A Bit Of Rest

Since we finished the wheat harvest over a week ago, we've been taking life a bit slower. Although we did resume morning walks together. Dennis was walking by himself before harvest, but I've joined him now. The garden is still in full production mode, and fall with its cooler temps, is looming. I'm going to have to get myself revved up again. There's so much to accomplish before the first frost hits in our area. Typically that happens any day now. And rain is in the forecast.

I did get almost all my onions pulled. There is a short section of late planted ones still in the ground. The pulled ones sat on bare dirt away from the drip system, pretty much in a single layer, for a couple days. Then the tops were twisted off those that still had green tops, the dried clumps of dirt were knocked off, and into a mesh bag they went. That bag is hanging off the upright of one of the shelving units in the garage. It will come inside to hang from the curtain rod in the back unused bedroom once it's colder outside. I brought all the tiny onions inside and am cooking with them.

The husk cherries (prairie gooseberries) are producing nicely, although too many are splitting open inside the husks. That is drawing the attention of ants and immature box elder bugs. Apparently those fruits are just as tasty to the garden pests. I've seen birds also enjoying the split ones I toss back at the upper edge of the garden. The sprayer has been out, filled with tempo, and the garden got a good dousing. I need to do another sprayer-load on the outside of the house for those black and red pests...

The sun gold cherry tomatoes are merrily outdoing themselves. I can't keep up but I'm not about to can those. Several berry containers (saved from strawberry and blueberry purchases for this purpose) have been given away. The large tomatoes are quite a bit slower, and I'd really like to be making tomato/basil soup. Guess that will wait. I'm sure they'll overwhelm me soon enough.

Finally the green beans are giving me lots of fresh fodder for side dishes. They're mostly staying small (as in miniature), but they're tender and very tasty. I've given a couple Ziplocs of them to our local daughter who eats them raw. I don't plan to can any, which is why she's getting the largesse. (Dennis doesn't eat those, either.)

We've been enjoying the purple potatoes lately. I've even used them in potato salad. These ones remain purple all the way through after cooking, so the salads are colorful. Even Dennis is eating his share without complaint. I'm pulling the entire plant to dig the spuds as I don't want to store many this winter.

The plan for this week is to start pulling all the mature and going-to-seed plants from the garden. I'll have to work in between rain showers if the weather people are correct in their forecasts. It's mainly the volunteer flowers that need to be pulled, but there's plenty of dill that needed to be pulled a while back. I pulled the cilantro early, so that's good. Of course I've waited too long with these other plants so undoubtedly I'll have plenty of volunteers again next spring. All of those were ever only planted by me on purpose once, many, many years ago.

The sunflowers will stay in place. There are migrating birds that enjoy them too much for me to deny them a free meal on their way back south. I keep hoping to attract blue jays, but haven't seen them the past few years. So I'd best get to work before the weather changes.