A Real Life Garden Horror!

While my daughter and I were out of town in Chicago, my husband was in charge of the farm

and well, how do I say this...he forgot to water.  That might not be an issue with most places

this time of the year but here in the desert where we have been having a heat wave

with temperatures over 100 degrees, it is a disaster.  All my lettuce starts are fried,

my fresh seedlings that were starting up gone and my pumpkin patch that I have been babying

since May. Ooh, I can't even think about it... I want to cry! 

I know people are more important than plants but to an urban farmer,

the lines get blurred sometimes.

  Here's some pictures of my pumpkin patch through the last six months.

6/28/2011

7/7/2011

8/13/2011

9/15/2011

And this is what I came home to...

10/04/2011

RIP

 I harvested the pumpkins that were salvageable,

brought them inside, along with some pomegranates

and used them throughout the house to decorate for fall.

I learned an important lesson from this...no matter if I make a detailed list of what to do day by day

...next time I go out of town I am going to hire someone to take care of the farm. 

My husband is the banker, not the tender, he loves the farm but I am the caretaker of it.  

I can not expect him to take care of a four year old boy, a cat, a dog, 8 chickens and all the gardens.   

Just FYI.....All animals and humans survived our 4 day Chicago trip..

I can't promise you they bathed

but they are alive.

Tomorrow is a new day...the old is gone and the new has come!

I am going to go have a good cry now.