How did your garden grow?

 

The day is a perfect example of late October; cold, cloudy and misty. I’m inside my cozy house, looking out the window, sipping a cup of coffee and looking over the remnants of this year’s garden.

The year began with some problems. The first planting of carrots was a flop. Hardly any seeds germinated, and I found myself planting carrots for a second time. Fortunately, my efforts were rewarded and now, at the end of growing season, the carrots are absolutely beautiful, large, bright orange, with luscious green tops. I will pull a few now and harvest the rest after the first frost.

Next, my eyes flick over to the zucchini plants. Only two exist, so I figured the harvest results to be very little, but surprisingly, during a warm spell in September, big yellow blooms appeared and produced a good number of zucchinis. Now, at summer’s end, the plants are still giving small but good tasting zucchinis.

I look over to the kale plants. Normally, kale does beautifully in this cooler climate, but not this year. The leafy green plants were spindly and rather sickly— that is until a few weeks ago. Suddenly they greened up and started growing, giving me a few good healthy leaves for my salad.

The cucumber plants produced a lot of foliage, but most of the summer was cucumber-free. I’d check under the leaves to see if I’d have any for the dinner table and was disappointed. Suddenly in September, cukes were everywhere. I served them soaked in vinegar water and ice. I found a Swedish Dilled Cucumber recipe in an old church cookbook (Our Best to You) and used it as a marinade.

My next assessment went to the asparagus patch. This is my husband’s domain, and judging from the good color and size of the stalks, next year will be a good year for them. I can’t wait.

Wish I could say the same for the potato crop. They were small in size and in number and very disappointing, so I will research and see what we can do for next year.

Last but not least in my garden assessment are the raspberries. They were wonderful again this year, and this despite the fact that we forgot to trim them, paid them very little attention and pretty much let them grow wild. They are big red and juicy. Guess they liked being wild.