Canada Geese, Hazy Skies - Wrapping Things Up

 

   The days are noticeably shorter and I have been sleeping more deeply at night.  It feels strange to wake up early and find that it's still dark.  I miss waking up to bright sunshine and birds singing at 5:00am.  Time to transition into cozy mode.

   We have had the furnace on in the mornings a few times to take the chill out of the air.  Overall, though, it has been a mild September, with no killing frosts yet (as of September 24th - that's unsual) and none forecast for the next two weeks.

   Flocks of Canada geese have been making their way overhead almost daily.  There have been some large groups - you can hear them coming long before you spot them.

   I gradually started bringing in the dry bush bean plants to hang in the second week of September.  Most are inside now, except for a Ruckle bean plant. 

   On the 15th (a very cool, cloudy, damp day), I picked most the tomatoes that were in the East garden and in containers along the driveway because the first frost was forecast for that night.  Harvested on - or just before - the 15th were Jewish, Candy Sweet Icicle, Black Krim, Wentzell, Emerald Evergreen, and Black Sea Man.  I left the tomatoes growing along the south side of the house in-ground and covered them that night.  I also pulled the remainder of the Gaspe Flint corn and a few of the Agate Pinto bean pods to bring inside to dry in case the frost zapped those plants.  Most of the Agate Pinto beans on the plants are still green and not ready to harvest.

(Click on pictures to enlarge.)

 

   On the morning of the 16, there were signs outside of a light frost.  The only things that got zapped were the winter squash (Galeux D'Eysines) plants.  Arhg.  Some of those squash weren't fully mature yet, so I left them on the vines for a few more days.

 

   There are little boxes, plates, and long, flat cardboard trays of bean pods, nasturtium seeds, tomato seeds, and garlic bulbils set all around the plant room and living room to dry.  Several buckets of green tomatoes are in the laundry room, waiting to be boxed up in newspaper so they can ripen.

Tene's beans (dry/bush)

 Beka Brown (dry/bush)

Agate pinto beans (dry bush w/runners)

Nasturtium seeds

 

   The Red Swan and Calima beans that grew were picked late in the season and are drying down indoors.  These varieties were not eaten fresh or processed for freezing this year (small plants, lots of slug damage); I am saving seed from them instead.

   The Early Prolific Summer Squash plants produced 3 or 4 small squash, so I guess it's more accurate to say that they underperformed rather than counting them as a crop failure.

   The Long Pie Pumpkin, Lower Salmon River squash, and Cole tomatoes that were planted at R's family's farm were all either killed by frost damage early in the season or inhibited by the cool, wet weather this summer.  None of pumpkins produced and we only got 4 small Cole tomatoes (a variety that typically produces very well). One average-size and one tiny Lower Salmon River were harvested (both pictured below).

 

   Most of the carrots and 4 little cabbages are still in the raised beds.  They can withstand light frosts, so should be fine outside for a while longer. 

   September 17th was a carrot processing day.  It's easy to forget how much time it consumes to pull, wash, peel, chop, blanch, and then dehydrate them.  Hours.  Thank goodness for podcasts.  By the time I'm through processing the second batch of carrots, I am wondering what the hell I was thinking planting them in the first place. Mid-winter, though, when you can just open a jar and add dehydrated carrots to a soup or stew, I'm glad I put in the effort.

   September 18 & 19 - I picked the Bellestar and half the Principe Borghese tomatoes.  The Galeux D'Eysines squash were harvested as well as a few of the Work Release Paste tomatoes that were best for seed saving.  I processed another batch of carrots.  The air was hazy these two days and smelled like a giant campfire.  Smoke from the massive wildfires throughout the US west coast had reached northern BC.  

 

September 23 - Picked the remainder of the Principe Borghese tomatoes.  Pulled the Agate pinto beans and hung the plants to dry.

September 24 - Picked the Hungarian Heart tomatoes.

Setpember 26 - Picked the Striped German and Work Release Paste tomatoes.

   The only things remaining in the garden are the sunflowers, cosmos, lemon balm, mint, sage, a bit of kale, carrots, a single Ruckle bean plant (the pods are being stubborn and are remaining green), 3 cabbage, and a few volunteer pansies.

 

   The crop failures this year were the peas (Green Arrow and Laxton's Progress), cauliflower, White Scallop summer squash, Table King Acorn squash,  Romano beans, Anaheim peppers, and Norland potatoes. 

   There are several jars of fermenting tomato seeds on the go. Black Sea Man, Cream Sausage, and Jewish (left to right) are pictured in the jars below.  The problem with using the cat tree as the platform for pictures (the best light is in the plant room) is that curious kitties are irresistibly drawn to things that are fragile or carefully arranged.  Case in point...

 

 

 

 

Mini Cobs and Magical Lettuce Towers

   

   It's an overcast, cool morning (11 degrees at 11:00am). I thought I would zip around the garden and take a few pictures, as I'm beginning to wrap things up for the season.  

