This Year's Gardens: Part 11

 This year's gardens continue. I just this morning started clearing out the Hej garden to replant zucchini in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, we get a crop. I have had a month of more medical appointments than I want (August has contained eight—count 'em! Eight!—counting the two this coming week) and they take a toll on my durability, so I suspect it will next weekend before the Hej is cleared, tilled again, and planted. That task aside, I continue to eat tomatoes (Oh, joy! Rapture!) and think about doing yet another batch of pesto with the late August basil. 

This weekend, however, I was reminded again (always) of how gardens never fail to delight and amuse. This year's gardens are no exception.

Delight #1: Any other summer, the lettuce is usually burnt out by mid-July due to heat and sun. Oh, there are a few straggly bits here and there, and sometimes a volunteer or two will pop up in the fall once things cool down, but lettuce is NOT a summer crop around here.

Until this year. The lettuce beds are going strong and we are in the third week of August. We have been picking and eating the Black Seeded Simpson since early July (maybe late June) and now are adding the Butter Crunch to the salad bowl as well. Fresh-picked lettuce is so delicious that I told Warren I am not sure I can return to eating store-bought lettuce when the season is over. I have not bought tomatoes from a grocery store for years because of the qualitative difference; I wonder if lettuce will be the same. 

I remind myself that back in my youth, lettuce out of season was something you did not see in our local grocery stores. Can we go without lettuce-based salads for several months? Hmmn.

Delight #2: Still in the lettuce bed, but this is a totally unexpected joy. Because the lettuce burns out so early, I have never seen it go to seed. Ever. I could not even visualize a lettuce plant going to seed. 

Until this year. The Black Seeded Simpson has been so hearty and so prolific that it has started to flower. I nipped off a number of the flowering heads to prolong the lettuce, but some I am letting go to full flower. 

A flowering lettuce plant is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. 

Look how delicate those flowers are.

I did not note in my gardening book anything more than the names and locations of the lettuce beds in my garden, but from what I can find online from checking a number of seed companies, Black Seeded Simpson is a heritage lettuce, which means they will grow from saved seed. I am tempted to harvest some of the seeds and hold them for next year.

Amusement of the summer (as in "the joke is on me"): the Cherokee Trail of Tears black pole beans. Not the product; these beans are prolific! No, it is my ignorance in realizing how these beans (and maybe all pole beans) take care of themselves when it comes to drying. I went out to pick more of them today and realized about three bean pods into the harvest that they have been drying themselves. All I need to do was pick them and pop the pods open. Out roll those beautiful beans. 

"Why have you been working so hard, April? We know what we are doing."

My beans picked last week were fine; I dried them for soup when the weather changes. Today's beans will join those, but right now today's beans are laughing at me, saying "Duh, April. You don't know beans about beans." 

As this realization hit me (the work being done by the sun and the beans themselves), I thought back to my past experiences with beans. There were always beans in my grandparents' garden; Grandma Nelson canned green beans by the quart. My parents also grew beans and Mom canned as well. Heck, even I grew and canned beans. But they were bush beans, always something in what I will call the "green bean" family, and you ate them fresh or canned them, period. I have no memories, even stories passed down, of anyone growing pole beans (which can also be eaten fresh). I do not remember seeing poles or structures for them in any of the gardens. I certainly do not have any memories of anyone (and this would have been on my dad's side of the family, as they were the ones whose gardens I knew growing up) drying beans. 

But now I know. 

A phrase several of my medical providers have been using lately is "knowledge is power, " referring to some of the testing I have been going through. I am going to steal that phrase and apply it to my beans: Knowledge IS power, and the power here is not working so darn hard for the same outcome! 

Today's haul 

This Year's Gardens: Part 10

Cherokee Trail of Tears Heritage Pole Beans

The gardens continue to baffle and amaze. There are no other words.

I have made it official: the zucchini garden is a total loss. TOTAL. However, there may be a ray of possibility. I went to our local Farmers Market this Saturday in search of zucchini to prepare and freeze for the winter. Only two vendors had it at all. The first vendor said they had had trouble with it this year, a first for them. The second vendor, who had more zucchini at his stand, listened to my description of what I had seen in the garden, furrowed his brow, and made some suggestions as to what it might have been. (And given the state of the cabbage and cauliflower in that same garden, I think he was on point.) He then said he was getting ready to do a third planting, just for household use. "You have any seeds left?" Yes, I still do. He suggested I clear out the debris, till, plant (no starting inside, just straight up planting), and see what I get, saying there should be enough warmer weather left to get one more crop in. 

I'm game. I know I will have some limitations on my physical capacity, but heck, why not try it? Worst thing that can happen is the zucchini comes up and gets destroyed again. To give the plants half a chance, I will try to be better at (mostly) keeping the weeds down. 

Related somewhat to the whole Hej garden issues (the zucchini, the cabbage, the cauliflower losses), I am (as always) thinking about how to make it work better next year. There is a gardening account I follow sporadically on Instagram, and a few days ago someone (they have many people who post) put up a 3-tips video. Tip #1? Grow red cabbage, which bugs abhor; they go after the green cabbage. 

