The End (of the Season) Is Nigh

It's early October, and the weather is decidedly cooler. Leaves have changed and litter the lawn and garden. Thankfully, no frosts have hit the garden yet, but the plants are definitely on the way out. Harvesting has slowed down, and my chores inside—freezing, canning, pickling, cooking, storing, drying—have stepped up.

Now seems a good time to provide an overview of the season and how the garden did. That is, which veggies produced loads of food, and which didn't; which new methods or fences or varieties worked, and which didn't; which pests (bugs, varmints) invaded, which got their butts kicked. Herewith my review:

The Bad News First

The biggest disappointment and concern this year probably goes to the tomatoes. Yes, they looked fabulous for most of the summer. Yes, I harvested lots and lots. The Omar's Lebanese were outstanding plants, and this was probably my best year for Brandywines and San Marzanos, which were gigantic.

A small fraction of the tomatoes harvested this year

But a very late blight made a real mess of the end of all the plants and the fruit on them. I never keep a very close tally of all the quarts canned or frozen, the pounds weighed, etc. But I reckon I froze about 12 quarts of tomato puree and 10 quarts of tomato sauce, one large tray of a tomato and squash casserole, 4 pints of pickled cherry tomatoes, and ate about two dozen tomato sandwiches, tons of cherry tomatoes, and a big plate of yummy tomato slices with mozzarella. I estimate that I would have had twice as many to harvest and eat (or give away!) if not for that blight—although I don't think I could have eaten four dozen tomato sandwiches between August 25 (c. when the first tomato was ready) and now.

The side note for tomatoes this year are the volunteers. Matt's Wild Cherry is a variety that never ever goes away, even if you stop planting it. I had so many cherry tomatoes from this variety that I estimate I could have filled 10 pints every other day for three or four weeks straight. Seriously. And there are still more waiting to be picked.

Second place for disappointment belongs to the flea beetle invasion in July. I found ways (with much help from Mike) to water through the devastating drought, but I couldn't fend off the flea beetles, which made a mess of the broccoli, the mustard greens, the kale, and completely destroyed the bok choy. The broccoli is coming back and producing side shoots (esp. the Packman), so not all was lost. The kale has come back, even after the woodchuck chowed down on it and I just picked a bunch of baby mustard green volunteers. Even bok choy has returned in the form of volunteers that decided to pop up in the middle of the radishes, probably because the bok choy was in that bed last year and the seeds just hung out til they were needed.

The Good News

The biggest joy this year was the pumpkins, followed closely by the melons. The pumpkins have grown amazingly! I finally realized it was because I put them where the compost bin had sat three years ago. Doh! I grew large ones (Howden) for the first time in ages, and we've got a real giant (well, by our standards) just starting to turn; the others will make great Jack-o-Lanterns. Plus the New England Pie hills produced four or five beauties for Thanksgiving dinner, and my granddaughter should love the little Jack Be Littles that proliferated like mad. (I think they produced at least 30 and maybe more than that.)

New England Pie, Jack Be Little, and Howden (left to right)

I've tried several times to grow melons, but I never seem to get them in early enough to ripen. This year, I did, as I've eaten a couple cantalopes and one watermelon already, and just picked the rest of the watermelons (we're supposed to have a frost tonight or tomorrow).

Other joys

• I always plant about 6 pots of parsley seedlings, yet just two or three actually grow, and then rather limply. Not this year! I have at least 8 very large and thriving plants, and they look spectacular! I've been picking lots and drying in the oven to pack in spice jars. The same is true of the sage this year, which has spread across the whole back of the herb bed.
• I tried a new variety of radish, Purple Plum, and have decided it's the only kind I'll ever plant again. Well, til the next great variety comes along, maybe, but this one is a real keeper! They grow quickly, they produce beautiful round purple balls with a mild radish taste, and they don't bolt quickly. Can't say enough about this variety.
• I've not been much of a cuke person, but this year I wanted to do better. I gave them a sunnier, larger spot, and tended them carefully (esp. in the drought). Although they finally succumbed to the drought around the end of August, they produced quite well up to that point, and we enjoyed many nights of my favorite cuke salad.
• The first lettuce planting was beautiful! Thick and lush, lots of colors, tasty flavors. Unfortunately, the vole family thought so as well. While weeding, I encountered the buggers and had to take care of the nest and the babies. (For those of you with tender animal sensibilities, I'll refrain from describing this task.)
• The raspberries were wonderful! TBL and I had fun picking them whenever she was here, and we made yummy jam together, a memory I'll treasure. Hope she does too! Now if only I can find time to move them out of the myrtle and up to the woodline where they belong.
• The basil planting was extremely frustrating this year, and I was sure the plants wouldn't make it. The bed got way muddy, and I should have waited to plant, but I needed to be done. I almost lost my shoes several times, and I left big foot-holes in the mud, er, bed. Nevertheless, the plants came along and did just fine. But the basil story this year is the volunteers from last year. I've never ever had basil come up the next year, just from seeds that dropped and "volunteered." This year the lemon and lime basil from last year covered the bed where I planted the winter squash. I've been picking and drying basil, esp. the lemon basil, in big bunches!
• I thought I'd never see my orange and yellow peppers turn, but just in the last week they finally showed their true colors. They're beautiful! I've had a lot of trouble getting orange and yellow peppers to turn, but this year finally brought success. And the red peppers, I might add, have done quite well themselves. Not to mention the Italian and hot peppers.

