The Slavs' second act: how it's going

Back in August, we decided to give ourselves a second chance to grow some vegetables after what will forever remain in the family annals as the June Heat Massacre.

We made a bet that, like last year, we would have a long and warm autumn that will make it possible to grow a harvest of beans, tomatoes, and courgettes, plus the aubergines we planted in late spring, which surprisingly survived the heat.

Of course, we should have known better because, let’s hear it again, You Can’t Trust The Weather. Autumn this year came pretty much the same way that summer did — suddenly. The August heat was erased in a week, replaced by balmy 20-something maximum temps, with minimum temps falling to 11-12, forcing us to bring our lemon and strange-fruit-tree* saplings inside.

We were away for a week before that, leaving the beans, tomatoes, courgettes, and aubergines at the mercy of the elements — and our brand new drip irrigation system that Cris put in place in a matter of hours before we left for our annual visit to Constanta. It drew water from our rainwater tank that had about 200 litres in it. That should be enough for a few days, we reasoned. Even if the plants suffered, they wouldn’t suffer long.

This is what greeted us when we returned.

We have been growing beans every year for three years now and we have never had such good-looking plants. That’s because normally we let spring rains do most of the watering and we never bothered with fertilising before. After all, beans can look after themselves, right?

Well, they can, but some additional care always helps. In this case, the care involved dry yeast, water, and a ground eggshell infusion, plus a couple of drops of iodine — a recipe by which the family hairdresser swears. The final mix is proprietary. We just combined yeast fertiliser with eggshell fertiliser.

The proportions, for those interested: 100 g of dry, ground eggshells go into a pot with 2 l of boiling water. Turn off the heat, stir, let the eggshell soak, if possible for a week, stirring occasionally, then sift and add to three l of water, after dissolving a pack of dry yeast in it. Add two to three drops of iodine tincture, mix, and apply to watered plants in the amount of half a cup per plant. We applied it once a week. On two non-consecutive weeks, we swapped that for good old NPK, just in case, to the amount of 1 tablespoon per plant. Our soil needs all the help it can get.

We won’t have a massive harvest but we will have some harvest and that was all we asked for when we planted.

We won’t see a huge tomato harvest, either. Most of the blame lies with the heat. Tomato flowers tend to drop off in hot weather and even if they don’t, they can’t self-pollinate effectively above certain temperatures. Luckily, as the nights got cooler, the tomatoes got a chance. The plant in the picture is our best performer with half a dozen fruits already, while two others have zero fruits. Still, they look quite pretty, so we’ll count them as a partial success story.

As you can see, the aubergines delivered rather abundantly. The only problem is their size, which is not that of a regular aubergine fruit. Still, we’re not sizeists and will happily consume the harvest we have. The first two were picked this week and are waiting their turn in the fridge.

The courgettes served the nicest surprise this year. In August, when they produced their first half a dozen leaves, the plants were overriden with lice. Ants were happy, turning said leaves into louse farms. We weren’t. So we took steps. Several treatments with strongly diluted potassium permanganate later, the plants could get down to business, and get down to business they did.

The plant in the picture above is one of the exemplary garden performers. The Black Beauties had it tougher with the lice but we picked the first courgette and another three are coming over the next few days. Even the worst affected plant is doing its best. You’ve got to admire this dedication to life and biological imperatives.

Sadly, the neighbours’ Rottweiler stepped on and crushed one of the two Black Beauties during one of her regular nightly walks through our garden, so we’ve made a mental note to add defences in the form of sticks around the plants.

*Here’s the story. The neighbours to the right have a grandson, who’s friends with Cat. Every time he comes to visit, he brings something, snacks or fruit, in the best country traditions. One day, he brought a bag of odd-looking fruits with the appearance of small pears the colour of apricots. The taste of these fruits was a combination of pear, melon and a hint of citrus. Unlike pears, they had pit-looking seeds in the centre.

The fruit, the kid said, came from another neighbour’s garden. No, he didn’t know what it’s called. Irina was at the height of her heat frustration at the time and had only one question: does the tree have nice, large, shade-making leaves. A little startled, the neighbours’ kid responded in the affirmative.

The pits were duly removed and put in soil. It took them a month but they did sprout and were just recently transplanted in individual containers. We tried finding the fruit online and failed. In case anyone has heard about a tree that looks like the offspring of a small pear and an apricot, and tastes like a fruit cocktail, please let us know.

No, we haven’t asked the neighbour whose tree the fruit came from. We don’t know that neighbour and we’re shy. We’re also afraid he will shower us with produce from his garden.