes the second week in September that does not give us a very long growing season. I think I will plant my tomatoes in St. George and bring them here in about a month. Why aren’t the weeds bothered by the cool weather?

Photo credit: The old bucket I brought in for senate staff.