It’s a whole lot like taking down Christmas decorations, and equally as depressing. Closing up the garden for the season is far from a favorite chore, but with the leaves falling precipitously, our upcoming weekends will be busy with a blower and a mower so today had to be the day. In truth, it was a beautiful day for it. Sixty degrees with bright sunshine made it a no-sweat, no-chill activity, as if Mother Nature knew even the slightest weather excuse would be all we needed to postpone the event once again.
Opening the gate, James immediately spied fresh fall raspberries. Much like our strawberries this year, we didn’t expect to have any harvest at all from the new plants, but we have been delighted with the fresh fruit that has grown seemingly with little effort or care. There were even a few strawberries on the ever-bearing plants, although they didn’t look like they had much flavor to them. It was as if the garden was reminding us of its value, even though we were there to pull and dump and weed and cut back.
I cleared the zucchini and cucumber bed first. It was basically just larger-than-life marigold plants that had taken over at this point, with the zucchini and cukes long gone, and even the marigolds were on their last blossoms. The marigolds, however, might be my biggest success story of the season. Perhaps one of the easiest plants to grow, I’ve always had trouble starting them from seed – until this year. As I pulled the huge plants, still flowering from the bed, I had to acknowledge that at least I had done one thing right this growing season.
I always feel like I owe my garden an apology in late August. Having cared for these plants since they arrived at my house as seeds in February, once school starts, the garden becomes second best (or third or eighth) and is left to grow wild and unruly. It takes full advantage of that freedom, so I was not expecting many carrots in the next bed to actually still be worth picking, but there they were, tucked into the rich soil as if they were just waiting for me today.
Working through the carrot bed, finding carrot after carrot, I felt my spirits rise. It felt a little less like a chore and a little more like the actual desire to be in the garden this morning. As I filled a couple vegetable carriers with my carrot crop and created a large pile of greens that I knew the cows would love, I started to feel like maybe my garden had again been more successful than I had originally thought.
James cleared what was left of the tomato plants and then pulled up the yellow onions. I can’t explain why my red onions started out so well and then just died, but we did get enough yellows to last us for at least a little while. They aren’t very big, but they are something to enjoy in soups and dinners all winter.
When I reached the row of peppers, I was shocked to see so many still growing on the plants. Even after I picked off all the useable ones, there were still many small starts left on the plants that I pulled up out of the soil. September had apparently been a very good month for the pepper plants. With our salsa canning done for the season and my preference for fresh peppers, not frozen, these will go with James to work in a sweet barter that delights a co-worker to have fresh produce and rewards James with authentic tamales. The peppers, it seemed weren’t just going to bless us this year, but would bless others as well.
The herb bed is always my favorite to weed or prune. It just delights the senses so! It was as aromatic today as ever and with some of the plants having flowered, there were pretty colors amongst the green. We trimmed the oregano and thyme back as they were taking over and produced far more than we could ever use. I cut back the sage and wondered how I might use that plant differently as it grows so well, but we use very little. We clipped off the rosemary and thyme and will hang those in the house to dry. The basil was the last to go from the garden. A huge armful was piled onto the tailgate to be washed, plucked and dried. We enjoyed so much of it in fresh caprese salad this summer and we will continue to enjoy it in so many recipes until next summer when we can have it fresh again.
As we closed the gate behind us, leaving the garden to relax and rejuvenate for several months, we walked to the truck, noticing the unexpected harvest that filled the tailgate. From herbs to peppers to carrots and onions, we certainly left with far more than we expected to find today. I silently thanked the beautiful picket-fenced part of our property for providing for us even when we hadn’t had the time or inclination to be out there much at all in the last month.
A day of dreaded chores had turned into a day of bounty. We had to look beyond the weeds and take the time to dig down into the earth and ourselves, but the blessings were right there waiting for us just beneath the surface.
Blessed Little Things 