It is COLD out today!  It is also overcast and funny-looking and  I fear the rumors of a spittering and sputtering of snowflakes arriving this weekend may, indeed, be true. 

I just went out and walked among the gardens, which are slowly but surely finishing up their work year.  There are gazillions of tomatoes left and just yesterday, bright yellow zucchini flowers were still trumpeting their intent to produce.  But today, all bets seem off and I think the zucchini has resigned itself to closing up shop. 

But they are the winners!  The zucchini wins for the garden of 2008.  I have never had zucchini last into mid-October (I am calling it mid-October even if we are still in the first third – they deserve that).  Usually they are wondrous for a month or so and then get some sort of zucchini-acne-powdery-weird disease and die off, which is why an attentive gardener will do successive plantings and why I am usually kicking myself for not doing so.  But these sweet 5 plants, roundabout the yard, tucked in here and there as if I weren’t expecting much, have consistently outdone themselves, and oh how I have loved turning my nose up at their grocery store cousins!  For I have harvested the best.

So, tonight: what shall I do?  Shall I throw floating row covers over the green beans and cucumbers and tomatoes and zuchs – knowing full well that in a few days we could be back into the higher temperatures again (the beautiful, little-known secret of the Rocky Mountain Region)?  Or “should I,” as Doris Day sings in Pillow Talk concerning Rock Hudson, “surrender?” 

The garden – is it over or is it not?…TBD…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:  Enjoy the gorgeous dazzling-orange-red Maple leaves strewn about the yard, even though they are from the neighbor’s tree!

pictured: the garden shutting down; see the blackbirds eating the decrepit sunflower’s seeds?