Harvesting
The end of summer comes faster each year it seems, and with it 
comes the bittersweet flood of freshly harvested garden vegetables. Though I adore the taste of sweet yellow pear tomatoes straight from the vine and the crisp crunch of home-grown cucumbers, this last mad influx of produce means that the long winter and a time of fallow fields is not far behind. Already the squash vines are browning and fading away, the herbs are setting seeds, and the sunflowers are bowing their heads to the ever-shortening hours of sunlight. I will surely miss the wonderful flavors of summer when the greenery is gone and the garden is bathed in frost.
Yet there are many ways to preserve the pleasures of the harvest long into the winter. For the moment, my crafting life must take a back seat to food preservation. Hours and hours spent now skinning, seeding and simmering fresh tomatoes means having a taste of summer in January in
the form of spaghetti sauce kept fresh in a chest freezer. I have been busy putting up dozens of pints of freezer pickles, sweet relish, tomato sauce, and quarts of mashed potatoes made with red and white potatoes from our bountiful crop. Some things are dried with a dehydrator and packed in glass jars, such as oregano, basil, chocolate mint, and sage. Other vegetables can be kept for weeks in a cool section of the basement; the balance of our potatoes is stored in perforated brown paper bags sitting on top of an unused air hockey table. Not the ideal root cellar arrangement, but it will have to do until we can build a more proper storage area.
So how did the garden gro
w this year and what is still left to be harvested? It was a strange summer in terms of weather. Early warmth was followed by weeks of rain. Then a cool August was followed by a hot and humid first week of September. Mid-summer rains caused the tomatoes to stay green until late in August meaning a relentless number of red fruits are now coming in. Green and wax beans were plentiful again this year. The sage grew like weeds. Our two-year-old peach tree produced a dozen delicious fruits. The cucumbers flourished on trellises, a method we will use next year as well. Radishes 
happily germinated and almost all the garlic plants produced healthy bulbs. The new asparagus bed is now well populated by lacy asparagus ferns. On the downside, the squashes were attacked by vine borers yet again, causing a reduced winter squash yield, although a few new summer squash bush varieties were very productive. In the future we'll plant only the bush type to save space and make the borers more manageable. Unfortunately beetles and grasshoppers feasted on the basil and kale, making the crop mostly unusable, and the broccoli never produced heads for the second year in a row.
There were a few wonderful surprises in the garden this summer. After a poor showing by potatoes planted in containers in 2007, we planted several in-ground rows of plants this year. Having survived an early attack of Colorado potato beetles, the plants went on to surpass our wildest expectations by yielding over 110 pounds of potatoes! And before you ask, no, we don't have a farm! We live in a suburban neighborhood and have a back yard garden that comprises only about 3% of our land. It is amazing how much food can be produced in a small area if the popular focus on large expanses of green lawn is traded for a love of well-placed, intensive gardens.
One other interesting twist occurred in a last minute raised bed we created in our south-facing front yard. Running out of space and time, we tossed some watermelon seeds and the extra home-grown tomato seedlings into this new bed. We waited and waited and yet no little watermelon seedlings appeared. Then, one day, seemingly overnight, watermelon vines began covering the bare soil at an incredible rate. The prolonged heat in the front yard apparently fueled their growth spurt and soon several green melons were forming under the lush foliage. One of these green beauties is now over 18 inches long! We are anxiously waiting for the day that this giant surprise baby can be opened. Will the center be sweet, red and juicy? Or will it be pale and lacking flavor? Only time will tell.
Like the hidden and mysterious interior of the watermelon, one never knows what will grow in the garden each year; its progress cannot be rushed and the outcome is always unpredictable. Sometimes waiting for the harvest can be a stressfu
l and tedious process. Those long, quiet days when nothing seems to be happening are masking the intense changes taking place underneath the surface. Watching a garden grow builds patience and forces our acceptance of things beyond our control. It develops our appreciation of success and failure as two sides of the same coin; the flourishing of one thing balances the shortcomings of another. Gardening encourages us to be unafraid of trying something new for the results may lead us in an entirely unexpected and rewarding direction. Of course these lessons are more acceptable in hindsight at the end of the season. I am sure I will need to relearn them again next year as I curse at the bugs and wait impatiently for fruit to ripen. Hindsight may be 20/20 but it has a short memory. Luckily Mother Nature is always willing to repeat the lesson.
