It's a fact of life that when you garden where we do, we have to say a fond farewell to the garden every fall. Some years it is a quick ending with hard freezes or heavy snow. Other years, like this one, it is more of a long lingering farewell. These are, I believe, the last summer squash from this years garden. We ate them for dinner last night and I have to say they were fantastic. Nothing can beat the flavor of just picked garden vegetables. We also finished the last of our snow peas. Ed's second planting did not do well. Heat stress and hungry insects limited our harvest to just fifteen snow peas. That was not enough to make my favorite recipe, but I added them at the last minute to some garlic chicken and we really enjoyed their bright green color and crunchy texture.
Tonight we will have the last BLTs of the season enjoying the remaining garden tomatoes and Ed's pretty leaf lettuce. This may be the fourth planting this year.
I'm still making herb tea using fresh herbs from the garden. Not all of the spearmint looks this good, but I can still find nice leaves to use. We have of course saved some our garden bounty. We have garlic, onions, potatoes, pumpkins and butternut squash in the basement. I have dried some herbs and some tomatoes. More garden treasure in packed away in the freezer. It's all wonderful, but nothing is the same as fresh. For a four season gardener, the time apart in winter, the anticipation of spring, the summer's rewards and autumn's farewell make the whole experience more special.
Every day there are fewer flowers blooming in the garden. The bees are taking full advantage of the time that remains. We intend to do the same!
