The sweet, the blighted and the fleeing

Gardening is an ever-learning experience. This year's crop of sweet peas taught me they grow much better if you give them space and sunshine....

...instead of planting them in the midst of a forest of delphiniums, which had given me sad results indeed for the past two years.

I also learned that my garden is not meant to grow strawberries. Here, I'm holding up pretty much the entire crop. Photo by John Denniston.

When we got back from Saltspring last weekend, the sweet peas had taken over one end of the garden bed -- a pastel tangle of sweet-scented pink, white and purple reaching for the sky.  It was a victory of sorts, because I’d feared I’d lost my touch. After two years of trying to coax sweet peas to thrive in the midst of towering delphiniums, this spring, I finally admitted defeat and moved them. Space, sunshine and a bit of fertilizer later, I once again have sweet peas scenting the house.

Gardening is a constant battle with the elements, though, and the strawberries I planted in the food-growing frenzy of our first Covid spring are another story. The first year, I obediently nipped off the flowers to help the plants get established, expecting a big payoff this year. It never came.

 The berries were few and far between, and once they got to a certain stage, as if deciding the whole exercise was pointless, they turned to mush and shrivelled up. The few that escaped the blight and tried to ripen weren’t much better. I’d find near-red berries on the ground, discarded after one bite – even the marauding garden critters didn’t like them. I tried one myself once; it had the vague flavour of strawberry, but it was raw and sour. I discarded it too.

My blighted berries. Not very appetizing.

I don't know what form of blight these berries caught, but the message seems clear that they're not happy in my yard.

Then there are the plants trying to escape my too-shady garden. A Covid-era raspberry cane behind the vegetable patch should be giving us some juicy raspberries about now. Instead, it’s bent itself almost double, fleeing for the sunshine of the back alley. Kale and leafy greens along the lattice-work fence bordering  the alley are doing the same, wistful prisoners poking their heads into the light.

The raspberry plant contorts itself sideways trying to reach through the fence to the alley. It's too busy trying to escape to make berries.

From the alley, you can see the kale poking through the fence.

There seems to be a theme in all of the above: Don’t try to grow food plants in the shade. If there’s only one sunny spot in the garden and sweet peas are the priority, admit it. It really shouldn’t have taken Covid to teach me that.

Another view of this year's sweet peas, with the blue delphiniums in the background.

And, a bouquet for the house at last.