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It was about six months ago (the first of April 2000) that I planted my first lettuce and brocoli and how fast that time has passed. It will now be another six months (April 2001) before we will probably be planting again. What a long six months that usually ends up being.
On the whole it has been a good gardening year. For me I have had better years but I cannot complain. Had a terrific lettuce and brocoli season, Both produce coming on early and lasting latter than normal. In fact I harvested both lettuce and brocoli in the latter part of May. Green beans and squash did not far as well at first, the cold and dry weather the latter part of May did not lend to their getting a very good start. Then when they did get going, a mother deer with her little fawn, found that the bean plants were to their liking.
I put in about thirty tomato plants and every one grew to maturity, however, as they were in full production blight hit and curtailed the crop somewhat. We did have tomatoes to eat shortly after the fourth of July and were able to can quite a bit even though toward the end of August the blight hit and now with the freeze the season is over.
The early potatoes did good but the late pototoes also were victims of blight but it was late enough in the season so that we got a fairly decent crop. Anyway it was much better than the Irish pototo famine back in 1845-1850.
I went to several WEB pages regarding the Irish Potato Famine but found the following one quite informative and also quite revealing as to what many of us have been lead to believe about the Irish Potato Famine. Read the article by clicking on:
http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~jdana/history/famine.html
then click on (The Great Starvation (from the Irish People) the
other articles on that page are also interesting.
You know when I started out writing this page, I had no intent of researching the "IRISH POTATOE FAMINE" and if it had not been for the blight that hit my pototoes this year and my mentioning in in the article I would probably not have known that there was much more to the history of the "Potato Famine" than we had learned about it in our history course in high school.
In closing I must say I had a terrific squash crop after replanting that which did not grow from the first planting. Yesterday evening my daughter Sue and I put over 50 nice butternut and two hubbard squash in our downstairs storage.
HOW DID MY GARDEN GROW? I have had better years, but this year was adequate and it is always rewarding to be able to have fresh produce from one's own garden. IT WAS A GOOD YEAR.