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Our friend Linda at TeacherDance is hosting the roundup of poetry this weekend. Join us!
My three years of attempting to grow vegetables in the high Sierras have made me think more about:
→ overnight temperatures and the reality that both plants and people struggle to survive without additional heat.
→ the impact of nitrogen run-off into our crystal blue Lake Tahoe.
→ how grateful I am for the farmers who do grow my food.
You’ve likely seen the social media memes of the $400 tomato and lofty plans to live off the grid placed on hold. Yep, that would be me.Â
With our weather beginning to lean toward autumn, I turned off the irrigation. The plants – or what is left of them, will be pulled out next week. I’ll turn the soil, add some compost, and prep the beds for winter.
I honestly just wanted to grow my own summer salads. Perhaps it is unrealistic with a 10-week growing season? I do have four buckets of potatoes that I look forward to harvesting. Those are the one thing that has grown successfully here. But why should I be surprised? If they can grow on Mars, they must be okay in the mountains, right?
Waiting On Potatoes
I’m rather disappointed.
But that’s the risk with hope:
imagining a banner year,
tomatoes, greens…but, Nope.
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Bushels of them from the vines,
plump and round and red,
remained a dream. Three months in:
a harvest thin, instead.
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Was it the soil? Fertilizer?
Too stingy with the water?
When will I give up the dream…
I’m not a farmer’s daughter.
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All I wanted was a salad,
beans, maybe zucchini.
All I got were 4 tomatoes
and those were awfully teeny.
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I get it that the mountains
are a difficult location.
It’s hardly a garden spot,
this vacation destination.
Â
Conifers crowd the space,
make sunshine hard to reach.
Growing vegetables in shade
is not what master gardeners teach.
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As summer ends, the kale is pale.
Romaine is looking skimpy.
One acorn squash bud hasn’t grown.
Even jays judge it wimpy.
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The peas have grayed, the beans have frayed.
I give up on the tomatoes.
Four buckets wait against the gate.
A last hope: my potatoes.
©draft, Patricia J. Franz
Patricia Franz writes picture books and poetry. She believes children, dogs, and sourdough have a lot to teach us about life, joy, and wonder. She has raised two boys, four dogs, and holds a master’s degree in Theology with a focus on children’s spirituality. Patricia, her husband, her Bernese Mountain dog, Bonny, and her sourdough starter split their time between the Arizona desert and the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
Love all the end and internal rhyme in this, Patricia. And I also like how you started and ended with hope. Enjoy your potatoes!
Patricia, those potatoes look perfect! I have never tried to grow potatoes, but now I want to. Most plants do not fare well under my care. Maybe potatoes stand a chance… I love your poem! You chose some unique and challenging words to rhyme: water-daughter, zucchini-teeny, skimpy-wimpy. Love it!
Sorry to hear about your disappointment with the veggies — but you wrote a relatable, amusing poem from the experience. Your potatoes do look wonderful. We miss homegrown veggies too — when you live in the woods, there simply isn’t enough sunlight. I still miss tomato and cucumber sandwiches every summer.
Oh, no, the mountain ‘highs’ don’t work with gardening, do they? I love what could be the saddest remorse, but you’ve turned it into fun, Patricia! Oh, poor “skimpy and wimpy” veggies! Maybe writing about them will give them a boost! On another topic, it’s nice to hear about your daughter’s move to Colorado Springs. Maybe we’ll get to meet someday? Have some yummy potato soup this weekend, a favorite of mine!
So enjoyed this wonderful reminder of my former vegetable garden grown with determination each year in clay soil….Hope lives!
I’m sorry about your disappointing harvest–but it did lead you to a smile-inducing poem! I gave up the vegetable garden about 10 years ago as our trees boomed and cast too much shade. But I do get a good tomato harvest from the plants I grow in bags on our deck, and lots of herbs in a window box.
Potatoes, at least, rarely disappoint. 🙂 Loved this, Patricia! I wish I could attach a picture of the brussels sprouts we tried to grow a couple years ago. They were very cute because they were VERY tiny. 😀
Patricia, my husband decided years ago to have grow tomatoes. He even asked our gardener to make him a wooden frame for his farming endeavor. He tried year after year to grow some beauties but his thumb was not green enough. Your poem is wonderful. I love the humor and the rhyming that flowed from stanza to stanza. Hope is always a wish away.
What a fun poem! I love “the peas have grayed, the beans have frayed.” We’ve only been successful at growing potatoes ONCE. Every time we’ve tried them at our current house, critters dig them up.
I agree that the internal rhymes are fantastic! I’m well familiar with the desire to plant enough for salads and then finding the harvest less than satisfying. I gave up last summer and planted flowers. And, I agree that those farmers are so important! I love those farmers that show up at my farmer’s market and grow for local eaters–me! A wonderful poem on the last day of this summer.
I’ve had two summers without tomatoes now and I miss them so much. Maybe I’ll try to grow some next year. I fear we don’t get enough sun, but I won’t know until I try. Enjoy your potatoes! And you don’t have to can them. I remember being sent to the shed until winter to get potatoes for our evening meal.
What a valiant attempt you made! I appreciate so much of this, and will send you a poem apropos along with a heartfelt thank you note, Aunt Pat. 😊
Aw. Planting things has broken my heart too many times! I just do a few deck railing boxes each summer now, and I’m much happier without hope :>D Yay on potatoes, though! Better than nothing. And, I think your first stanza is perfection.