It’s been a strange season in the garden. No two years have been alike, it’s true, but this season has been like a series of mini-explosions. I think I can still stand by my statement that it’s the best season I’ve had. I had peas, but I didn’t have cauliflower. Still, who cares about cauliflower? I’d much rather have peas!
I’ve also clearly learned some things, which masks the success/failure equation in the garden. The arrival of produce hasn’t overwhelmed me as much as in past years. I kind of know what to do with it, and so am able to shift from one thing to another.
Yes, there are fruit flies on my counter, and I wish the tomatoes would get ripe at the same time so I could go ahead and do a big bunch of canning, instead of a few jars here and there.
I’ve been surprised already by some large leeks. By the quality of the garlic. By the peppers, which look fantastic and hang heavily on their healthy stems despite the lack of hot weather.
But my refrigerator is not stuffed to the gills. I am not opening drawers wondering what I have to eat NOW to save it from the compost pile. I have a bucket of damp sand and carrots in the cool garage. I have a pail of potatoes. And the onions are small but working great in the canning recipes.
Still, this is the year that the animals arrived. Some very good ones– there are frogs in the garden! Some bad ones. I’ve seen rabbits, voles, field mice and 13-striped ground squirrels at various times in the raised beds. We killed the gophers, but they gave us a run for our money. I finally relented and today put up some rabbit fencing around two beds just to get some fall lettuce, spinach, radishes and beets. (We’ll be stapling it to the sides of the beds tomorrow.)
There are lots of beneficial insects, including bees everywhere doing their pollinating duty. But there have also been cucumber beetles, which slowed or did in some things. After the collapse of the cucumber trellis and what looked like it would be a banner year there, squash bugs and powdery mildew set in and I was lucky to get enough to make the pickles for Christmas. And though I’ve been “sharing” the bean plants with critters, they have moved from the vines to the bean pods themselves.
The bean pods, which are legion, aren’t drying in this cool, misty weather, but also look to be molding and some have been chewed open just enough to ruin the beans. So I’m starting to harvest them once they’ve plumped the pods but before they’ve dried out.
STILL… let’s make no mistake. We’ve been eating like kings all summer. I mean for real. Even the saddest tomato plants in the world are producing these fantastic jeune flamme orange tomatoes and gorgeous saladette red tomatoes. I have enough salsa now, too, for Christmas. With a little hot, dry weather, I’ll get my usual 10 quarts, or more, of canned tomatoes. And I’ve already got 1 quart and 1 pint of those shell beans, as much as I harvested in total last year, and I’m about 1/4 the way into the harvest…
Which is to say, it’s been a kick ass summer. Despite the critters and my total loss of control of the weed situation in the bean/potato bed, and the cool, damp weather.
I think I’m getting the hang of it.
