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Published on Friday, July 14,
2023
By
Victoria Torley We have
a whimsical book at our home called
“The New Official Rules” subtitled,
“Maxims for muddling through to the
twenty-first century.” The “Rules”
are akin to Murphy’s Law which goes
something like this: ‘Anything that
can go wrong will go wrong.’ Well, I
found the perfect ‘rule’ for
gardeners, and here it is: Surprenant’s
Law of Gardening. The easiest
vegetables to raise in a garden are
those you like least (and vice
versa). Hate
broccoli and okra? Both will grow in
abundance. Love tomatoes and peas?
The plants will never produce
anything edible. So I
thought, “What are some of the other
gardening ‘rules?’” and decided to
share them with you. Feel free to
add a couple of your own (and send
them to me – we’ll make a list). 1. The
cuttings (or seeds) your neighbor
shared with a dozen friends will
grow for everyone but you. This
has happened to me more times than I
care to remember. It’s sort of a
corollary to ‘the grass is always
greener . . .’ 2. As
soon as you ‘water in’ new plants,
they will be drowned by three days
of rain. So very
true in Costa Rica. You can never be
“absolutely certain” that rain isn’t
on the way. When you “are absolutely
certain” of a dry spell, it will
rain anyway out of pure cussedness. 3. The
minute you decide to get away for a
few days, something will be ready to
harvest. Is your
favorite B&B having a mid-week
price reduction? Has the Ox Cart
Festival date changed? Did you
forget a promise to take your spouse
to the Guanacaste Day celebrations?
When you get back, you will find
that the melons have split open and
rotted on the vine.
4. Just as the corn gets knee-high, your neighbor’s cows will get through the fence.
Oh, that lovely corn. It was short-day sweet corn, a non-GMO from Hilo University in Hawaii and all gone in a single evening. Cows are sneaky devils.
5. If you have plants that come and go seasonally, you will forget where you planted them.
I used to do this all the time, especially with small bulbs like those of the rain lily. Getting smarter in my old age, though, now I mark them so I remember where they are.
Well,
those are some of my ‘rules’ for the
garden. Let me know if you have
others.
Plant for the week. This is my Globba winitii, or dancing ladies ginger, in flower again after recently emerging from slumber. My plant buddy, Dave, at DavesGarden.com has a nice post about it, but only for U.S. residents.
He mentions it is an evergreen, but in my garden dancing ladies disappear during the dry season (I have it well-marked as a ‘no-dig’ zone) and reappears in late May or early June.
It is in full bloom now and gets larger every year. Plant in full sun during the rainy season and mark it so you don’t forget it’s there. The plant is easy to care for and easy to share – just dig up a couple of nice roots.
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