HeronDragonWrites: To Garden in September

Okra pod in the north; Deb Marshall photo

I picked my token handful of okra this weekend; my poor little stunted plants, overwhelmed by the yellow beans, nevertheless produced their gorgeous flowers and a handful of pods, which I sliced up and put in the week’s soup.

Scarlet Runner bean flowers; Deb Marshall photo

This time of year is strangely satisfying. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with everything that needs attention – there are tomatoes to freeze daily, the scarlet runners are still in bloom but also bear pods that need picking and shelling, and whenever I attempt to do so, I get seriously buzzed by the hummingbirds, which are very, very busily loading up prior to their long trip south. The green beans are putting out their second crop, and there were just enough fresh dill heads that I could make a batch of dilly beans while I was waiting for the zucchini relish to cook down enough to can.

Under this, somewhere, is a compost bin! Deb Marshall photo

The morning glories have completely overwhelmed one compost bin and are beginning to cover bin two, keeping the bees very busy, between runner beans, fall raspberries, and morning glories. But half the yellow beans, and some of the shell beans are spent; I pulled out two patches and rediscovered the satisfaction of finishing a job, of seeing plain empty dirt again. It felt so good, in fact, I yanked the remaining beets, too, and sent them to the freezer. Then I trimmed out the part of the fava beans that no longer sported leaves, and picked clean one long tendril of winter squash.

Squash climbing tomato cages; Deb Marshall photo

Squash amongst tomatoes; Deb Marshall photo

Tonight it’s raining, making me happy enough to be inside canning pickles and relish. We need the rain, but every time I go outside, I tell the hummers to hunker down and wait a week before heading south, because a hurricane is due to land later this week . I wonder, each year, how they manage to make their long way to their winter homes; there’s always a hurricane brewing, so how do such delicate creatures manage? The little female whose wings make a buzzing noise almost as loud as Buzzy Boy’s has been about this last week and hung out with me in the garden one afternoon; we like to think she’s one of his daughters. I thought Buzzy himself had left for the season after the day he hovered about me in the garden last week; but this weekend when I was working in the path between the house and the close raised bed, he came barreling down that pathway and zipped across just above my head, turned, and did it again, twice. Maybe that was this year’s goodbye!

I sent a basketload of herbs up to the French baker this weekend: thyme, marjoram, sage, mint, chives, French tarragon, and some calendula for her to play with. This year has been an amazing year for herbs; I cut back my giant sage plant twice before it occurred to me to find out whether the chef at the café near my office, and then the baker in town, could use some of the excess, and both have taken a couple of herby armloads. There’s always too much marjoram, my yard’s a bed of thyme, and the sage plant engulfs anything planted near it; but this year the tarragon grew lush and long, as well.

Bee headed into the morning glory; Deb Marshall photo

Pollen-dusted bee emerging from flower; Deb Marshall photo

A Week Later

Not enough time to finish writing a blog entry, last week! In just the few days since last week’s several days of rain, the hummers we know have left for the year, and some we don’t know are stopping by on their way south. We assume these are Canadian hummers, and so I speak French to them. Ca va, mes petites! Au revoir, a bientot! Et bon voyage!

The scarlet runners have almost finished blooming, finally; the winter squash vines all have powdery mildew, so the squashes will be coming in by next weekend, ready or not. I scored 38 pounds of ripe tomatoes at Musterfield Farm and spent today making tomato juice – if you’ve never had anything except commercial tomato juice, you have no idea what tomato juice really tastes or looks like. I don’t have the space to plant enough tomatoes to freeze and make sauce and juice, so every couple of years I buy juice tomatoes, then eke it out because a dozen bottles or so go really fast otherwise.

Unknown weed growing under the kitchen wart

Winter squash upon the new pavers; Deb Marshall photo

The green beans are almost done – I’ll pick the last batch tomorrow then pull the vines; the bean tower beans are also done, but it’s loaded down with morning glories, so I’ll keep propping it up when it falls over for a while longer. I pulled the few actual carrots in the patch that’s blooming, and blooming, and blooming, even though it’s impossible that they should be; and yanked a couple more tomato plants that have given up their last tomato. I also picked the almost-red pepper some nasty chipmunk chewed a hole in, ate the seeds out of, then chewed an exit hole in the opposite side. It was a big pepper; I cut out the chewed parts, washed out the inside, chopped it up and froze what was left, and then I picked the other big pepper I was hoping would get red – not taking any more chances!

Lots of beans to shell. Lots of help (!!) shelling them.

Catmandoo in the shell-bean basket; Deb Marshall photo

I’ve got some wicked exciting new heavy chunks of cement that look sorta like rock to build some new flower beds on t’other side of the fence. With any luck I’ll start moving some of them tomorrow, and with more luck, I won’t get sunstruck and wind up shriveled up in a little ball in the wicked solid compost bins the Husband just made from seven of the pallets that were delivered this summer!

The new planting bed and short wall I built with some of the chunks; Charley Freiberg photo

I have two sets of garden clothes this summer: the days’ current one, absolutely soaked with sweat, and the one from two days ago, still damp from sweat. This summer has been --- exceptional. Someone remind me when I’m bitching about the cold this winter.

Last glories of September; Deb Marshall photos

Nasturtium vine; Deb Marshall photo

This is breakfast in late August and September:

Toast a split section of baguette, or a couple slices of any good sourdough bread. As soon as it's done, scrape a raw garlic clove all over it - the garlic will melt onto the bread. Then drizzle a good-flavored olive oil across the bread, and top it with slices of a juicy, ripe tomato - the heritage varieties are especially good for this. Salt the tomato slices, then put summer savory leaves and flowers on the slices. Basil works well too, but summer savory is to die for. Eat; get olive oil and tomato juices all over your plate and hands and down your arms. Lick it off your body, sop it off the plate with a crust, or maybe even another slice of excellent bread. A piece of Brie on the side wouldn't be inappropriate. Store the flavors in your memory to pull out in February when you can't bear winter a moment longer. Try not to repeat - remember, there's breakfast again tomorrow morning, and it's still tomato season.