Late Harvest

It is nearly November and still the garden is yielding vegetables. While the number of things we are gathering from the garden is small in comparison to the bounty of late summer we are enjoying those few things still available. Small black tomatoes, rosemary, sage, basil, chives and hot peppers have gone into seasoning wonderful main dishes and bread.

We have yet to harvest the carrots and I am holding out on the Brussel sprouts. They continue to grow, and unless we have a forecast of impending frost I will let them remain in the ground. With this being my first attempt at growing Brussel sprouts, I do not know what to expect.

A few weeks ago I picked the final butternut squash. It has been such a delight to have home grown butternut squash. It is one of my favorites. Last year, I planted seeds I had purchased. One of the plants produced squash that were half the size of a normal squash. I saved seeds from that particular plant. I was delighted to find the seeds again yielded a very small, but thoroughly developed and ripened squash. They were delicious. I like the size. The small squash are faster to roast. They are a perfect size for 1 or 2 people and seemingly take up less space in the garden (this could also be because it wasn’t a good year for squash).

This causes me to wonder. I saved seeds from the squash I harvested this year. Is this a new strain of plant? When I plant them next year will the squash again be small in size? Have you experienced this with a vegetable from your garden? Will the seeds produce small squash in another person’s garden? If you are reading this, and live in the United States, and would like a few seeds to plant for next year, please send a message to me and I will send some seeds.

Growing seeds is magical. When I was a child I remember watching beans sprouting as a school project and eagerly anticipating the sprouting plants in my father’s garden. When we walk into the grocery store and see all the fruits and vegetables it is easy to be detached from the simple seeds that produce what we see. Having a garden is a reward on all levels, we plan, we plant, we pamper and we savor. Things do not always grow as I want them to, but I am always delighted with the harvest I receive.

Of course vegetables are not the only things hanging on in the garden. The dahlia’s are still lovely even though they too are fading. Robert Louis Stevenson penned this poem about fall. I too will burn some branches gathered around the yard and so winter will slowly come.

“In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!”