Usually at this time of year, my “back forty” is lying fallow. It’s really a “back twenty” — an area about twenty feet by ten feet, but who’s counting. Almost everything I ever planted back there has died off except for a couple of plum trees I planted a few years ago, which in six years have produced a grand total of four plums. The plants that were here when I bought the place are still going strong — a wild rose, a honeysuckle, and a trumpet vine, but those plants are obviously well adapted to their environment. I think it gets too hot in that section for most plants, with the sun reflecting off the white garage next door and then kept sandwiched in between the two garages. In the spring, the area is lush with larkspur, but once I harvest the seeds and clean out the dead stalks, I just let it be. It just never seemed worth trying to grow anything.
Last year, I’d planted a tomato plant, a pumpkin vine, a watermelon vine, and a cantaloupe vine in my raised garden, and those four plants so overwhelmed the relatively small garden that this year I decided to try planting them in my back section, thinking they’d have plenty of room to grow. And they are doing supremely well! Perhaps the trees have grown enough to provide a bit of shade, but whatever the reason, I’m delighted.
I transplanted self-planted marigolds from the raised garden to provide a bit of protection for my “farm garden.” (If four plants can be considered a garden, let alone a farm garden.) I also threw out some wildflower seeds I’d been gifted, and though in previous years, nothing ever came of the wildflowers, this year they are adding to the lushness of the area.
Going by old blog posts I’d written around this same time, this is usually a discouraging time for me. Not only are the heat and humidity hard to bear, but they deplete my energy and my desire to do anything. (I know you people who live in truly high humidity will laugh at my thinking that 40% is high, but when you are used to single digit humidity, that is a huge change. And anyway, that’s just the afternoon humidity — the early morning humidity gets close to 80%.) This year, although the heat and humidity are playing with me, I am managing to keep up a semblance of enthusiasm for the yard, and I tend to think it has to do with that back twenty. With those vines growing so long (the pumpkin vine is at least ten feet long right now, though the others are catching up), they are easily filling the area with a lot of green and some luscious blossoms.
There seem to be many pumpkins starting to grow, but oddly, that wasn’t my main reason for planting them. And anyway, I have no idea what to do with the pumpkings once they’re big enough to eat.
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One
Bertram's Blog 
July 17, 2026 at 5:03 pm
The wildflowers and other successful plantings must be a lovely albeit it surprising treat for you. I have three tomato plants that are beginning to look like tomato trees! But I’ve never tried to grow pumpkins or other melons. A family friend has consistently grown giant pumpkins and won a few weigh-ins with 1000+ lb. beauties and I’ve always been in awe of how much pampering had to go into their growing season. That’s not for me! But I suppose if I tried, I could always do with a few for Halloween jack-o-lanterns and autumn pies. 🙂
July 17, 2026 at 6:03 pm
I don’t pamper plants beyond watering and some weeding, so how they grow is how they grow. If they need pampering, chances are none of mine will grow more than a pound or two. Lucky for me. I wouldn’t have any idea what to do with a 1000-pound pumpkin. Yikes.