I Love My Garden

Multi-colored Morning Glories

September 2

This is a lovely time of year, except that my dear friend and her father, as well as most people who live for incomprehensible reasons down in the lower part of the country, are sitting around in a house with barricaded windows, listening, listening, listening….to see if the wind’s picking up.

A view from the far side of the fence

Up here in the real world, however, we’ve just had a lovely rain, the nights are cool enough to be comfortable, the days are warm enough to be pleasant and cool enough to get some real work done, and the garden’s starting to cough up ripe tomatoes in enough quantity to start freezing some most days, and the shell beans, except for the scarlet runners, are done, the green beans are starting to produce their second-wind crop, and while I think I’ve vanquished the evil squash bugs in the summer squash and zucchini plants, they seem to have moved into the French pumpkin vines. Honestly? I’ve made forays into the pumpkin vines and squished and stomped a whole bunch of the nasty bugs, but I’m less exercised about them being there because the plant is MASSIVE. It’s the pumpkin version of last year’s morning glories, which swallowed two compost bins, a bean tower, a pathway, and part of the fence before frost finally destroyed them.

The pumpkin vines have taken over two larger compost bins, 3 pathways, the leek bed, and are headed for the beet bed and zucchini plant in one direction, and the garden shed in the other. In the process it’s climbed the remains of the peach tree, several sunflowers and tomato cages, and, of course, the big compost bins. There are pumpkins in the tree, in the compost bin, in the leeks, in the field, hanging from tomato cages, climbing amaranth. 

Morning Glories in the pear tree

This year’s morning glories have climbed the pear tree and the cherry tree, and there’s one self-seeded vine trying to take over its old compost bin territory, as well. The flowers in the trees are quite lovely, and somehow I managed to plant mixed-color morning glories this year, which are really nice. 

The corn experiment tasseled, and against all odds, have started to make 4 or 5 ears of corn. If the weather gods cooperate long enough, I might actually get a small meal of home-grown corn in, say, maybe October?  The weird little tuber-like thing I planted that came from a mail-order plant place and is supposed to be a perennial sunflower has produced a four-foot-high plant, and it’s in the process of producing flower buds. Doesn’t look exactly like a sunflower, and doesn’t exactly not look like one, either. None of the buds have opened yet, but if I were to make a guess, I’d say it’s a Jerusalem artichoke plant. Which is sorta, kinda like a sunflower, and sorta, kinda perennial, but if that’s what the plant nursery meant to send me, I’m sorta, kinda not impressed. 

Maximillian perennial sunflower, or Jerusalem Artichoke?

I like this time of year partly because I like the tidying-up part – I enjoy cutting back foliage that’s dying or shading out other things, I like pulling up spent plants, and by this time of year I’m getting sick of the constant processing of foods. Today, rainy and cool, was a great day to make zucchini relish, a two-day job that also requires the hot job of canning the relish.  It was cool enough to enjoy the stove being on most the day, and rainy enough that I wasn’t tempted to go out to the garden for anything. While I waited for the relish to relish and the filled jars to process, I made a curried veggie soup, and a corn chowder with the remains of last year’s frozen corn; and processed a dozen more ears of corn for freezing. 

This is the time of year when tomatoes need to be frozen, or made into sauce, pretty much daily; when there are beans to shell most nights; when the summer squashes need to be made into pies. The broccoli sproutlets become quiche or soup, carrots and beets get roasted, last year’s last bag of shell beans becomes chili.

The gladiolas are in bloom, and the Bells of Ireland are sweet and lovely. The self-seeded salmon-colored Love Lies Bleeding has a stem like a tree, so thick and strong; the scarlet Love Lies Bleeding is pooling its flowers on the ground. Strange and interesting unknown plants have shown up in the middle of the beets, in the middle of the pear’s perennial garden, in the middle of the green beans. The bees are busy, busy, busy, and Buzzy Boy and his kin will be leaving soon for their long trip south. He paused and hovered in front of the kitchen window, today, during a break in the rain, peering in to see what I was up to. After he flew off, I hustled out to check the hummer feeders, and discovered they were almost empty, so I made some fresh food for him. Don’t leave until after the hurricane’s finished, Buzzy, please!

French pumpkins taking over the garden

 Sept 9

I put the flannel sheets back on my bed this morning, so you can be certain we’ll soon have hot and humid weather again. Don’t take your air conditioners out of the windows yet!

I love my garden. My garden isn’t relaxing – because I grow most the vegetables we eat through the year, planting has to happen when it’s time, despite the weather; vegetables have to be harvested and processed when they’re ready, whether I feel like it or not; weeds have to be yanked, bugs have to be conquered, and my garden’s a little too big for someone who also works full time to  take care of it easily. There’s never time to just sit and contemplate it.

 

But part of what I love about the garden is the stuff I can’t control, and how it’s different every year. I haven’t planted California poppies or dill in years, and yet every year there are plenty of each. This year my giant sunflowers are small-flowered but tall with many branches and blooms, and the shorter sunflowers are giant-flowered. There’s a toad family living somewhere in the garden – I’ve seen two adults and a bunch of little thumb-nail-sized babies. My Buzzy Boy and Ms Buzzy are still very busy amongst the scarlet runner bean flowers, and still herd me back to the house at dusk. Black-eyed Susans, daisies, and white violets have emerged from somewhere and make themselves comfy here and there in the garden, and every year – and every week – things change.

Cedar waxwings share the blueberry patch, swallows and dragon flies sweep through the garden snatching up flying bugs. I never know for certain who I’ll meet in the garden, and the bouquets that come out of it are always gorgeous. My French pumpkins have turned their light pink  color, and are starting to make the warty lines that the sugars form on the outside of the shell as they ripen. 

The sugar warts starting to form on the pumpkins

This time of year I’m tired, and sick of it, but man, I still love it. And I’ll be very sorry when it’s over. I hope we have a long, comfortably warm autumn. And I hope at some point I get the chance to just sit and admire it!

All photos Deb Marshall or Charley Freiberg