Digging RI

My eggplants continue to amaze and astound. They are still producing. Lots. So are my tomatoes and my red peppers. Only four plants of each, and yet I am picking so much! In Rhode Island! In October!

Isn’t that a lovely pepper? My mother-in-law paid me what I guess she thought was the ultimate complement when she told me they looked “just like the ones in the supermarket.” (I think mine are prettier, and they’re not covered with pesticides.)

Anyway, because I feel comfortable with you, my readers, and have faith that you will understand, here’s my confession: I am getting sick of picking all this produce.

It seems inconceivable that only about three months ago, I was so excited, waiting impatiently to pick my first vegetables. How could I have become so jaded so quickly? I should be thrilled to bits that I am still harvesting in October. Part of me is, but the other side of me wants it all to be over already, so I don’t have to give up a weekend morning to make marinara sauce, or dig up a new red pepper recipe. Am I alone in feeling this way? Do I have a problem or is this normal?

The irony of  this story is that not too long from now, when winter sets in, I will fondly remember my productive little friends and long for just a taste of a fresh, homegrown vegetable.

This doesn’t mean I will callously toss my vegetable plants aside just because I have “garden fatigue.” I will continue to dutifully harvest until I can pick no longer. And I will be really, really grateful for such a fantastic growing season.

The title of this post refers to my gratitude that fall is here at last. Mosquitoes: gone. Tourists: mostly gone. Humidity: gone, and with it, months of sweaty, annoying bad hair days. The dog is perkier, too.

The stuff growing on the boulder in the above photo is rock tripe. The settlers used it to dye cloth purple. It is often found with lichen. There was plenty of it to admire on my hike today, this time in RI on the Vin Gormley trail.

It was a perfect early fall day. The swamp maples were at their best. So fiery.

The trail is rather long and varied. We always admire the escarpments, remnants of the glacier that receded about 12,000,000 years ago. I  wonder if animals sleep in the small caves. They do look cozy.

I found this weird. I couldn’t tell if it was natural, or if someone had just stuck an interesting piece of wood onto a stick. Either way it was kind of creepy.

The winterberry is awesome this year.

This is the view from Middle Mountain in New Hampshire. I hiked there recently with my friend, who knows this area well. On this day, we hiked to two summits, Middle and Peaked mountains.

Here’s Middle again. We lucked out bigtime with the weather.

And here’s the view from Peaked Mountain. Below us were the hustle and bustle of North Conway. There’s a Wal Mart down there somewhere…

There were some cool wild plants growing along the trail.

This is “Silverrod,” a cousin of “Goldenrod.” It’s just about gone by but still pretty.

The asters were wrapping it up for the season, too.

The descent, down a different trail,  was rocky, and prettier, we thought, than the ascent. It felt very wild.

Here’s a last look at the trail as we hiked down, with those amazing mountains on the horizon.

I’ll cut right to the chase. What’s wrong is that this monarch butterfly photo was taken last year. Why? Because this year, I have seen just two of them. TWO!

I read a story in our local paper about this lack of monarchs being “normal,” since populations rise and fall. I get that. But in the many decades I have lived on this planet, I don’t ever remember seeing so few.

Something’s up, people. Bees birds and butterflies are declining, all for various specific reasons, most of which can be traced back to toxic chemicals.

So I open my newest “Fine Gardening” magazine and what do I see? An article entitled “Setting the record straight on glyphosate.” The author, Jeff Gillman, writes that this chemical, commonly known as “Roundup” is “really not as harmful as we might think.”

Well, I beg to differ. While glyphosate, if used sparingly by intelligent people who actually read the directions, may not be that bad, the problem is that NO ONE EVER uses it sparingly.

I have seen Department of Transportation crews drenching knotweed with it from a large truck, with the wind blowing the spray in all directions. I have seen my in-laws’ neighbor spray his ENTIRE back yard with it “because there were weeds there.” And who hasn’t seen a homeowner out in shorts and sandals spraying the heck out of the weeds that have the temerity to grow in the cracks in his driveway?

I am not even going to get into the whole Monsanto thing, how the company bullies and sues and muscles its way around the world, engineering plants that are “Roundup ready” so farmers can spray the crap out of a field and the Roundup ready plants will survive. How sick is that?

I also found the editor’s letter in Fine Gardening rather limp. Steve Aitken lists the many things that most of us hate about glyphosate, and then writes that he believes the article to be “even-handed.” I am sure the marketing people at Monsanto thought it was, too.

I am still waiting to see my third monarch butterfly.

Here is a look back at one of the highlights of my summer. This amazing tree frog was one of them. He or she sat quietly on the screen door of the lake house I rented for a week. Killer camouflage, eh?

Oh the screened porch on that house! We spent so much time in it, enjoying dinner overlooking the lake every evening.

Speaking of the lake, it was crystal clear, with a sandy bottom. We did see fish and quite a few turtles, but there were no weeds, no leeches, and no muck. Perfect for swimming.

The dog was in heaven.