comes the bittersweet flood of freshly harvested garden vegetables. Though I adore the taste of sweet yellow pear tomatoes straight from the vine and the crisp crunch of home-grown cucumbers, this last mad influx of produce means that the long winter and a time of fallow fields is not far behind. Already the squash vines are browning and fading away, the herbs are setting seeds, and the sunflowers are bowing their heads to the ever-shortening hours of sunlight. I will surely miss the wonderful flavors of summer when the greenery is gone and the garden is bathed in frost.Yet there are many ways to preserve the pleasures of the harvest long into the winter. For the moment, my crafting life must take a back seat to food preservation. Hours and hours spent now skinning, seeding and simmering fresh tomatoes means having a taste of summer in January in
the form of spaghetti sauce kept fresh in a chest freezer. I have been busy putting up dozens of pints of freezer pickles, sweet relish, tomato sauce, and quarts of mashed potatoes made with red and white potatoes from our bountiful crop. Some things are dried with a dehydrator and packed in glass jars, such as oregano, basil, chocolate mint, and sage. Other vegetables can be kept for weeks in a cool section of the basement; the balance of our potatoes is stored in perforated brown paper bags sitting on top of an unused air hockey table. Not the ideal root cellar arrangement, but it will have to do until we can build a more proper storage area.So how did the garden gro
w this year and what is still left to be harvested? It was a strange summer in terms of weather. Early warmth was followed by weeks of rain. Then a cool August was followed by a hot and humid first week of September. Mid-summer rains caused the tomatoes to stay green until late in August meaning a relentless number of red fruits are now coming in. Green and wax beans were plentiful again this year. The sage grew like weeds. Our two-year-old peach tree produced a dozen delicious fruits. The cucumbers flourished on trellises, a method we will use next year as well. Radishes 
happily germinated and almost all the garlic plants produced healthy bulbs. The new asparagus bed is now well populated by lacy asparagus ferns. On the downside, the squashes were attacked by vine borers yet again, causing a reduced winter squash yield, although a few new summer squash bush varieties were very productive. In the future we'll plant only the bush type to save space and make the borers more manageable. Unfortunately beetles and grasshoppers feasted on the basil and kale, making the crop mostly unusable, and the broccoli never produced heads for the second year in a row.There were a few wonderful surprises in the garden this summer. After a poor showing by potatoes planted in containers in 2007, we planted several in-ground rows of plants this year. Having survived an early attack of Colorado potato beetles, the plants went on to surpass our wildest expectations by yielding over 110 pounds of potatoes! And before you ask, no, we don't have a farm! We live in a suburban neighborhood and have a back yard garden that comprises only about 3% of our land. It is amazing how much food can be produced in a small area if the popular focus on large expanses of green lawn is traded for a love of well-placed, intensive gardens.
One other interesting twist occurred in a last minute raised bed we created in our south-facing front yard. Running out of space and time, we tossed some watermelon seeds and the extra home-grown tomato seedlings into this new bed. We waited and waited and yet no little watermelon seedlings appeared. Then, one day, seemingly overnight, watermelon vines began covering the bare soil at an incredible rate. The prolonged heat in the front yard apparently fueled their growth spurt and soon several green melons were forming under the lush foliage. One of these green beauties is now over 18 inches long! We are anxiously waiting for the day that this giant surprise baby can be opened. Will the center be sweet, red and juicy? Or will it be pale and lacking flavor? Only time will tell.
Like the hidden and mysterious interior of the watermelon, one never knows what will grow in the garden each year; its progress cannot be rushed and the outcome is always unpredictable. Sometimes waiting for the harvest can be a stressfu
l and tedious process. Those long, quiet days when nothing seems to be happening are masking the intense changes taking place underneath the surface. Watching a garden grow builds patience and forces our acceptance of things beyond our control. It develops our appreciation of success and failure as two sides of the same coin; the flourishing of one thing balances the shortcomings of another. Gardening encourages us to be unafraid of trying something new for the results may lead us in an entirely unexpected and rewarding direction. Of course these lessons are more acceptable in hindsight at the end of the season. I am sure I will need to relearn them again next year as I curse at the bugs and wait impatiently for fruit to ripen. Hindsight may be 20/20 but it has a short memory. Luckily Mother Nature is always willing to repeat the lesson.
Labels: gardening
posted by The Filigree Garden at
11:17 PM
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