We hustled to gather peppers and green tomatoes into harvest crates amidst the light sleet and flurrying snow. Already we had stowed the last of the rain barrels in the shed for the winter, rolled up and stored the miles of hoses from around the property, and retrieved the plastic waterers from the chicken yard. The first real freeze of the season was on its way, and while we could delay harvesting the hardier greens beyond the overnight frost — the collards and kale — the chard and chicory, cabbage and radicchio would need our immediate attentions. Once inside, the blanching and bagging and freezing would consume the rest of the evening. Able to keep awhile, the tomatoes and peppers will have to wait their turn for whatever means of preservation might come for them. We know the mercury will fall eventually, but somehow the first autumn frost always catches us ill-prepared, and we have to rush to beat the freeze.
It’s not that the garden is officially put to bed. There is yet plenty to do. The spent stalks and vines must be removed to the compost pile — a scratchy, tediously unpleasant chore. Composted manure must be spread over the empty beds for the soil’s renewal, and the garlic is yet to be planted. That, plus various root vegetables to dig and the cutting of those last greens. But we are winding down — a bittersweet time of year that is part relief, part satisfaction, part melancholy.
When we attended our first Practical Farmers of Iowa conference 8 years ago, and it’s “beginning farmer” workshop, the leaders distributed large sheets of blank paper and markers with the instruction to draw out our imagined farm. Together we talked, we scratched our heads, we dreamed, we drew. We still have that paper, and it’s amazing how closely Taproot Garden has approximated that fantasy sketch — with one glaring exception. Drawn into that original conception was a hoop house — a plastic skinned, season-extending building that enables ground cultivation under cover. There has always been something romantic to us about the idea of growing vegetables inside an environmentally controlled space when the weather outside is forbidding. And we had our opportunity. There are government grants for such projects, and we had applied for one to underwrite the construction of a 30’ x 60’ structure. We could have had it, too — the money was only a formality away — but the preferred location adjudged by the inspector was untenable to us and we set the project aside. “Besides,” we acknowledged, “we rather like taking the winter off.”
I thought of that aborted transaction as I shoved the last bag of peppers into the last remaining corner of the refrigerator, and how nice, indeed, it will be to spend the next several months not worrying about weeding and watering, getting the bugs off and keeping the rabbits out. The seed catalogs will come in due time, whetting that fresh appetite, and soil blocks and grow lights in our small greenhouse won’t be far behind. In the meantime, however, it will be satisfying to reflect and draw lessons from what grew well, what performed poorly, what we can improve in our attentions and systems, and what other topics of interest might occupy our imaginations between now and then. Yes, all that, and rest awhile.
But still, I’ll miss the feel of the earth, the promise of blossoms, and the miracle of harvest. And the magical, almost intoxicating, rhapsodic flavor of those fresh tomatoes.
Until next year.
No comments:
Post a Comment