Summer of Greens

My adventures in porch gardening

Some years I’m convinced I have a green thumb, and other years I’m convinced I don’t. This year I felt somewhere in the middle, since I killed a few plants but also nurtured some that are still going strong today.

Now the fall frost is likely just days away (I know because I’m wearing wool for the first time since March), I’m about to lose the crops I cultivated on my porch all summer long. So goes the circle of life.

In honor of my semi-successful gardening season, I wanted to share my wins and losses — plus some pretty pictures of my plants!

Let’s start with the losses, because I’d rather start on a low note and end on a high one.

Here we have:

Tomatoes. I was too lazy to go out and buy new tomato seeds in the spring so I tried to germinate some from a bag that had had been sitting in my closet since we moved in 2021. Plants are resilient, I thought. All these years of evolution would surely give these seeds the willpower to survive a few years dehydrated. But alas, I was wrong. The seeds never sprouted, so I just decided I wasn’t gonna grow tomatoes this year.

Basil. My neighbors were so kind to gift me a basil plant after they grew too much on their porch! But silly me, I put it out when it was still too cold outside and the leaves browned very quickly. After that, nothing seemed to save it. I tried giving it more water, less sun, more sun, and transferring it to another pot. But the finnicky plant didn’t make it, and it kinda made me reconsider if I even knew how to grow herbs, let alone any other plant.

Peppers. This was a weird one. I got pepper seeds from my library’s seed garden, which is basically a free arsenal of seeds donated by people in the area. So naturally, I trusted that the seeds I got would indeed sprout peppers. Instead, I got some weird plant that grew really tall and bushy, then sprouted orange flowers that never gave way to fruit. (There were plenty of bees around so I’m 99% sure the flowers were pollinated at some point.) Then, the plant got too big for its pot, and died. And then it came back and started sprouting again??

Anyway, I am still unsure what kind of plant this is, but if anyone can ID it, please let me know:

Calendula. Silly me for thinking a free packet of seeds I got from a clothing company would actually germinate! I bought a Christy Dawn dress for my birthday last year that came with a packet of calendula seeds, but when I tried germinating them, they never sprouted. No pretty flowers for me this year.

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And now, the wins:

Parsley. Once these herbs started growing, they literally did not stop. I grew four different parsley plants this summer — two inside, two outside. I harvested the outdoor plants for tabbouleh, various soups, vegetable stock, and garnish on lasagna. There’s nothing quite like the taste of fresh parsley. I was surprised how flavorful it was, since all I’d had before was dried stuff (which tastes like nothing). I will definitely be growing parsley again next year!

Kale. I loved growing kale this year. It was easy to tend to, and it grew enough that I was able to use it in many recipes. The only downside was that it attracted a gang of little green caterpillars around high summer, who also found my kale plants delicious. They tore through them leaf by leaf until the stems were the only thing left. I didn’t feel like dealing with the bugs, so I just let them eat to their heart’s content. And then once the food was gone, they left — and my plants came back with a vengeance a few weeks later.

Spinach(?). This was another library seed garden mystery plant. I am like 75% sure that the plant I grew is spinach — it’s leafy, waxy, and has the right vein pattern. But the shape of the leaves was a little … off. I’m used to spinach leaves being a bit boxier, but these had a near-perfect teardrop shape. Maybe it was just a variety of spinach that I’m not familiar with. However, there was just enough doubt in my mind that I was scared to eat anything from this plant. It grew very well though, so I’m giving it an A for effort.

If you, too, had a garden this year, let me know how it went! I’d love to hear your suggestions for low-maintenance, high-yield crops that can be cultivated in small spaces.