Peek-a-boo Garden

The game that draws giggles from babies has me puzzling in my garden this year. Things that I planted disappear and things that I didn’t plant pop up. Hey, who’s in charge here?

Let’s review. I sowed seeds indoors back in March, set the timer on the lights once they sprouted, checked them every morning, potted up to four inch pots, hardened them off and then planted them in the garden when the nighttime temperatures warmed up – relatively speaking.

The pak choi was the first to disappear. I am scratching that one off my future planting list since, to tell you the truth, it has disappeared on me every year whether I start it inside or out.

Then four pepper starts went missing, even though the eggplants that received the same care are thriving. I know peppers can be a challenge to grow in our climate, but I’ve had a nice crop of sautéing peppers in the past. I’ll miss having them this summer.

Curiously, the dependable bunching onions did not grow where I planted them, but they are popping up in another location. This might possibly be a case of gardener error.

The big tragedy is the basil. Last year’s crop was great — I still have pesto in the freezer – so I made sure to start plenty of seeds, thinned every morning, kept them “uniformly moist,” and sent them happy thoughts. I planted them a few weeks ago and covered them with reemay. The next week all the plants but one are gone. Poof! Now I’ll have to buy bouquets of basil at the farmers market like other mortals since it is probably too late to get starts.

And now for the next act: the plants that are appearing out of thin air. I have to mention a non-edible here – comfrey. The comfrey appeared a couple of years ago from under the fence. I didn’t identify it until the second season and didn’t try to dig it out completely until last year. Obviously I didn’t get it all. Sometimes I am able to dig out the tiny piece of root that re-rooted, sometimes not. I fear this plant will be reappearing for years.

stubborn comfrey

It was when I was on patrol for comfrey that I noticed the potato plant. Last year I forgot a few fingerling potatoes in storage and they sprouted vigorously. Admiring their zest for life, I planted them in a sunny but unimproved bed. They sprouted foliage, and at one point I poked around the surface and found little potatoes, but reburied them so they could keep growing. Of course I forgot them and much later a hard freeze killed the plant – no sign of potatoes.

This spring I dumped a pile of soil there from a construction project, and all of a sudden there are the potatoes again. I have read that overwintered potato plants can be unproductive and should be removed, but this plant deserves some respect.

I had left a “chard” plant tag in the ground from last summer, where I put in starts in anticipation of pan-wilted chard over the winter. The plants were gone with the freezing days in December and I left the tag there to mark my disappointment. I plan to save the seed from the one plant that has reappeared, because it has the genetic material of a survivor.

I could go on. I have a type of kale growing that I never planted. A type of kale that I sowed in the backyard, which did not germinate, is now growing among ornamentals in the front yard. Then there’s the garlic chives that froze to mush in the winter only to pop up in June! There always seems to be room for surprises in my garden beds.

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