At this time of the year it is so gratifying to go out into the vegetable garden and be able to bring in some of the fruits of our labor to enjoy! It has been a very rainy summer so some things have not grown as well as one would hope, but other things don't seem to have let the excess moisture deter it. The red potatoes have done well and are quite abundant. In fact they are doing so much better than last year when we had no rain for weeks on end, but we did have plenty of brilliant sun. This year is the reverse.
The zucchinis, on the other hand are probably the most pathetic that I have ever grown, ( or maybe, "tried to grow" would be more like it!) Of the 3 plants out there, only one of them has any fruit at all, and then only one small zucchini was even edible. The other one was going rotten because of the contact with the wet ground.
The rhubarb was huge as usual this year and was one of the first things I harvested. (The chives plants were actually the very first thing that we could eat. Being perennials, they got a jump ahead of most other plants and grew extremely well also.) I made some jam and did a fair amount of baking with rhubarb. One plant still has a large number of stems on it.
The dill is finally at the stage where it is worth cutting. I have spearmint and ginger mint growing well in pots on the deck, too. I must remember to bring it inside to dry before the frost.
We were also pleased with the spinach and enjoyed many salads and cooked spinach. And of course the lettuce did well, the butter crunch head lettuce, the leaf lettuce and the romaine. The lettuce has bolted now, but some of it is still very tasty.
The Swiss Chard is huge and has outdone itself. We love to boil it in some salt water and then fry some onions in butter and add the boiled swiss chard to the pan. The young leaves are also good in a salad.
I started some spaghetti squash plants from seeds in the spring and I was astonished to see that the plants which were so tiny for so long, have grown huge while we were away. Now there is one big green squash growing on the biggest vine! I look forward to trying that once it ripens!
Tonight we ate fresh red potatoes and baby carrots from the garden. There are no better tasting potatoes in the world than that!
The tomato plants in the garden are large and healthy looking. Most of them have fruit, but none of the fruit is turning red yet. We did eat 2 red tomatoes about 5 weeks ago from one of the plants, but nothing since. We may have to pick the tomatoes regardless and take them into the house to ripen there, since the weather forecast is for frost for 3 nights in a row this weekend. It seems way too early!
There are 3 tomato plants in pots on the deck. The cherry tomato has been providing a handful of tiny, red fruit for weeks now. The 2 Black Crim heritage tomato plants, which I grew from seed are still pretty small. One of them has 2 medium sized tomatoes on it, though. The other.... nothing. At least those 3 pots can be brought in the house if the weather doesn't cooperate to give them a little longer growing season.
Today we transplanted 3 little saplings which were growing in the vegetable garden. I had planted them there last fall to allow them to grow another season so there would be more chance of success in transplanting them. The little poplar was the easiest to move because I had planted it in the ground, pot and all. It also had grown the least for the very same reason.
We planted the poplar and the 2 Manitoba Maple trees in the treed area behind our fire pit. There is a big stand of poplars there now, but many of them are dead or dying. They were providing privacy from the road, so I am hoping the 3 new saplings will grow well and will provide the same service.
The unfortunate part of transplanting the maples was that all the dirt fell away from the root balls and it is always harder on a plant to transplant it with bare roots. My husband dug the holes and we filled it partly up with good soil and water, then put each tree in and filled it with more soil and water. I must remember to keep them well watered to help them adjust, unless we get a lot of rain.
As I mentioned, we have a frost warning for this weekend. Last year we had a very late first frost. The trees still had most of their leaves on them well into October when the frost came. It was a really wicked hard frost, too and the leaves actually froze right on the trees and stayed there most of the winter! It looked very odd. I believe that that's very hard on the trees, too.
But, in the end, mother nature does what she wants regardless of our wishes.
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