the garden in fall

Now I am terrified at the Earth! it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions,
It turns harmless and stainless on its axis, with such endless successions of diseas’d corpses,
It distils such exquisite winds out of such infused fetor,
It renews with such unwitting looks, its prodigal, annual, sumptuous crops,
It gives such divine materials to men, and accepts such leavings from them at last.

--Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass

A lot of people seem to think that gardening is all over after the last frost. Not true. Things slow down, but there's still plenty to do (besides raking leaves) to take advantage of those crisp fall days, when with just an extra layer of clothes, there's nothing that feels better than to be moving around outside breathing the fresh air. After the initial jolt when every tomato vine withers, the annual flowers turn black and shrivelled, a cool sunny day revives the spirits, and it's the perfect time to clean up the dead and the weeds, and throw it into the compost bin.

It is with mixed emotions this time of year that I watch the progression of leaves. The serviceberry from one day to the next was different: light gold, darkening over days to burnt orange and fianlly burnished red til only a few bright leaves were left like tiny flags waving. The crabapple just outside the kitchen window with the leaves flickering golden lights in the breeze amidst bright red berries, presaging Christmas lights, and darken finally into brown and fall gently into the air, dancing down the invisible currents til they land. The dramatic displays of disease and death. It's true--some of the leaves are spotted with black--evidence of being eaten by other creatures even as they flare up into color before another death. The dying is all around--abundant and silent.

First snowfall. In the afternoon the wind kicked up and soon the leaves were falling in a crazy torrent. Looking north up Cayuga Lake from South Hill, the coastal hills are obscured in the thick gray billows of off-whiteness. Back to work, and minutes later another glance out the window and we are enveloped in a cloud of white sparkles.

It was already dark, and I realized I wanted some fresh dill for the raw vegetable dip. Out into the garden with a flashlight, I shone the light down and wondered what are these small plants full of little white flowers? Crouching down, I see that they are the lacey young dill plants adorned with snowflakes.

The pick is meager in the salad greens, but it's still worth it to go out once in a while on a moderate day, and pick a few leaves from among spinaches and lettuces, brushing aside the leaves so that when the real cold hits, we can cover them with leaves--maybe the arugula and cilantro too. During a thaw the dry leaves can be brushed away, so that the small plants can briefly and the biggest leaves selected for the table. Come early spring we are talking the only fresh food available.

The time has come to cut down the old peach trees that have been in the yard for at least 30 years, many years before I came. Our plan has reached fruition, but it is not without sadness and loss to pull down those venerable trees. It's odd that the Chinese, who first grew peaches around 1000 BC, look on the peach tree as a symbol of longevity, because they are generally known to be short-lived trees. In my Internet search I found they might live only 10-12 years in Missouri due to cold winters and insect pests, but they might live for 30 years in Virginia where they don't have the low winter temperatures that kill or weaken trees, and they don't have some of the diseases in other regions. Here in the flats of Ithaca, New York, an oasis of lake-influenced mildness, the three trees lived for thirty years, I estimate. A woman in the neighbohood remembers when they were planted when she was a kid, and they asked her friend's father, who was planting those sticks, what they were, and they were amazed and doubtful when told they were peach trees. Years later, their twisting limbs danced down the yard, each year growing more skeletal and abstract, as the dead limbs were cut off, and only the essential remained. We planted new young fruit trees between the peach trees a few years ago, and now they are competing with the old trees for space, so the time has come. Will the new young peach tree ever produce peaches with the flavor of the old? No peach has ever reached its maturity from the young tree. The squirrels grab them while still small and green. They could never get all the peaches from the abundance of the big old trees. Probably they just assisted with thinning.

