Things I have learned about gardening this summer!

     Growing up, I had the "opportunity" to spend a lot of time helping my parents with the garden. For those of you a little less enlightened on what gardening in Alaska entails, allow me to dispel your ignorance. This was what I learned about gardening growing up.

1. Till the garden whilst the soil is still slightly frozen.

2. Plant the potatoes, carrots and other vegetables in the still extremely cold soil.

3. Water, hoe and pick weeds for hours almost daily all summer long.

4. Harvest the crop after the first frost. This entails pulling up each slimy potato plant and grubbing in the cold dirt for each and every potatoe.

5. Store the harvest in burlap bags and canning jars.

6. Repeat on a yearly basis.

I thought I knew about gardening because of my educational childhood. How wrong I was. Following is a list of what I have learned about gardening this summer.

1. Tomatoes require lots of room, much greater than one square foot per plant than we allotted. The plants have escaped the garden box and become creepers, extending over an area almost as big as we gave them in the garden box.

2. They also require cages to support them, not stakes. Our current tomato plants look like a massive tangle of vines. I have been through the jungles of Ghana, the underbrush of the Alaskan bush, the forests of Missouri and Arkansas and I have never seen such a dense growth of plants.

3. Fresh garden dirt is an invitation for burrowing animals.  We seem to have a critter who has made our garden box his home. I counted 8 tunnel openings the other day.

4. Burrowing animals like zucchini! Our first zucchini was found half eaten, resting nibbled side down at the edge of a tunnel opening.

5. This burrower also likes zucchini blossoms, the tender ends of zucchini plants, and pepper plants.

6. He doesn't seem to like tomatoes, tomato plants, cucumbers or their plants, or radishes.

7. There must be a trick to growing straight cucumbers. The two we have harvested make politicians look like straight arrows.

8. Not all tomatoes are tomato shaped. We apparently got an heirloom tomato plant which is producing ridged tomatoes, which a quick google search informs me are termed oblate. How bizarre!

That is all I've learned so far. As the summer is far from over, I am sure I will learn many more things. Any one else have gardening insights they would care to share?