And Just Like That, Gardening Season Is Over

I knew this day would come. You can't stop time or the changing of seasons. It's true, by the end of August I'm usually growing a little tired of tending the garden and the very time consuming act of canning is in full swing. Even so, when October and it's threat of freezes and frosts rolls around I am saddened by the imminent end of gardening season. Here in Iowa, most of October was absolutely gorgeous. The temperatures were consistently warm, we had days and weeks of blue skies with just enough rain sprinkled in. However, last week the night time temperatures started to take steeper dives and I knew I could no longer delay picking my tomatoes green.

Seeing perfectly good food go to waste is extremely difficult for me, so of course I cannot help myself when going through the plants. I am compelled to pick every potentially useful tomato. Some of them may not be mature enough to ripen well, but I figure it's worth a shot. If I don't pick them for ripening they will go into the compost or if I pick them and they rot or shrivel up before they ripen they will still go into the compost. 

My son, Asher saw me bringing in all the green tomatoes and asked me to bring in some of his sungolds too. Surprisingly I had over looked that plant because I generally leave it to him to pick over and snack from. Since they ripen so quickly I also didn't know how they would do picked green or how the flavor would be, but I again figured, "What the heck?" So I picked as many of the fully grown sungolds that I could find and brought them in.

The tomatoes that I picked green are ripening beautifully and still taste delicious! I will definitely not give up on that plant as early next year.

It is always nice to be able to leave the cold hardy greens in the ground a little longer than the tomatoes, but last night the low was forecast to be 23 degrees and since some of the kale was already looking a little weary, it was time to call it quits.

I planted my greens a little differently this summer. Spinach had it's own patch in the main garden and it produced prolifically for a few weeks this spring. I was elated! . . . But it gave me nothing this fall. The kale and broccoli I planted in a small patch up near the house. Instead of planting it in rows, I broadcast the seed in two square patches and let it all come up until it was a satisfying baby green size. Then I started clipping plants out when I needed them for recipes or juicing. This way allowed me to use every plant that sprouted and grew, but my patch never became too crowded. I have had a solid supply of fresh greens since April. I am surprised I was not tearful when I had to go out and cut all the plants out last night. 

In addition to all the green leaves I even had a couple of beautiful second heads of broccoli. 

Tonight I will finish up the season by prepping the extra leaves for freezing and that will be that. All in all it was a satisfying year. I used lots of fresh herbs, especially mint, harvested way more spinach than I could have hoped for, had a satisfying crop of tomatoes, green beans and small pumpkins and I enjoyed six and half months of fresh greens. I did more canning this year than I have ever done before, but I can say for certain that what I put up will still not last us through the year. We'll be lucky if we have enough canned tomato products to last us through December, but I'll enjoy each and every jar of them and that fresh tomato smell that wafts up with the pop of each lid.