Late summer blues

It is the end of August. My children have returned to school and life in my household has become once again a frenzy of activity. My eldest has just started a science program at a local college, my middle child started a new high school and my little one is in her last year of elementary school. I now need to learn the new systems, fill in countless forms and start harassing my kids about homework and practising musical instruments and Bat Mitzvah lessons. My job is crazier than ever with four staff out on full or partial sick leave, and two new people just starting. The Jewish new year and fall holiday cycle is beginning just after labour day and we are preparing for that as well. Dinner at my house. A visit to my in-laws who, due to health issues will not be able to join us for the holidays. Learning to negotiate all the new challenges my teenagers are throwing at me daily. Driving lessons. Voice lessons. Violin lessons. Basketball. The dramas and complexities of relationships. I felt for the first time since I have undertaken this gardening lifestyle that it was becoming yet one more burden in a life overcrowded with obligations and undertakings for which there was never enough time. It did not help that my garden was throwing as many challenges at me as rewards: cucumbers decimated by evasive beetles, tomatoes which despite spraying with hydrogen peroxide regularly are still plagued by bacteria, despite copious applications of coyote urine, the damn squirrels beheaded the only two sunflowers large enough to produce sunflower seeds for human consumption, tomatoes and peppers woefully late. My basil has not grown enough yet for a second harvest.  I am continuing to spray for aphids but have not wiped them out yet. If the frost comes early like last year, we will not have enough tomato purée and hot peppers to  get through the year. We have just finished last years'  pesto and are on the last container of hot sauce just out of the freezer yesterday.

We do have some exciting highlights. Yesterday I checked on the progress of the potatoes, hoping we could pick some small, new potatoes to serve for Rosh Hashana dinner. To my surprise, I pulled a full sized beautiful red potato from just below the hay. Tomorrow I harvest my first batch of potatoes. To my surprise, I thought that there was a tomato plant I had not noticed growing in the potato patch. I thought I had identified the few stray volunteer tomato plants which had randomly popped up here and there, and staked them up. This one was dragging on the ground, and looked remarkably like the potato plants. It had a cluster of six green tomatoes, though. As I was trying to drive a bamboo stake in to prop it up, I noticed another plant with a cluster of tomatoes. I checked the leaves of the plant and compared it to the tomato plants and the potato plants and discovered it was not a tomato despite the fruits. Josh called his mother who confirmed that potatoes do indeed produce a tomato-like fruit which is not edible. I decided to forget the stakes and just leave the plant to sprawl as I would be harvesting this weekend. This morning, Josh did the first harvest by sweeping his hand on the surface of the ground just below the hay and picked enough potatoes to eat all week, even with Rosh Hashana dinner.

I have managed to keep my green onions, planted from the ends of one pack we bought at the grocery store back in June, producing all summer long. We just popped the cut root ends in a pot and I cut the shoots whenever I need to and they keep growing back. I am not going to grow them from seed next year.

Josh spoke to our friend and gardening maven Alex who complained that his poppies did not do well this summer either, so I should not despair and try again next year. I did get some isolated blooms, one at a time, which did not have the desired effect but was complemented by the nasturtiums surrounding them which had a fantastic summer. Can't win them all.

 

 

I have also started to cull my carrots. Despite having completely messed up by planting them densely together (those damned seeds are very small), I have been able to selectively pick some decent "baby carrot" sized carrots. I am leaving the small ones, and hoping my selective picking will allow them to grow too. They are delicious. My garlic is still hanging to dry but we have been using it as needed and it is glorious, juicy and bursting with flavour. I hope it lasts longer this year. Last year we ate it all within three months. We have a lot more this year, but much of it turned out small so I am not sure if we are that much ahead. I will keep you posted. The tomatoes are now ripening, and I have thus far filled two large ziploc bags with tomato pulp to make sauce at a later date.
My hibiscus is in bloom, and I now remember why I have not managed to keep hibiscus alive despite multiple attempts to do so as houseplants in the past. They need a lot of water and wilt quickly. I will do my best. This particular plant has wide, flat flowers of a beautiful shade of fuchsia. I now have more pink and purple (hibiscus, morning glory, cosmos) complementing yellow/orange (black eyed-susans, sunflowers, nasturtiums) in the garden, with the annuals still going strong. The peas have just about finished and the beans are still going. I planted some new lettuce and I think I saw a baby or two coming up, and some of the alpine strawberries are flowering and fruiting again now. I am drinking lots of mint tea, and using fresh herbs daily. I also picked a bouquet of small sunflowers, marigolds and a dahlia which looked fantastic. I have enough growing that I felt it was okay to pick some for the table. I am starting to have more ripe sunflowers, and as they are the smaller varieties only I am leaving some as outdoor birdfeeders (seeing some nice birds including finches in the back) and have given one today to my bird Coco. I tried one a few weeks ago and he did not seem to know he was supposed to eat the seeds, but today he got the idea and was hanging upside down off the bars of his cage above the food dish where I put the flower and just going at it. He was very pleased with the gift.