Calwonder Orange, Early Sunsation, New Ace, Nardello, and Lipstick peppers

Now I must tend to flower bulbs and a couple perennials to ensure next year's flower gardens offer something for me to write about. Oh, and plant the garlic, too. Plus fertilize the beds and cover against the weeds. And, and, and.

Raspberry Surprise

While working frantically to complete all my planting and mulching chores in June and early July, I found time to enjoy one of this year's outstanding—and unexpected—garden treasures: a crop of red and black raspberries.

Wild Raspberries

If you've ever ignored a bed or area of the yard for a year or so—reverting to nature in all its weeds and wildness—you've probably found some thorny bushes growing in it. Around the Northeast, and especially in New York, I've learned that these prickers are really wild raspberry bushes. Where do they come from? Why do they sprout up? Are their roots or seeds hanging around, waiting for you to look away so they can grow again? I have no clue.

But take some care with them and they'll produce yummy berries for you. That's what happened to me this year. I found two or three bushes in a semi-shady spot under the pine trees were producing black raspberries, another half dozen of the same were in the sunny spot just below the woods behind the house, the red raspberries behind the garden were heavy with fruit, and the berry bush on the spite fence was rewarding our work with loads of berries!

Picking and Grinning

I remember picking wild raspberries when I was a kid, and how hard it seemed—at least compared to how many ended up in the bowl. You'd get scratched (wear long pants and a long-sleeved shirt!), it took for-ev-er to fill a medium-sized bowl, and Mom would still tell us it wasn't enough for jam.

I enlisted some help (see photo), and together we made two batches of freezer jam. Now I'm ready to cultivate the berries for next year. I've told Mike we should move a couple bushes to a better spot, clear away some of the weeds, and maybe add some mulch and a fence. Can't wait for next year's crop!

A Row of Hollyhocks

Hollyhocks 2012, a set on Flickr.

We've never really planned the front garden by the road; we just wanted to fill the space cus we didn't want to mow it. So over the years we'd just toss flower seeds of all types out there to see what they'd do. The hollyhocks have always been the happiest in that spot, and this year's crop is just about the best they could be. Take a look at the album and you'll see what I mean.

The Crunch of May

A gardener’s work is never done, but May is crunch-time. All the seeds ordered in January and all the little seedlings carefully nurtured under grow lights need to be planted in the ground. And it seems as though I work night and day to get everything planted. Oh, right: I am!

But May is also when some of my favorite things happen in the garden: the strawberries begin to ripen, the peonies bloom—oh, the peonies!—and the roses open their buds again, and we smell that smell!

We have an awesome rose hedge in front of the house. The plants came from Mike’s grandmother; he says that she was married by a hedge or under an arbor of these sweet flowers and took them home with her, where she promptly planted them and nurtured them her whole life. Mike’s brother took some plants when the farm was near its end, and now we’ve got some growing on our property. The photo shows “Grammie’s roses” and they smell absolutely luscious!

First Beds

The first crops are in! Earlier this week Mike tilled the first bed, and I planted 21 brussels sprouts seedlings and 22 cabbage seedlings. The bed was beautiful, actually, after I'd covered it with fall leaves in October. I think I overdid the amount of leaves, but they're working for now as a mulch around the edges of the bed.

Yesterday Mike tilled the second bed, and I planted two rows each of kale and bok choy. I'm excited about the kale, as I've got five varieties: Tuscan Lacinato, Dwarf Blue-Curled, White Russian, Red Russian, and Green-Curled. I've been planting Black Summer bok choy for years now; it's my all-time favorite for looks and taste, even though the China Choy variety is perfectly fine too.

The bed had extra room (how often does that happen?!), so I also put in the Copra onion plants from Fedco and all my leftover small onions from last year. We'll see what happens!