   So far, the nights have remained mild enough for the tomatoes and squash to be left on the vine. The next four days call for drizzle.  I've started bringing in the dry bush beans even though they are not as mature as I'd like.   If the pods get wet at this stage, the beans can sprout inside the pods.

   The carrots are doing well and can stay in the ground another few weeks.  I started harvesting cabbage earlier this week and was exasperated to discover that most of the cabbage has some degree of worm (or slug?) damage.  Fortunately, it is confined to the bottom inch or two, so much of it is salvageable.  

   Three of the hot pepper plants croaked early on due to the cool, rainy weather.  The remaining one (a "Tam" jalapeno) was so obscured by carrot tops that I forgot it was there!  It is small - less than a foot tall - but has 5 or 6 little jalapenos on it.  That was nice to rediscover.

South garden - the one large sunflower (a volunteer) finally bloomed!  The cosmos are still going strong and there is a tomato plant and two small sunflowers in that plot.  Otherwise, everything has been pulled.

 
 

North garden - the scene of the Great Pea Massacre of 2020.  Alright, maybe that's a little dramatic...  The entire patch of peas did get drowned out by heavy rains, which rotted the roots.  This is the first year we haven't had peas from the garden.  It will feel strange to buy them at the store!  Remaining in this plot are cosmos, two potted tomatoes (Cream Sausage) and two in-ground tomatoes (Black Sea Man).

 

 

In the East garden (not pictured), all that remains are the cosmos and about 10 small tomato plants (Black Krim, Wentzell, Emerald Evergreen, and a mystery tomato).  And a heck of a lot of grass and weeds.  Uhg.  This is the plot I want to plant my garlic in at the end of the month.  I am not sure what it's going to take to clear that plot out.  A little overwhelming.

South side of the house - mostly tomatoes, also Red Chantenay carrots, lemon balm, and my hidden jalapeno plant.

 

 

L-R:  Bellstar (1) and Work Release Paste (2)
 

  

Bea watching bugs from her burlap-covered perch.

 

 

I am so glad the sunflowers finally opened!  If we'd had a hard frost in late August/early September, we wouldn't have had any to enjoy.  It's a welcome jolt of colour in the garden.

 

 

The lettuce is going to seed.  The season has never been long enough to allow for collecting lettuce seeds, but the plants look so neat at this stage (kind of magical, really) that I want to leave them in the garden.

 

 

Some of the tomatoes are actually starting to ripen on the vine.  Jewish (pictured), Principe Borghese, Black Sea Man, and the mystery variety in the East garden.

 

 

The dry bush bean plants are turning yellow and starting to dry back.  I would love an additional week of warm, dry weather before having to pull them.

 

 

Summer savoury gone to flower and being overrun by the cucumber plants.  Not good to harvest at this stage, but it still smells wonderful and the bees still visit it.

 

The view down the driveway.  Galeux D'Eysines winter squash in the closest bed.

 

 

There are 5 Galeux D'Eysines squash - not bad considering the poor growing weather this summer.  This is the most mature of the bunch: light tan with 'warty' sections emerging on the skin.

 

 

This is a nice large one, though it isn't as mature as the one pictured above.  Here's hoping I can protect these plants from frost for the next few weeks so they can stay on the vine!

 

Agate pinto beans.  These were a bit of a gamble to grow, as they aren't an early maturing variety.  Most of the plants are still green and have green (immature) pods.

 

These are the most mature Agate pinto beans I could find in the patch.  If worse comes to worst and a hard frost or freezing rain is forecast, I can pull these ones off and try to dry them indoors.

 

Gaspe Flint Corn.  I'm glad I tried growing this.  The plants are short and the variety is early.  It would have performed even better in a normal gardening season. I'll grow these again.

 

 Here are some cobs on the plants...

 

 

...and here are some I brought inside to start drying.  They're small, about 2-3 inches. I've read that you can let flint varieties just dry down on the stalk before harvesting them, but September is too cool and damp here for the cobs to dry down completely on the stalk.

 

Candy Sweet Icicle tomatoes
 

The Auria tomatoes have done quite well.  I like this variety because the fruit is a good size and the flesh is fairly dry (good for sauces).  It developed blossom end rot this year and the other summer I grew it, though.   I don't know if I'll try it again any time soon.

Black Sea Man - this is my second time growing this variety.  It really outdid itself this summer.  The plants were large and productive. 

 

Black Krim

 

 Bea snoozing on her burlap by the lilac bush.

 

 

The snap beans this summer were very small.  I was surprised they produced any beans.  The plants were so short that many of the beans touched the ground and so were damaged by slugs.  I let the beans mature past the point where you'd want to eat them and then picked them this week.  Hopefully, I can dry down the pods and save the seeds to plant next summer.  (Red Swan and Calima) 

 

 

I feel edgy about the state of this property at the best of times.  I think it's safe to say that Martha Stewart would have a heart attack if she stepped foot in this house during harvest season.  This is our laundry room at the moment, with garlic and bush beans hanging from the wall and ceiling to dry.