MEEKER | Gardening this year seems like the Greek story of Sisyphus continually rolling a rock up hill only to have it constantly descend. Here we are at end of June in Meeker, Colorado, with one third of the summer gone. It has rained endlessly along with nearly frozen nightly temperatures. My plants suffer with these strange conditions and hopefully their endurance is heartier than mine.
Despite the weather, I continue to love the challenge of gardening, coaxing along the vegetable seeds and bedding plants. This year, I’m really stretching and attempting to grow corn and tomatoes, staples of my family’s garden when I was growing up in Indiana. Back then, it seemed we just threw seeds in the ground, they grew magnificently and provided fresh vegetables we thrived on year long. Oh, so easy!
But growing anything in Colorado is an entirely different challenge. Last year was so hot and demanded daily watering, I felt like some of my struggling plants and just gave up as the summer got hotter and hotter. This year, totally different.
Our clay-based soil is unhospitable and requires endless amending. Plants and vegetables need extra loving care—nearly every day. You can grow stuff if you and your plants are “made of the heartier stuff.” This is Colorado gardening and you better be up to the challenge if you hope to grow anything.
In our yard, it has been a battle to win back fertile areas. I have been delighted to find a few plants that descend from my mother-in-law, Clare Sullivan, who maintained a lovely yard. Over the years since her death, it deteriorated and required much effort for my husband and me to deconstruct, which is not gardening, just clearing out endless truckloads of dead stuff.
Today, I take huge delight in any little thing that blossoms and matures. Our ever-ready strawberries are doing just great, the volunteer poppies were stunning, and now the wild yellow roses are ready to bloom. I see pea plants and other seedlings beginning to arise in our new raised beds, so I have hope.
I need to enjoy more what is growing than grousing about what is not. This is my hobby that always gives me joy along with the ups and downs of growing anything. So, like the Greek myth, I will keep “rolling my rock” uphill in my gardens as I hope you will.
In the end, the most fulfilling challenge is not about succeeding like my childhood gardens, but just trying to make our little piece of this earth a bit better.
By KAYE SULLIVAN | Special to the HT
