Fading summer
Summer is beginning to fade into autumn. The mornings are foggy. The leaves of the dogwood and maple trees are beginning to glow red in their uppermost branches. The tomatoes have succumbed to blight, and the squash bugs have gotten the best of the squash vines. The asters are beginning to bloom alongside the echinacea and rudbeckia. The apples are ripening.
It’s harvest season.
The garlic and onions have been harvested and dried, and are now in storage in the pantry. In our electric drier, I’ve dried several pint jars of Genovese and tulsi basil — the first for cooking, the second for tea. I’ve dried jars of rose petals, too, for tea and for bath salts, which I give for gifts around the holidays. Hardier herbs like oregano, rosemary and thyme stay fresh in the garden all year, so I don’t usually dry them.
Air drying is better for herbs and seed pods, and I have an over-the-door coat rack for just that purpose. Right now, it holds bundles of yarrow, eucalyptus and wormwood, as well as a paper bag filled with orach seed pods. This year I grew sweetgrass for the first time, and I’ve braided several plaits that are also hanging to dry. The scent permeates the room: something like freshly-cut hay and an old-fashioned rose, subtle but highly perfumed. I’ll burn the sweetgrass over the course of the year, the same way you might burn sage or lavender. Speaking of, a handful of lavender stalks has been drying in a cup since June, and bundles of sage leaves bound with threads have dried in a bowl.
In the kitchen, peppers, eggplant, cucumbers and the very last of the tomatoes are in a bowl on the counter. I’ve already made all the pickles and canned tomatoes I want for the year, so these vegetables are for eating fresh. Over the weekend, I’ll make pickled and candied jalapenos, which we eat throughout the year.
From two butternut squash vines, I have harvested eight squash. Vine borers caused the vines to collapse before all of the fruit had fully ripened, but most of them will ripen on our window seats, where they will spend a few weeks soaking up the southern sun. Two were still fully green, but they can be peeled and eaten now, cooked like summer squash.
The arugula, swiss chard and kale have survived summer in the garden, and now that the nights and days are cooling, are putting on a spurt of fresh growth. We’re harvesting them frequently for salads and sautés. The pole beans that I started in July are beginning to bloom.
This summer, our big project has been building a new flower bed in the backyard, with three main goals: that the bed would have at least one plant flowering (or otherwise at its best, through leaf or stem color) every single month of the year, that it would be wildlife friendly, and that the flowers would all be jewel-toned colors. The window at the kitchen sink looks out directly over this bed, and it’s already been incredibly cheery to see the flowers where there was formerly just grass. We’ve spotted four hummingbirds (and countless butterflies and bees) enjoying the garden already this summer.
Last year, we expanded a small section of the bed by planting heuchera, lamb’s ears, apple mint, lemon balm, a hydrangea, clematis, hostas, a flowering quince, and liriope. Everything but the heuchera and clematis was either a gift or a division from plants that I already had, or from family or friends.
This year, we added two roses, a camellia, two hardy hibiscus, salvia, rudbeckia, echinacea, buddleia, a Japanese maple, gladioli, lily, iris, verbena bonariensis, canna, a native vining honeysuckle, winter jessamine, phlox, eupatorium, sea holly, asters, and an ornamental grass called Karl Foerster. In pots are three gardenia, pelargoniums, bay trees, peppermint and lemongrass.
Next year, I’ll add in more flowers that I grow from seed — more sea holly and phlox, as well as bee balm, milkweed, zinnia, cosmos, scabiosa, gaillardia, and bachelor’s button — plus some dahlias.
It’s also the season of sowing vegetables for fall and winter — dandelion, lettuce, spinach, kale, mustard, pea, fava bean, turnip, carrot, rutabaga, beet, cabbage, tatsoi, mizuna, chicory, radicchio and brussels sprouts. Many of these vegetables will overwinter without protection in the garden, but the more tender veg — like lettuce, spinach, mizuna and tatsoi — will be grown in cold frames.
As August turns into September, the garden slows down, but the cycle of harvest and growth continue.