There was a nice, sandy beach – natural not man-made. It was ideal for launching my kayak, or corgi swimming.

I hate the summer crowds at the RI beaches and yearn for peace. I found it here.

What makes this place so special is that the shoreline has been LEFT ALONE. No lawns, no walls, no rocks painted white. No motorboats permitted either. There are a few houses but they are almost invisible from the water. For me, it was paradise.

I have been picking Amish Paste tomatoes for a couple of weeks now. This is my first experience with them. After years of trying to grow San Marzanos with little success, I came to my senses and realized that I did not live on the slope of Mount Vesuvius, nor did my garden have volcanic soil, and therefore, I would not be able to make San Marzanos happy – ever. A gardening neighbor told me that he had grown Amish Paste and they were tasty and prolific, so I bought a few plants.

I grow paste tomatoes so I can make sauce, a basic tomato sauce with garlic and fresh basil. I cut the fruits in half, brush them with olive oil and crushed garlic, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast them until they are very, very soft. I think roasting brings out their sweetness.

Here they are ready to take a spin in the food processor.

And here’s the result. A nice, light basic sauce, which, in the dead of winter, tastes fresh and lovely.

I store the sauce in freezer bags, flat in my chest freezer. If we decide to add something to this basic sauce, say mushrooms or meat, that’s easy to do once it’s thawed.

So that’s my ridiculously easy sauce recipe. My fingers are crossed that we won’t have a hurricane that results in a power outage. That has happened to me the last two years in a row, and it sucked having to throw all my hard work away.

This is a “Pineapple” heirloom tomato. I noticed it lurking behind some foliage, but I had no idea how huge it was until I picked it. It did put up some resistance, but after wrestling it to the ground, I finally managed to hoist it over my shoulder and drag it to my kitchen.

How big is it? Well just look at it next to the poor little dachshund.

And here it is next to an extra large egg.

Pretty isn’t it, with that yellow and red coloring? I am going to have to make myself a really big sandwich.

What a banner summer it’s been here in Rhode Island for our ruby throated hummingbirds – the best I can remember. They are positively swarming our three feeders. (I was tempted to hang a few more, but I had to draw the line somewhere.) I have never had to refill them as often as I have this year every other day!

Of course, I also have a garden planted with hummingbirds and other pollinators in mind.  It’s fun to watch the birds foraging in the flowers.

The birds had two clutches this year, at least in these parts, so there are two broods of fledged juveniles, the first from earlier this summer and the second more recent. And of course the parents are feeding too, making for quite a show. The young male in the photo below is just starting to develop his stunning red gorget, one feather at a time.

It’s hard to believe that in another couple of weeks, most of them will be gone, headed south for the winter. I’ll miss them, but it’ll be nice to have a break from cleaning and filling those feeders…..Safe travels, my dear summer friends.

Last year, I planted agastache “Black Adder” in my perennial border, and this summer, it has come into its own. Despite its somewhat sinister name, in my opinion, this plant, also known as “giant hyssop,” is a vast improvement over the much more common “Blue Fortune.” The plant seems to be more robust (this one is well over five feet tall but not floppy) and the flowers are a prettier, less dusty blue.

As for bloom period, this plant has been flowering non-stop since June. The pollinators seem to prefer it to all my other plants – even Eupatorium (Joe Pye weed). The flower buds are nearly black – hence the name, I guess – and the flowers are large, up to eight inches tall. I have cut a few for bouquets and they last well, adding vertical interest to my arrangements.

Black Adder is a carefree plant, and grows happily in zones 6 to 9. It prefers full sun, but will tolerate some shade. One condition it will not tolerate is poorly draining soil.

To make it even more appealing, it has that lovely hyssop scent AND it’s deer tolerant. All in all, it’s a very fine addition to the hyssop family.

This is today’s tomato and eggplant harvest. I am picking and picking every day and each morning, there are more! I have already begun to give eggplants away to neighbors. We can’t possibly eat them all.

For a bit of perspective, here’s the eggplant bed. The mass of green is just four plants. Good thing I spaced them out!

Here’s how the plants looked when I put them in the newly-created “inferno bed” at the hottest end of the house. So glad I yanked those useless shrubs.

I think there are a number of factors contributing to this year’s fantastic harvest.  The weather’s been perfect: hot, but breezy so there is good air circulation between the plants. I have watered them, but we’ve also been getting some good soaking rains. Then there’s the heat reflecting off the house, which is significant. Finally, the beds are entirely compost, which means I have only fed the plants a couple of times, using a seaweed-fish emulsion.

Now I am scouring the Internet for eggplant recipes that aren’t ratatouille, which my husband doesn’t like. All suggestions are welcome.

And I must give a shout out to my “Sungold” cherry tomatoes. Most of you are probably familiar with this cultivar. It is just terrific. Big and burly and so productive. And the fruits, if you pick them when they turn a bit orange, are a delicious, complex sweet-tart combination. I’ve been harvesting them for three weeks now and they just keep coming.