New England Gardener

My absence from the blog for the last month pretty much reflects my life as a gardener. I’m wildly enthusiastic in May and June, celebrating every shoot and pod. By July and August, my enthusiasm gives way to methodical labor; weed-water-harvest-replant. By September and October, I’m down to a few quick harvesting missions.
So when my son asked if I was sad to say goodbye to the garden today, I said no without a second thought. I’m a four season girl and it’s time to put the garden to bed.
Sure, I’m jealous of the warm weather folk when I visit my Florida in-laws in March. (I swear I can smell the soil over the jet fuel when I get off the plane in West Palm Beach.) But year round gardening would become a chore for me.
And so on this chilly October Sunday, we ripped out the brown shriveled basil, lamented, briefly, the third crop of beans that never produced, untangled the squash vines, and left the last two brussel sprouts that should produce a few more few side dishes.

And Just as we did back in early May, my husband, son and I shoveled manure from a nearby horse farm onto the raised bed. The difference now is that my almost 4 year old has become a farmer. Without questions or whining, Zach went to the shed, grabbed his wheelbarrow and shovel, attacked the compost pile, only asking for direction once with a jaunty “where do you want it, Mommy?”
Now I can’t say for sure that it’s a summer’s worth of fresh organic vegetables that made the difference, more likely the passage of time, but it was a pleasure watching him grow along with the Just Add Water garden over the last six months.
I look forward to gardening with all of you again next spring!

All the talk is of how this fall foliage season in as good as it gets here in New England. The cold wet summer of 2009 was torture for tomatoes and pumpkins, but good for a bounty of beauty in our hardwood Forest. This golden tree is always first to turn in our neighborhood. But not all trees are beautiful. Do you notice a red vine running up some trees around your home? The red vine may be pretty, but the tree it’s climbing may be doomed.

The red vine is one of the many invasive vines spreading throughout the northeast.

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NECN’s Anya Huneke says apple picking season is officially underway in Vermont, and as of now, this is looking to be a terrific year.

For her day off of work, Allison Hale of Burlington, Vermont, decided this would be the perfect activity. Around lunchtime, accompanied by their appetites, she and Mike McGonegal made the trip to Shelburne Orchards to welcome in fall with a bag of hand-picked apples.

Orchards across Vermont are starting to bustle with activity, as crowds turn out to pick what many farmers say is looking to be a bumper crop — in part because of, not despite, the rainy summer weather that has plagued many other crops.

Another likely beneficiary of this summer’s wet weather is the fall foliage, just starting to show its colors in Vermont. Tourism officials say moisture is a key ingredient in bright displays, and the warm days and cool nights we have had recently, have only helped.

Some college students at Holy Cross are digging deep in a major effort to help feed the hungry.

By mid-September, I’m all about harvesting and not much else in the garden. I overlook weeds and watering and only ponder insect infestations if supper is threatened. But experience has taught me that it pays to take a few minutes to review the season’s successes and failures before the leaves fall. Taking notes now will prevent me from attacking the garden catalogs like a sailor with scurvy come February.

As you know, I started the season with seed suggestions and a 10′ by 10′ layout from the great gardeners at Johnny’s Selected Seeds here in Maine. For the most part, their varieties and succession planting ideas worked well, but I will make a few changes next year based mostly on personal preferences. (Click on layout to the right if you’re curious about what I grew.)

Working with their plan encouraged me to try some new veggies. I’ve discovered that I like chard and LOVE summer squash. We’ve been doing ratatouille with squash, zucchini, basil and (sigh) canned tomatoes for the last month in my house. Even the little guy likes it. I’ve also concluded that for me, kale will go back to being an ornamental plant. Are we sure it’s food?

I had bad luck with some transplants. Neither my cuke or basil seedlings fared as well as the plants that were sowed from seed into the garden. Next year, I won’t bother starting those indoors.

The peas, beans, lettuces and spinach have all been delicious. All will be invited back.

Thanks to the confines of the 10′ by 10′ space, I found I was much more disciplined about succession plantings. In the past I tucked veggies all over my garden beds and sometimes forgot about them. Not this year. Even in mid-September, every inch of the Just Add Water garden is still producing. Beans are coming up in the tomato graveyard. New rows of lettuce and spinach are launched next to the beans. I tucked in some discounted celery and cauliflower seedlings where the peas once grew. Those will be harvested in the coming weeks. The buds on my brussel sprouts are starting to swell. And the chard, carrots cucumbers and squashes are growing like gangbusters.

Regrets. I’ve had a few. I’ve already said too much about the tomatoes, but that was the nadir. I also regret not planting several crops of carrots. Johnny’s layout called for only a mid-summer planting, but in my house, raw carrots are served at every meal. Next year, I’ll start sowing carrot seeds as soon as the ground is warm enough. That reminds me, I plan to lay black plastic down next spring and purchase a soil thermometer. I definitely would have forgotten that idea over the winter!

What lessons does your garden have to share? If you’re like me, you won’t remember them in February and by then your garden won’t be in the mood for conversation.

I just wanted to write 09-01-09.. Welcome to September in New England 2009 where we may actually have a week without a Hurricane Threat. Our NECN forecast shows sunshine into Labor Day. I am taking advantage of a quiet weather pattern to talk about, and hopefully, get some time in, the garden. There has been no improvement to my tomatoes, many of the vines have completely died. I left the tomatoes on the vine anyway, though I am sure they would ripen equally if I picked them on placed on the window sill.

During my last in depth discussion, my final though was ‘more on pumpkins next time’. I was going to talk about pruning the vines to possibly increase quality, perhaps at the expense of quantity. I was going to reduce the number of vines from the individual plants. But.. I never got to pruning those vines, now the pumpkins have taken over. I agree with Amy form her weekend post, pumpkins are easy to grow, but you never know how many you are going to get.

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