frost warning for tonight.

not much left in the gardens that will be
hurt by frost so that is ok.

yet, i'm struggling with acceptance that
the gardening season is almost over when it
comes to what we have planted, what we will
harvest yet and such.

we do not have a lot of cold winter crops
in. nor will we likely ever have (because
most of them Ma won't eat or use). silly to
me, but i just try to work around what i can.

again, acceptance.

the tomatoes, well, most of them were picked
and then buried to feed the worms. we'll likely
have about 35 quarts of chunks put up (a normal
year we put up 100-150 quarts of tomato chunks
and tomato juice). c'est la vie.

onions doing well, fennel mostly picked and
eaten, beets still need to be picked and put up,
a few melons, dunno if they will be ripe or not,
sure that a frost won't be good for them, hope
we actually do not get that cold tonight after
all.

rest of the things to do are mostly picking
the dry bean crop when they get ready enough to
pick. i'm trying to not leave much on the plants
for long because of our cool weather and frequent
rains. if i can get it picked before it rots or
the critters get it then i'm doing well. this
i can certainly accept. finding some new
crosses again and that is fun and interesting.
this won't be a huge crop, but the one i enjoy
the most when it comes to long term satisfaction.
i enjoy sorting (both the tactile and visual
aspects) figuring out the new colors and shapes,
etc. and it can go on throughout the winter when
not much else is going on. i know i get this
trait from my Ma as she loves to pick rocks on
the beach and then sort them into various piles
for her projects. i've been known to resort
some just because...

the soup peas, i thought were a complete loss,
but we had a few sunny days that helped at least
keep the fungi from getting into the peas them-
selves. the pods look bad, but the peas are ok.
will likely give them a rinse and dry off after
shelling them to remove any spores tagging along
(or at least reduce the count a bit).

the challenge this winter is to convince Ma
that we don't need to leave the gardens inside the
fence fallow next year just because we had one
trouble with the buckeye rot on the tomatoes.
leaving the ground bare is not good IMO and i can
plant a root crop like garlic or onions in those
places and it will do just fine. besides our
peppers, onions, fennel, beets, beans, etc. have
done well enough (if you discount the groundhog
feasting).

a few gardens to fiddle with, figuring out
where to plant some garlic, still not too heavy
work for me (the hand still needs time off to
heal), some inspecting of the roof to finish up
any remaining issues before the warrantee runs
out, some caulking before winter, ... picking
some morning glories before they spread, ...
then soon enough winter will be here.

acceptance? i'm just not ready to be cold yet.
by January i might get there...


songbird