a good year for tomatoes

This is the year of the tomato in our micro-climate. I used to think I had to grow the hybrid tomatoes and couldn't grow the old heirloom varieties that didn't have all those letters by the variety name. VFNT: verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt, nematode resistance etc.. I know I've gotten some of these fungal diseases on my plants before in wetter years. (And some of those plants were, I swear, the hybrids!) The leaves wilt and turn brown and gradually the plant dies and so doesn't get a chance for maximum production. But not this year. Or at least the wilt is only just starting now to hit some lower leaves. The tomatoes have been great. The Amish heirloom varieties like Pruden's Purple, Brandywine, and Golden Queen make me swoon with the sensuousness of their various shapes and colors, and the depth of flavor. I also grow some hybrids, like Early Girl because it's one of the earliest tomatoes to ripen, and Big Beef, or one of the other BIG main season tomatoes, and Heinz, a paste tomato, to hedge my bets. The hybrids last longer too and are less prone to cracking, so they are what you usually see at stores. The heirlooms you don't find at the big grocery stores. You can find them at the Farmer's Market or a natural food store, like the GreenStar, but there's nothing like the homegrown pleasure of growing those old Amish tomato varieties, and picking them sun-drenched off the vine.

There are practices that help discourage the wilts too. Not planting the tomatoes in the same spot every year. A new one I learned this year from a neighbor is to trim off the bottom-most branches that might be touching the soil because, after all, these are soil-borne diseases.

Another success this year are the Kentucky Wonder pole beans. Got them climbing up a pole and they are lush in spite of the heat. I hear the bush beans don't form proper flowers when it's above 90°, but the pole beans can take it. Today I'm going to can a few pints of pickled dilly beans. I like them and I have one relative, who has rhapsodized about someone else's pickled beans; that's a challenge I can't pass up, so I know what to get him for Christmas.

The cucumbers are a bit of a disappointment this year. With the heat and drought, Steve's best efforts to water every day still couldn't keep up with their needs. I got a few jars of pickles canned and there are a few more cucumbers coming on, but we're not getting the bumper crop we were hoping for.

Low to the warm ground, moving from knees to squat, then standing up and bending over (keep that back straight!), as I move along the rows, eyes close to the ground so as to pick the weeds and not the little spinach seedlings that only sparsely came up compared to the generous showing of purslane and amaranth. Wasps buzzing gently around, attracted by the moisture of the just-watered ground. Weeding is extra important this year, what with the drought and heat. The weeds can rob what moisture there is in the soil from the other plants, but, on the other hand, they can help shade the soil and keep the moisture. What's a mother to do? Why follow your instincts of course.

Weeding is most important with the smallest plants. The bigger plants are deeper rooted and can compete quite well, thank you.

Deadheading the calendula is another enjoyable weekly task--so satisfying to see the bed look bright and alive thereafter. I am reminded of the common saying--"damned if you, and damned if you don't" and I see the obverse here. If you do pick off the flowers that are fading away, then more energy will go into producing more flowers, but if you don't pick them, the flowers turn into seed and the birds enjoy them, and what is left is sown in the ground for another hospitable time.

hot honey mustard

Ever since I tasted homemade mustard, I lost interest the store-bought variety; none of which could compare. My housemate's mother made it, but do you believe it? She would not give me the recipe. So I've done some searching and experimenting, and surprisingly enough the best recipe I came up with was inspired by Euell Gibbons' method described in Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Though I was surprised by the use of flour, it does temper the hotness of the ground yellow mustard. I find it a more sensible addition than eggs, which I saw in a few recipes. I want something that keeps! Then I can send it in little jars for Christmas presents and not worry about them.

In a large cast-iron fry pan, roast a cup or so of whole wheat pastry flour, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon. The aroma is wonderful.

Add the toasted flour to a bowl with an equivalent amount of ground yellow mustard seed. (More flour for a milder mustard; less for hotter.)

Add other dry ingredients you like--my favorites are dried crumbled tarragon and garlic salt. I plan to try some turmeric one of these days.

Stir in vinegar (balsamic is special), water, and honey until you get it to the right consistency and taste. Put in those cute little jars you've saved.

It tastes smooth with the bit of sweetness from the honey, and then suddenly you're hit from behind with an intensity that makes your eyes tear. That's good mustard.