A TINY BIT OF HOPE

I suck at growing vegetables. And indoor plants. I do great with natives and perennials, not so great with edibles. In fact, I can't tell you how many times I've sworn "This is it! I give up!" This summer I'd had it for certain. Nothing in my veggie beds produced. My full size tomatoes came out looking like cherry tomatoes. My green bean plants looked great at first, produced a few scrawny beans, then got speckled foliage and all crapped out at once. I did get a few potatoes, but my arugula seeds never even germinated, and only one of my cucumbers did, Unfortunately, that one never really took off. By the end of summer it was no bigger than when it started. Granted, it was supposed to be a dwarf, space-saving variety, but sheesh!

At the end of August I went out to rip everything up, and guess what I discovered? My little cucumber plant had a sudden growth spurt!

I even spotted a bit of yellow between the leaves.

The real surprise came when I began lifting those big fat leaves, to check for more blooms, and found this.

My very first, gen-u-ine, home grown cucumber! And that's all it took to have me ready to dive back into veggie-growing head first. Just a tiny bit of hope.

P.S. One thing I noticed was that, unlike those dark, waxy-smooth cucumbers you get at the grocery store, my cucumber was kind of, well, spiny. Prickly even. Is that normal? And how do you know when a cucumber is ready to be picked?