Report From PIA – September 9
The world would be a different place if everyone gardened. To plant a garden is to become skilled at leaps of faith, adaptability and good humor in the face of disaster.
This year the weather in the Northeast was cool and rainy, well into August. All of June and July we had the perfect conditions for growing, if your crop of choice was leaf-spot fungi. Roses, perennials, chard, and tomatoes all have one sort of fungus or another. The marigolds in my cutting garden – marigolds, yes those old reliable plants you can’t kill! – have spotted leaves and black, shriveled stems: Tagetes completelypathetica.
All is not covered with pox. That small Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’ that I got from Digging Dog Nursery last year really did grow to be lovely, tall plants that catch both the wind and butterflies. I smile every time I look their way.
We work with what we’ve got. In and out of the the garden, it’s important to me is to keep trying to take things to the next level. I want to master that paradox of being content with things just as they are, yet striving for and working towards something more. So I’m dipping back into making some video, and continuing to work on Gardening, Totally and being the best speaker I can be. And I’m eating the chard, fungus and all…hoping desperately that leaf-spot cures wrinkles.
Tagetes completelypathetica - I planted these for cutting flowers, and I'll be cutting them soon... right to the ground.
The chard is still lovely from a distance, and when you cook it the fungal spots don't show at all!
But the 'Lemon Queen' is indeed royalty. The 'Center Glow' ninebark foliage contrasts nicely with the yellow flowers.
