I haven’t talked much about the fall/winter garden much this year and that is because it hasn’t been doing very well, for several reasons. One, there hasn’t been much rain or cloud cover so it’s been dry and very, very cold; the plants don’t like that. Two, having cleared out the problem slugs the garden has been hit by some sort of caterpillar, or so the wife tells me. One that I can’t seem to find no matter when I go out there to check on things. Three, Jake got into it. The picture up top is what is left of all our just beginning to grow cauliflowers… Needless to say Jake has been in the doghouse.
The kale and chard that we transplanted in when they were about an inch tall never made it. I don’t know if it was the cold or the pests that did them in… All I know is that they’re gone now. The broccoli just seems to be waiting around for something to happen. It has been attacked by the caterpillars too but seem to be doing okay despite that but I don’t see any hint at flowering going on. At least the bok choy and arugula are still there and seem to be doing fine. We’ve harvested and eaten two heads of bok choy which leaves us with four more and the arugula is getting to the point where we can start picking it for garnishes and small dishes. I’m hopeful that we’ll soon have enough of the green for some salads. But, with the ones this growing has gone so far I’m not holding out hope… This has been the most disappointing planting since we started over a year ago.
UPDATE: Since writing this post on Sunday (12/11/11) Jake has also eaten the cabbages at the far end of the garden and begun working on the Bok Choy. I don’t know why he is eating the Bok Choy seeing as whenever we’ve tried hand feeding it to him he spits it out… Needless to say he is even further into the Dog house now.
Dogs are fun, except when they arbitrarily do things that ruin your day. My dog woke me up last week at like 4:30 AM and started vomiting. He got out of bed, but didn’t stop vomiting. That was a sad morning for him, he just spent his non-vomiting time cowering by the door with a look that said “I AM SO SORRY I DID NOT MEAN TO BE A BAD DOG.”