Blight

Inspirational song: You're Not the Best (Charlie Robison)

I don't have much experience with growing blackberries. There was a giant bramble of them next to the house my parents rented in Germany one year. At six years old, I knew nothing about HOW they grew; I just cared THAT they grew and were so plentiful. After I left for college, my mother planted some next to our screened porch in Oklahoma, but they had been ripped out again by the time I came back for a year for my grandfather's last days. So I totally missed the warning signs that mine were not healthy, until yesterday when I finally got around to researching blackberry rust. It was very dispiriting this morning, cutting back 2/3 of the plants, in a desperate attempt to remove enough of the systemic disease. I cut off nearly all of the fat, green berries, because waiting for them to ripen would surely cost me the entire row of plants.

I'm struggling with one of my two tomato plants as well. I only grew two this year because I knew I would be a single person for so long. There comes a point, late in the season, when the plants keep bearing, long after I've run out of creative ways to keep them in my diet, and I just want them to stop. I forget which plant is which, but I think it's the Cherokee purple that has yellowed its bottom 10-12 inches. I have fertilized, put egg shells and coffee grounds in it, and tried to keep its water intake consistent. I feel like I should be better at tomatoes by now. Even when I was allergic to everything else, I was able to handle them without hives or discomfort, so I've tried to grow them almost everywhere I've lived. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I don't handle making errors well. I've always been harder on myself than anyone. I was that teenager who made herself sick every spring, when it was competition season, and I had interscholastic meets, and band competition, and piano guild trials, and any number of reasons to push and criticize myself. I never really outgrew that. So when I find myself gardening solo, my compulsion means it has to be the best in town, or at least the neighborhood, and the fact that I'm working so far above my skill level doesn't mitigate my stress one jot. I can try to tell myself what I am feeling isn't the sting of failure, that it is a learning curve, or that it is a lot of work for one single woman to handle. None of that makes a difference when I am faced with yellowed leaves, withered canes, or flowers that can't find the middle between waterlogged and desiccated. It's enough to drive a girl to drink. I shall attempt to keep that to a minimum.