Bingo: my red cabbage has been virtually untouched. The green I will be pulling up and throwing out when I clear the Hej garden for a second attempt at a zucchini crop. Next year: red only. I can plant them in the Hej garden and clear up space in the kitchen garden. 

In the kitchen garden, the tomatoes are finally ripening and I am in tomato heaven. I will get a few more peppers, but those plants were too shaded by the tomatoes and pole beans to do well. (Not to mention the enormous leaves the red cabbage put out early that totally shaded everything around each one of them.) 

Warren, knowing my frustrations this year and looking ahead to next year, suggested I plant the tomatoes on the north side, or in the middle, and give the peppers a chance by putting them on the south side. Yep, he is right. We also talked about the burgeoning flower section, cosmos and sunflowers, and how they too take up space. The sunflowers I want to keep in the back against the garage wall, but the cosmos would possibly (maybe?) enjoy the garden bed (also neglected this summer) that runs along the back of our house. I have been collecting cosmos seeds already this month and can see a cosmos project next spring.

The cosmos and the sunflowers

I have been picking the Cherokee Trail of Tears black pole beans. I think I have been late in picking (waiting for them to go totally purple), so I cut up and froze some (to have some night with dinner) and opened up all the other pods to collect the beans inside and dry them for further use from cooking to replanting. 

The beans are beautiful. 

I have more of them coming along in the Hej garden, a few weeks behind these in the kitchen garden. As I said to several friends, no surprise that the beans were the only thing that survived out in that garden. Anything that could survive a forced death march of thousands of miles had to be hearty. And they are. 

Laurie over at The Clean Green Homestead, reminded us in her blog today that while many of us are talking about the end of summer, the midway point of summer on the calendar is August 7. "I'm not wanting to wish these days away," she noted. I smiled; our local schools start this week and for many of us, even without children in school, that signals the end of summer. But I endorse her gentle reminder to savor our days. This household has been running on overload on too many fronts, many of them not within our control, and it has taken a toll. It is good to take a break and to remind myself to relish the day in front of me. 

Grateful and Lucky

My friend Tani recently shared the story that her two sons, when they were young, had a wonderful ritual. When they came across two cherries connected with a single stem, they would hold them up and shout, "I am grateful and lucky!" 

Tani recently bought herself a necklace with a two-cherry pendant on it to remind herself that she is truly grateful and lucky.

I wrote her that her sons' shouts reminded me of Sam, my youngest, when he would have an unexpected surprise, such as finding a penny in a parking lot. He would burst out with a joyful "Is this my lucky day or what?" as he danced up and down in glee.

Grateful and lucky. Both Tani and I have had a heaping serving of health concerns lately, so her words resonated with me. 

In picking tomatoes (yes, they are finally ripening), I found this when I turned them out to wash:

I am grateful and lucky! Is this my lucky day or what? 

This Year's Gardens: Part 9

Finally.

Finally there are tomatoes. Not many, mind you, but for the first time all season, I picked more than two or three:

These are the outliers, but I am grateful they are here.

The large green-red tomato is a Cherokee Carbon Heritage tomato. It turns reddish-purple, supposedly, but it seems to be ripe enough to eat at this stage:

From the bottom, it is red, but not a bright red:

Interesting about the purple, given the name "Cherokee." I have not read to see if the tomato is a heritage from the tribe. But I know the Trail of Tears beans are. The pods of those turn purple when they are ready to pick and eat. I picked this handful the other day to see how "purple" they had to be to eat:

The answer? Pretty purple. The kinda sorta purple ones in the picture are not ready to eat. When totally purple, the bean inside is indeed black. And delicious. And beautiful:

I am about to call the zucchini patch a total loss. I would like to say it is my fault. I have been pretty lackadaisical about tending it and the weeds are rampant. My lack of care has no doubt contributed to the situation. But I find plant after plant dying, shriveling and decaying to nothing. A few have grown into large, healthy plants. But even the healthiest ones seem incapable of having their blooms set. When I take a closer look, I see very tiny insects swarming the plants. They are not ants, they are not winged, but they are everywhere. 

I wonder if they are also the reason that the cabbages and cauliflower in the same garden are chewed with little tiny holes and producing nothing. Nothing. In fact, the only planting in the Hej garden that not only seems healthy but is likely to come to harvest is my second patch of Trail of Tears beans. Thinking of how that bean made it from the 1830s to now, I am not terribly surprised that it is thriving. Its survival capacity is huge.

The flowers are thriving, so there are spots of color and bees everywhere. 

In the coneflowers:

And on the Agastache, which loves its new bed:

Bees are also in the cosmos, which are blooming in colorful bursts, but I have not been hunting them for their closeup shot there. I have been watching instead for a hummingbird, new to our combined backyards this year. I have seen it darting in and out of the cosmos, clearly drawn by the colors, and lingering around the lilies in the back, some of which are deep red.

A hummingbird! A wonder on wings! 

Cosmos without bees or bird

I am pretty much resigned to the reality that we will have to buy zucchini this year to stock our freezer. I might be surprised, but I don't think so. I still have seeds and could always try seeding a new patch, but...we'll see. As I adapt to my own lowering levels of capacity and what I could and could not do this year in the gardens, I know there will be changes next year. 

But there will be tomatoes. And basil. And bees. This year and next.