I pulled the proverbial plug. I gathered up, from their toasty little covering (Dave was heat-lamping them) the remaining 84 or so Beefsteak, Heirloom and Early Girl tomatoes (not to mention the couple hundred cherries) and threw the plants into the barrel to be hauled away today. I carried in bunches of tomatillas (probably threw away 3 times more), a pot full of green beans, 5 or 6 zucchinis, and a few dozen assorted peppers – not including the Serranos – another couple dozen of those, which I will directly give to my son-in-law, Ryan – do not pass go, do not collect $200. Those things are wicked hot! Out with them!
What? It isn’t still summer?
The size of a cereal bowl!
Poor, poor little garden. The beefsteaks were shocked it wasn’t the very middle of summer, I can tell from their behemoth size. They had no idea how protected they’d been.
My counter was already heavy-laden with ripening tomatoes at every stage. Now, if I wanted, I could do Fried Green Tomatoes and even found this very interesting recipe on Pinterest this morning, as if some fellow pinner knew I might need it:
How perfectly appropriate!
I like them red, and juicy and tangy and tart and real so I tend not to go in to the fried-green thing and opt for sneaking a couple of apples into their midst to get some quick ripening. But I am rather inspired to try {this recipe} based on that image alone!
The kale and onions and garlic chives and Chinese Cabbage are still puttering along, with chamomile and some potted annuals, but for the most part, I pulled the incredible-fruitful plants out of the earth and ended a very nice summer garden in anticipation of a cold-turn, possible rain turning to {SNOW} flurries…tonight. Ugh.
Thank-you, garden, for a lovely, long and sweet summer. Thank-you for still trying into the fall. And God bless you for the lovely bounty I shall still enjoy for the next few days, maybe weeks. So perfectly delicious.
“It’s the laughter we will remember, whenever we remember the way we were…”
I will always remember you, Garden 2013. I really will.