Mid September Gardens

The gardening season left me rather speechless. It was long growing season full of sadness... the loss of lettuce to hail, and a whole crop of our various tomatoes ( cherry, plum and regular) to blight. Not just the lost income, but all the work that went into growing them. But now, it's mid September. The days are shorter, and the weather has been crisp, clear, and sunny, and I feel like my speech is returning. In many ways it is the most glorious time of the year. All the crops are either harvested or still in the ground.. no more planting, except for some cover cropping. The shortness of the days make the blue sky somehow more intense, the annual flowers more brilliant.


The garden marches on. The shallots have all been harvested and are curing in the greenhouse.



We've been harvesting loads of huge red peppers ( a fact not many know: red peppers are ripe green peppers ), and soon we'll fire roasting them for salsa, and for drying. Its been very dry, so we've been watering all the lettuces and broccoli.
Along with this stretch of fine weather has come a barn full of beautiful hay. All the rains of June and July led to verdant. lush hay fields. And that led to sweet smelling green hay, and lush pastures too- the cows are still out to pasture, and will be for a while.
It is such a wonderful time of year. And, I'm so glad to be writing about all this again.