Teenagers and Garden Update

Sunday afternoon our oldest (14) Granddaughter will come stay with us until Wednesday.  She normally would be heading to camp with her brother.  She doesn't spend much time with us anymore, her choice.  We just aren't fun enough I guess, and I get it.  And puberty has made some major changes in interaction.  It's been at least 3 years maybe 4 since she has stayed over.  I'm a little anxious about how to interact with her for an extended time.  Don't get me wrong, we speak the usual one word greetings and the obligatory hug when we see each other but I can see they want to move on and I don't detain them.  

I used to teach that age quite a bit years ago and could always connect.  I attempted to teach again a couple years ago and it was not as I had hoped/expected.  The kids are different.  In my opinion, they want to be entertained by a screen of some sort, i.e. social media or electronic games.  They are rarely forced to actually communicate face to face.  It is extremely rare to get one to actually speak more than one word answers and a lot of times I get a blank stare.  Yes, my boys were one word answer kids too at times like most parents complained about their teens, but this has gone to the extreme.  I used to be able to draw them out.  Not anymore.  Hopefully I will be surprised.  Yes, I know others will say well that's just kids and I agree to a point, but it is different than just 15 years ago.

The garden isn't producing much right now.  The Potatoes were harvested last week and I got about 2 lbs. of very small potatoes.  Golf ball size to a bit larger.  These were the gold potatoes that are small anyway.  I will plant Russets in about a month.  The carrots totally failed.  I don't know how to grow them apparently.  The onions were also pretty small.  Fall is a better time for onions plus the heat didn't help.  The tomato plants look fantastic and have a ton of blooms but not many green tomato starts.  The heavy rain we got a little while back ruined a lot of the tomatoes I had hanging.  Just too much water to fast that caused splitting or 'second growth.'  Lost some big ones.  We are still having record heat and will at least through the next week.  I'm hoping the tomatoes will survive and continue to produce a little more.  It's funny I have one tomato plant about eight feet tall and one little scrawny one about two foot tall planted at the same time.  Guess which one produced the most tomatoes and still is.  Two different varieties.  The small is a Roma and has done just super.  The larger is a Better Boy and the tomatoes are fantastic but it doesn't produce many.  I may need to prune them more to reduce foliage and concentrate on fruit.  But dang that thing is beautiful and it's hard to bring myself to cut those big branches.  

Happy Trails