Or, as I call it, the sad time.
I get it, I get it. People love autumn. It’s pretty, there’s no humidity (or at least less frequent bouts), and the sky is always a brilliant blue, the grass – whether watered or not – returns to a lush, emerald green.
But the garden is coughing and wheezing, trying its best to stave off the death rattle, but we know it’s almost here. Every year, it’s the same. Every year it seems like we didn’t have enough – enough time, enough tomatoes, enough eggplant – though, with the exception of time, this is clearly not true. We had more tomatoes than ever this year, more eggplant, more basil, more, more, more everything. It was an exceptional growing year. Still, I find myself looking at the strawberries and wishing they were about to flower again – tomorrow, not in May. Likewise with the asparagus, I wish that the frilly fronds were concealing spears below – for this season, not for next – and though there are still green tomatoes on the vine, and no frost yet in sight, the season truly is just about over.
Granted, we do have one bed planted with greens, radish, carrots, and beets, and that helps to keep the delusion alive, but we’re spending more of our time cleaning than tending to plants, and it’s only a matter of time before we’re rushing out to the garden, heads down, coats buttoned, scarves wrapped around our necks, steeling ourselves against the cold for just a few minutes to harvest kale before running back inside.
It is, after all, all a part of the passage of time, and in just a few months, we’ll be starting seed again, but it doesn’t keep me from ruing the day that summer changed to fall, knowing that the cold, gray winter is only weeks away.
Thankfully, the tomatoes and eggplant haven’t quite quit, even if they are tending toward the imperfect these days. The cabbage is, in fact, perfect (with the exception of a few bug-holes – we ignore those so that we can say the cabbage is perfect – we don’t fear delusion over here), the kale, collards, and chard are doing great (especially once we pick off the worms and wash their eggs away), the oregano and mint are ripe for drying (hey, these are actually perfect! The slugs just hang out on them, and slugs are easily shaken off!), and the zinnia aren’t going to let the gray overtake them anytime soon. Not yet, anyway.
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