fall garden

In what might be termed a last gasp of futility, I fertilized the red peppers and tomatoes last weekend. With a kind of Pollyannish determination, I am trying to will my plants to produce one more harvest before the frost comes. The last batch was quite good, and so I was fairly convinced that an early November harvest might be possible.

This would be harmless except that it kept two large double rows occupied. Meanwhile, the arugula and radishes have sprung up. I am already enjoying a daily harvest of arugula which, combined with the last of my cherry tomatoes, are producing lunch-time salads. Delightful salads. With two more rows available, I could have another variety of chard, perhaps some more greens, carrots and radishes, and a welter of lettuces. And fennel. I'm sitting on a bag of fennel seeds that I really want to get into the ground.

And now we've had two unseasonably cold nights, dipping below freezing. I may be Pollyanna when it comes to my garden, but I'm not the village idiot. They are going to be mealy, and there is no real point in keeping them.

So they have another two days. On Saturday I will perform the massacre of red hill. I will leave the volunteer tomatoes in (they take up no real room, but will pull all the big plants. Then I'll prepare the beds and lay seed.

In my newly planted rows the chard is slow to rise. Coming much faster are several volunteer squash plants. Hopefully the vine borers are all dead from the cold.