In the top photo above, you can see the garlic planted last fall, as well as a few transplanted volunteers from last year's garlic bed. I always have tons of volunteer garlic; you'd think I wouldn't need to plant any new. Actually, I haven't bought garlic for planting in ages: I just use extras from the harvest because there are so many!

And They're Off!

This time of year, when I make five to-do lists a day and complain that I'll never get everything done, is like going to the races. It's a race to get all the trays cleaned in time to plant all the seeds. It's a race to plant the seeds in time for their seedling transplanting several weeks later. It's a race to clean up the flower beds for a good mulching that will thwart the weeds. It's a race to move volunteers to their new bed (usually it's garlic and sprawling strawberries). It's a race to get in the onion plants and sets before the seed potatoes arrive. It's a race to get the brassicas planted to make room on the hardening-off porch for the new perennials and standard annuals. Oh, face it: it's a race all season long!

As much as a race, spring gardening feels like a balancing act. I can clean up the outside flower beds when the weather's nice, but if I spend too much time on them, I get behind on seed starting indoors or pot making or tray cleaning. I balance the planting of cool-weather seedlings against the weather forecasts and balance the risk of their demise with the extra time or effort or expense of cold frames, row covers, or more hardening off. Then there's deciding whether to transplant the tomato and pepper seedlings into larger pots or to start the melons and winter squashes.

Nevertheless, I always seem to get enough done to reap huge harvests in the fall, so why the racing around and stress? Because if I weren't racing around, it wouldn't get done and the harvests would be smaller, of course!

Everybody Jump Up!

A few weeks ago I planted quite a few trays with seeds—several perennials and peppers and tomatoes. That's not unusual for this time of year, but I was trying to get a lot done before a 10-day road trip. I'd asked Son #3 and my brother-in-law to water the plants while we were gone and to move the trays to the lights in the basement once the seeds germinated.

Now that we're back, the seedlings are up! How encouraging it is to see all those fragile little seedlings push out of the soil! I'm always astounded at the magic of nature, how the tiny cherry tomato seeds will eventually grow into vines that stretch to eight or more feet, how those stalks will send out tons of suckers and branches and leaves that can cover my hand, how they'll produce clusters of 10 or 15 fruits as big as marbles (the shooters, of course!).

The germination (i.e., success) rate was pretty excellent this year. I planted four trays of peppers, including hot peppers and Italian sweet peppers, and nearly every insert has a plant. The tomatoes did even better, since I put two to three seeds per insert in those trays, and most of them came up. Now they're happy under the lights (just a few inches above them and with the fans going), and I'll be transplanting to larger pots soon.

Speaking of which, I've already begun making the large newspaper pots I need for transplanting tomatoes. So far I've got five trays of 11 pots each. That's 55 tomato plants, but I expect I'll need at least twice that. The peppers get transplanted to plastic pots that work well for them but not as well for the tomatoes.

The garden stores and magazines always seem to produce much sturdier tomato plants than mine—they're a bit leggy and long before they get planted in the garden bed in May—but I haven't noticed that it matters. In 15-plus years of growing tomatoes, and usually 50 or more plants each year, I've seen maybe 10 of mine keel over. I doubt their legginess was the problem, yet the ratio is good enough for me.

Another encouraging sign when I returned from the trip: the brassicas, which were up before we left, are growing well under the lights and the broccoli especially look happy and sturdy. The weather was really warm while we were gone and has since cooled down, but that didn't stop me from beginning the hardening-off process for them this week. I set them outside on the deck in the sunshine for a few hours at a time, then either move them to the (covered) porch or into the house again. You've got to gradually get them used to the outside air—the temperature that fluctuates, the breezes, the bugs—before planting them in the garden beds, so that they're better equipped to survive the transplanting and the new environment.

The hardening-off process is similar to developing a child's immune system. You don't expose newborns to all manner of germ situations because they'd not protected from them yet. You start with Mom and Dad, who wash their hands a lot to handle the new baby. Gradually they stop washing their hands every single time, and they also introduce Baby to Grandma and Grandpa and the siblings, then friends and extended family. By the time Baby is a year old, she's developed a strong enough system to handle a cold bug (albeit not happily!). It's the same with plants, only probably a bit faster.

Cleaning and Coughing

So the seeds have been ordered, and most of them have arrived. Yet before planting can start, the basement needed cleaning. Ugh.

For some reason, every time we clean the basement we get sick, and this year was no different. It's probably all that dust and dirt that accumulates over the summer and fall, which we stir up as we clean.

