July 14, 2015
I
love the surprise and small miracle of windfallen seeds that sprout
in unexpected places in my gardens. Even if I have designated another
plant for that spot, I'm usually willing to be a matchmaker and hope
the two species will live together happily. So when I checked my
future tomato bed this spring and found a few volunteer sunflower
plants already setting down roots, I only smiled. The sunflowers
would grow directly in front of the south-facing, low cement wall and
behind the tomato plants. Everybody would get the sunshine and, at
worst, the taller sunflowers could block the tomato vines from the
harshest heat of high summer. This would be a match made in the
Garden Goddess's heaven.
What
is wrong with me? I have grown sunflowers for decades – and always
buy the seeds that will produce the big honkers – the tall,
branching plants with multiple flower heads – so the birds can
enjoy healthy autumn snacks. I make sure to plant the sunflowers in
the bed directly below my writing room window, so I can watch the
finches perch on the stalks while they eat their seeds. And, after
the first killing frost, I dig up the dead plants and have to yank
hard to wrestle the thick stems and roots out of the soil. Tomato
plants are easy to dig up; their stems are more slender and their
vines more fragile than the sturdy sunflowers.
So
how difficult could it have been to make a small, rational leap of
logic? I should have known that the taller, heavier sunflowers could
zap all the soil's nutrients and much of the water into their own
selfish roots Meanwhile, the tomatoes could fail to thrive, turning
paler and paler green as these mismatched couples stumbled through
the summer together. Of course, this is exactly what's happening. The
sunflowers already are flaunting deep golden flowers and showing off
further by turning their smug faces to the sun. My poor, puny
tomatoes – victims of an accidentally arranged marriage – have
barely set any blossoms, and my bright hopes for August BLTs have
gone the way of the dodo bird.
I
walk through my neighborhood nearly every day and can't help but
notice that the tomato plants in other gardens are heavy with green
fruit – some even turning red. Nobody else is growing sunflowers in
the tomato beds, either – and now I'm also starting to worry about
my broccoli. I grew twelve plants of broccoli from seed this spring
and, with great pride, transplanted them into a raised bed in our
side yard in mid-May. A couple of sunflowers had just begun to grow
there, too – probably victims of a crow that couldn't carry his
entire haul from the bird feeder and scuttled some seeds during his
flight. I let those seeds remain in the broccoli bed, too.
For
the first month, the two species seemed an equal match. The
sunflowers (which had fallen and were growing at the north side of
the bed) respected their boundaries and gave the broccoli plenty of
space and sunlight. My little homegrown brocs were doing me proud.
They soon reached my knees [Full disclosure: I top out at a
fraction of an inch over five feet two, so we're not talking about
The Attack of the Giant Broc Mutants here] and offered every sign
that their stalks would soon thicken and start branching into
multiple heads.
Then
the sunflowers hit their growth spurt. These plants weren't as tall
as the backyard variety, because I think they migrated from the bird
feeder, instead of from my garden. But although they are shorter,
they are branched and mighty. They're acting like sloppy dates,
draping themselves over the brocs' shoulders, ignoring personal
space, and hogging the food. This is not behavior an accidental
matchmaker condones.
At
least I'm not worried about the one deliberate pairing I planted this
spring: Around the edges of the bean bed, I sprinkled carrot seeds,
and so far, everybody is having a blast in there. If the carrots try
to pull off a late-season takeover attempt, our neighborhood bunny
will deal with it.
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