But the birds are singing the winter silence away.
The lettuce has shot to the sky.
The poppies didn’t sprout but their compost gives gifts attuned to the season.
It’s not spring.
Tag Archives: tomatoes
Travel companions.
We’re looking at dates now. Perhaps we leave in a month. Perhaps longer. In all the planning there is, planning which plants to try and bring, which to give away, and who, if anyone, is eager to garden-sit… is quite overwhelming.
The three blackberries will go to a friend. The potted plum to my in-laws. Perhaps they’d like the blueberries, too.
Do you think this giant chard would mind two weeks in damp newspapers if I gave it a severe haircut first?
I’m tempted to harvest tomatoes green and wrap them in paper. A book I’ve just received discusses the method as a winter storage option. Surely it’s possible for any green tomatoes you might need to pick early.
The onions started falling over, so I’m starting their curing in batches. Trying this, learning that, one group of toppled tops at a time.
And then there are the carrots to pickle and the cucumbers to… pickle. Perhaps some dry beans will dry in time.
But I believe these are the last of my seeds I’ll sow for awhile. And I’ll never eat the sweet potatoes, okra, or melon on their way. I hope the popcorn finish as we’re ready to pack them in, and that the sweet corn make a delicious farewell feast appearance.
I’ll not count the gardens I’ve started and said goodbye to. I’ll remember this one as the best yet and the breeding ground for making home-farm dreams seem achievable. And I’ll miss it dearly, idyllically, forgetting the summer’s blasting heat coming and the bare earth during planting’s “winter” in the dead of July and August.
“It’s just survival”
“Do you want to get away to the garden for a bit?“
It’s a kind question. An offer. The answer is yes (always, always, always yes.) I extract myself from limbs, ceding my space as headrest, blanket, octopus, to him.
I take the dog, who is missing his ‘brother,’ and am ‘caught’ by the dog catcher for not having him on leash before he attempts to elevate his lead butt into the back of the car. I assure her I have the leash and am simply getting him in the car. She is nonplussed. I don’t actually care.
There’s one other gardener when we arrive. Parked where I park. I park by a different gate.
I hear a drill. A hammer. I gather my remembered things, check my mask, and I see him. His plots are across from one of mine, between my two. He’s constructing a gate.
When it’s time to switch plots and we plod by, I comment on the rabbits. “It’s just survival” he says. I nod, agreeing that everything has a stomach. He chortles.
And we’re done. Back to our attempted solitude, shared.
It begins to rain. I haven’t remembered the right tool to cut the Brussels’ trunks. I go about removing sad leaves and harvesting what’s left. The rain increases. Tucked in a ball, low and small, the Brussels sprouts’ canopy shelters me mostly from the angled drops. I continue.
A whine. A soft, slow not-whimper. I look over. My dog is melting. Trying not to, attempted stoicism, but failure.
I pack up, trek my refuse to the compost bin, and load my grateful pooch into the back, with a leash, but with a running start.
Come walk with me, 6 feet apart.
Bastards.
No, not those ones.
Not that one either.
The ones that did this:
Probably the same ones:
All this carnage right next to this beaut:
I see you.
Is it too soon?
To sow beans? And squash? And corn? And and and?
Well… yes… outside.
But inside? Nah…
And I haven’t had a successful second sprouting of peppers yet. The front porch forgotten greenhouse may have me destined for the nursery.
The tomatoes
and sunflowers
are still growing strong, though.
Never mind the extinction of that dinosaur.
I can eat that.
The henbit has been loving this weather. It also has been possibly choking out the brassicae sprouts. But also possibly hiding them from the nibbling critters.
I hedged my bets on preventing choking and risking chomps. We’ll see…
The leeks from Dixondale Farms finally found their earthen homes. All ~120 of them. At least they freeze well.
This was the fingerling potato bed. After digging the whole way over it was discovered that the ~12 we buried grew into…3. Too many freezes without cover took them out. So those three are saved for a few weeks when it’s time to try another sowing.
In tomato and pepper (and flower!) news: I, of course, checked for sprouts again this morning. We’re still about five days from the earliest realistic possible growth. I did borrow the instant read thermometer from the kitchen to check the heating pad transference to the soil. 75 degrees F was the goal and exactly where it was. Huzzah!
Over here, the cabbage is happier than the henbit – hooray!
Behind.
I think I’ve felt behind on this every year since the first year.
Tomatoes and peppers of varieties that the nursery will have no backups for. These sprout and thrive or we don’t have them.
An early eager helper turned bored companion quickly yesterday. It’s tricky to enjoy this winter ritual when being harped upon to play something more fun. This is play for me, but work for her.
And then a nap ended and out emerged a bewildered boy. An eager helper beside me once more, who found Papa’s favored pepper seeds that I had overlooked. Peace, for a moment or twelve.
And then his way awoke. Seeds pressed down nearly an inch into the soil, coaxed back to the top, boiled an eruption to the surface within him and I was once again with irritated companions of proximity.
There’s a wiring in her that won’t likely loosen on enjoying plant chores. She has it as deeply set for enjoying the care of animals.
There’s an opposing wiring in him, as there oddly often is, to decline playing dinosaurs with her to help me plant, provided My Way doesn’t over exert itself.
And so I will learn to give more give in my plans, build in cushions of time and space where needs be, so my worry about the impossibility of backups doesn’t tarnish, or simply crumble, the enjoyment of the season.
(And yes, I did check the seed tray first thing this morning to see if any miraculously fast sprouting had occurred overnight. It never has and yet I always check.)
Slush hunting.
The freeze came.
The hottest September on record followed by the coldest November 1st.
Sweet (potato) neighbors creating safe haven for small (golden cherry tomatoes) to survive.
But that’s not what I’m hunting for.
I hunt a little differently than many hunters.
But I bring home a haul all the same.
Tomorrow will be more of the same, as I’ve still more than half way to go here, and two more spots in the garden for hunting.
Like here. Where the sheets didn’t fully protect the green beans in the background.
plumdirt 