Susanna J. Sturgis: Writer • Editor • Martha's Vineyard

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How Does My Garden Grow?

August 12, 2010

Between early summer's computer troubles (fixed!) and midsummer's deadline crunches (met! all met!), I haven't written anything about my garden.

My garden has been growing. I have made three small batches of pesto with my very own basil and parsley, and today I ate my first four cherry tomatoes. This is how the cherries looked a couple of days ago:

They're called "Black Cherry" tomatoes. They don't turn bright red. I wasn't sure what ripe looked like, but this morning one looked promising so I picked and ate it. Perfect. I ate three more with my supper. Mind you, I'm not one of those people who goes gaga for tomatoes, but these are very impressive.

A month or so ago I bought four five-foot stakes at SBS, thinking my plants would never grow that high. Wrong. I've got a tomato jungle down there. They've overtopped those stakes, and I swiped several shorter ones from my neighbor to support the subsidiary vines. I've made liberal use of twine to secure the vines to the stakes; otherwise they were blocking light from the basil and the parsley.

Sarah next door gave me three marigold plants after the bugs started feasting on my juvenile basil plants. Marigolds, my gardener friends assure me, help deter insects. This seems to be true. The bugs have continued to enjoy my basil, but they've left plenty for me. The first marigold flower bloomed in the last week. Here it is.

About 10 days ago one of the three marigolds started looking spindly, as if something had eaten all its leaves to stubble. Whatever it was hadn't eaten anything else, which is why I think the malaise was internal. When I finally pulled the plant out, its roots seemed rather shallow. This marigold seems to be doing fine. Check out the fledgling tomatoes on the left.

My first three basil plants are still yielding leaves, and the ones I started from seed -- another variety, it seems, for their leaves aren't glossy like the original ones -- are thriving, especially the ones in containers on my deck. Pesto is one of the gastronomic wonders of the world. Spied on the supermarket shelf it seems an impossible luxury -- you want me to spend that much for that little? But I've been making my own, with basil, parsley, olive oil, melted butter, garlic, chopped walnuts, and grated parmesan. This summer, when it's often been too hot and humid to even think of turning the oven on, I've enjoyed quite a few pesto-and-pasta repasts. Travvy loves licking the remnants from the pot.

Also up on the deck are my two violets, a houseplant whose name I've forgotten (dracaena?), sage, phlox, and this sturdy coleus, with chives in the background:

I love the way it catches the light.

My garden, in other words, is growing very nicely, and I'm very pleased with it.

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