Garden Goodbyes

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!

Friday Firsts

For some time we have been  enjoying our fields of milkweed flowers.  Their fragrance is intoxicating.  We are not the only ones who find it so, the meadow has been buzzing with bees in recent weeks.   Usually by this time we  have seen  lots of  Monarch butterflies flitting around but so far we have seen only the orange of Checker butterflies.

Some of the flowers have already gone past and  milkweed seedpods are beginning to form.  At last today we saw our first Monarch butterfly in the garden.  It was only one so far, but it is a start.

Ed was out in the garden early trying to beat the heat.  Here he waters the second planting of summer squash and zucchini.  This may be a little late since we usually have a late September frost but if we don't plant seed now we can be certain that there will be no more squash then.  At least this way we have a chance. We picked  our first summer squash from the garden today, and I have my eye on a beautiful green zucchini for tomorrow.

Ed has been tending his tomatoes, watching for a sign of red.  I had been watching a cherry tomato beginning to turn red and today when I walked in the garden I was thrilled to find three ripe red tomatoes.  One of them was about the size of a pea, but it was red just the same.  I had not noticed the ripe yellow tomatoes before, but there were four or five of those.  I have  to admit I popped one in my mouth right out there in the garden.  It was delicious warmed by the sun.  The rest I brought inside to join the summer squash for our evening meal.   I hope all of these garden treats are just the first of many!

Borer Wars:A Losing Battle

The casualties are mounting. The acorn squash...GONE. The Hubbard squash...GONE. Some small pumpkins managed to survive. The yellow squash and zucchini are struggling. We are still getting a few, but it's tough and now powdery mildew has joined on the side of the enemy.

The butternut squash are the heroes this year. True to the promises of the seed catalogs, they seem to be borer resistant. We will regroup for a new onslaught in the spring. We have all winter to prepare.

The First Sunflower

I know I should at least wait until the flower is open , but sorry, I just can't. These sunflowers are one of my very favorite things in the garden. You will be seeing more of them. Another of my pop- up- everywhere- from- seeds plants, the sunflowers came originally from some Budgie seed that I planted a long time ago. They are not just a single stem flower, you can see a second bud in the picture. It's more of a sunflower bush. This one is planted right in front of the house and with the reflected light off the white siding it gets full sun and a half.

We are having other firsts as well. I picked my first summer squash, first zucchini and first parsley. Dinner last night was a delicious reminder of why we grow garden vegetables.

The other first this morning was the close encounter Ed had with a coyote in the side yard. As he was coming out of the house and up the stone ramp from the basement , he saw the coyote between the compost bin and the shed. Their eyes met and after a time the coyote turned and he and Ed went their separate ways. I'm not quite so brave, I 'm sure seeing the coyote that close would have brought one of my shrieks and both of us would have beat a hasty retreat.

Borer Wars

We have planted squash here for more than a decade. Only the first year's crop was undamaged by the squash vine borer. Since then the harvest has gone mostly to the insect. Not one to give up easily, I am still trying to win this one. The first line of defense is this tunnel of insect barrier. The zucchini, yellow summer squash, acorn squash, butternut squash, and the pumpkin seeds were all carefully planted and then covered to ward off attack from the air. The squash were to remain covered until the plants were large. The hail storm put a lot of holes in that plan, but the squash were protected in their tunnel. Not even a single leaf suffered a hail strike.


The freshly uncovered squash plants were weeded and mulched with straw.


So far the squash bed is looking great! Ed has further plans to outwit these nasty insects. He planted golden Hubbard squash, supposedly the borer's favorite, in a different area of the garden. These plants, started much later than the others, are small and tender and we hope irresistible. With any luck these plants will show the leaf wilt that signals the invasion of the larva while the main crop goes to us.