The joy of an unexpected harvest

June 21st, 2008 -- Posted in The Rental, garden, pests | 6 Comments »

A few months ago Nick and I (well, mostly Nick…) put up a cage (yes, as my regular readers have now guessed - to keep our nemesis possum out) around an old garden bed along the fence next to our driveway. We planted a number of seedlings in the soil, but didn’t have the resources to enrich it very well, so we were sceptical as to how well the plants would do.

Well, a few of them died, but our beans did really well, as did the mung bean plants I’ve mentioned earlier, so we got some harvest from it. Since that harvest, I’ve kinda ignored that garden and focussed on my pots.

However, this morning I was out there, admiring the parsley that has not only survived, but thrived…

…and I actually had a good look at the bean plants I thought were finished with. I was wrong!! Down low, the plants had come back to life, and I managed to gather myself a most lovely and unexpected harvest:

I was so excited by this wonderful surprise. I guess it just goes to show how resourceful plants are. We can learn all about the proper soil composition and nutrients for each type of plant, all about companion planting and crop rotation… but sometimes it’s humbling to be shown such an example of the resilience of plants. They’ve been doing what they do for thousands of years before we started cultivating them, it I guess it’s a good lesson: that we don’t grow plants - they grow themselves. The most we can do is just help them along.

Has anyone else out there had the pleasure of an unexpected harvest? I’m sure I’m not the only one…