Gardener Bales a bit green with envy over Kane County inmates' garden

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

Probably better than mine, is about all I can say.

My tomatoes are green and hard, and not particularly plentiful. I'd love to see an actual cucumber emerge from my two plants, which are twining their way well past their designated area, overwhelming my basil.

My pepper plant? Well, the spaghetti squash plant kind of took over and left the pepper (and there's only one, so far) literally in the shade. Hard to grow without sun. And from everything I have ever read and heard, squash is supposed to be the easiest thing in the world to grow. Any dummy can do it.

Any dummy, that is, but moi. This is the third year I've tried to grow squash. Two years of zucchini plants brought me one zucchini each year. This year I tried spaghetti squash, and am having a summer -- and fall, apparently -- sans squash.

Sure every garden in the Tri-Cities is doing as badly as mine, I called the University of Illinois Extension in Kane County to ask.

And I promptly discovered that a) the county's garden is going gangbusters and b) I need to be more patient.

"I hate to say this ... our garden looks great," said Barbara Bates, horticulture educator for the extension service.

She was referring to the Kane County Female Inmates Garden, where inmates till produce, on the grounds of the former Adult Corrections facility on East Fabyan Parkway.

"I was just there this morning," Bates said early in the week. "We harvested zucchini. We have tons of tomatoes, albeit green ones; we had great onions and great garlic." Deer had wandered in and eaten cucumbers and the tops of the beets, but Bates hopes the makeshift fence she and inmates put up will deter the four-footed marauders.

All that great produce, plus sweet corn grown at the extension service's research center, is sold by inmates. The Kane County Female Inmate Garden Vegetable Stand is at 777 E. Fabyan Parkway and is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays. Proceeds support the garden project, sponsored by Kane County Adult Corrections and the University of Illinois Extension Master Gardeners, as well as local non-profit agencies and organizations.

And gardeners like me should not hang up their hoes, Bates said. "People should have really good gardens," she said. "We've had ample moisture and great cool temperatures, so the cool-water crops -- broccoli, kale, turnips, beets, cabbages -- have done very well this year."

Yes, she acknowledged to my whining about my green tomatoes, most tomatoes are the same shade of green as mine. "We need really hot water" for ripening, she counseled. "Tomatoes are a little slow to red up and ripen. I think it's going to be a great year for tomatoes." And given that the weather turned hot shortly after we talked, perhaps tomatoes will be ready for consumption soon.

And for those of you out there who also see blossoms on the vine but no fruit, just wait, Bates said. Where there are blossoms, baby veggies should soon follow. (Of course, I've thought that the past two summers!)

"Patience is the key," she said.

If all else fails, and crops are not forthcoming, she had another suggestion, a great one. "Come out to our stand and buy your vegetables there."