After a long afternoon of sweeping, vacuuming, rearranging, tossing out old junk, and generally getting the basement in tip-top shape for seed planting, Mike and I both ended up with a cough. Which turned into the flu. With fever, sore throat, stuffy nose, congestion, the works. And it came around a second time for both of us, and a third for him. What we do for our vegetables!

But the place is clean (yay!) and I started right in on planting. I like to make seed pots from newspapers, and bought a groovy tool several years ago that works great. I can make lots of pots in just a couple hours and fill two or three of the trays I use. A bunch of years ago I bought up 25 or so cat litter trays from our local Wegmans for less than $5 apiece. That was one of the best purchases I've ever made for the garden, because they're still going strong 10+ years later. I can fit 35 pots in each tray, and I use them for brassica, corn, squash, melon, parsley, hollyhock, sunflower, and other seedlings that don't much care for root disturbance when planted outside. The trays are really sturdy, deep enough to water the pots well, and withstand the rigors of hardening off. I'd be lost without them!

Another cleaning chore awaited me, though; in fact, it awaits me all spring: cleaning trays. I don't know why I'm so anal about it, because I really do hate this chore. But all my organic resources tell me it's essential to clean—with hot water and soap—all the seed-starting trays and pots, so I do. I scrub the cat-litter trays for newspaper pots, then watch movies while making the pots. I scrub the black seed inserts and trays I've bought over the years (I have stacks and stacks of these things!). And I scrub the three- and four-inch pots for transplanting (more on them later). At least I finally gave in to wearing rubber gloves to protect against scratches from those sharp corners on the inserts.

So now the brassicas (broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts) and kale and bok choy are planted, and all of them have germinated. I talk to my plants all the time, actually, and don't care what anyone thinks about it. Years ago our kids took tae kwon do lessons, and their master would say, "Everybody up!" or "Everybody very good!" They brought those phrases home, and I've been using them on the plants ever since. They seem to like the encouragement!

Death by Seed Catalogs

This year they started arriving in November. I can remember—not many years ago—when the first arrival occurred shortly before New Year's. I think they're trying to tell me that the garden should never ever be out of mind, even in the cold depths of winter.

They're right, of course. Because I had barely finished freezing brussels sprouts and the last batch of butternut squash soup before the Seeds of Change catalog arrived. That one's my favorite, mostly because I trust the purity (read: organic purity) of their products more than anyone else's.

A couple more showed up before the end of the month, and by the time I'd returned from our post-Christmas trip south on January 9, another dozen had filled the mailbox. I finally sat down with them late in January, since there was no denying that the Time Had Come.

I must receive about 20 catalogs, which really isn't all that many, I'm guessing. I actually don't mind getting ones from new suppliers, as I'm hardly ever completely satisfied with any one company. For instance, Seeds of Change has pretty high prices, and the selection seems to be smaller than it used to be. Fedco has low prices and I'm learning to trust them a lot, but the catalog is ugly. The content is clever and lively, but not my style, I'm afraid. Nevertheless, I order more from them than anyone else. Abundant Life Seeds is a nice new supplier I found a year or so ago; they seem mostly decent for organic seeds, and the variety and prices are mostly decent. I'm not sure how much longer I'll order from Johnny's, as it's really hard to find organic seeds for the varieties I want. Some suppliers I've tried and still use for a couple hard-to-find varieties are Pinetree, Territorial (but not this year), Totally Tomatoes, Scheepers, and Cook's Garden. A few years ago I received catalogs from two different flower seed suppliers—Select Seeds and Wildflower Farms. Both have done well for me in price and variety and quality of seed, and I do rely on them for many of my flower seeds.

And of course there are the catalogs from suppliers I don't use anymore: Shumway's and Jung and Burpee and Gurney's. And the garden supply and perennial flower inevitable Michigan Bulb catalogs hop on the bandwagon, too. The stack this year was close to a foot high, fercryingoutloud!

But I have to admit that the excitement builds as I review each cover, leaf through the pages, and sort them into the "yes" and "no" piles. Once I've made the piles, the first big chore of the gardening year commences. It's my seed selection and purchasing chore, and it goes like this:

• identify what I need by checking my existing supply, kept in an airtight bucket in the freezer;
• look through all the catalogs to find the varieties I want or need;
• transfer the names and prices to my Excel chart; review all prices to find the best price for each variety;
• order all of them online, which can be tedious, depending on how the sites are set up and how good their search tools are;
• sit back and wait for the packages to arrive.

 Maybe, just maybe, I'm getting more efficient, since this year's chore seemed way less fraught with anxiety about the order and getting it completed. But I kinda wanted to investigate seed saving and exchange, since I'm feeling pretty worried about seed purity nowadays. So much for any efficiencies!