Garden scenes

The garden is starting to get that late-season slumpy look. It seems early, but then, it always seems early. As much as I look forward to fall, it's always bittersweet to watch the wild green thicket of summertime growth fade away. Everywhere there are dying zucchini leaves and spent calendula blossoms, yellowing string beans and potato rows inching closer to the harvest. 

This morning was foggy, and so the row of Swiss chard drew me in like a shelf full of old mercury glass. They show the most beautiful colors on those wet, dim mornings. Pewter, plum, and platinum mixed in with the reds and greens. 

The calendula is looking really nice. It's something I planted with the intent of harvesting and drying the flowers to use in bath salts, lotions, and other gifty handmade things like that. But the harvest, in this case, would mean cutting all those happy orange flower-heads, so I procrastinate. Also, I want enough of the heads to stay and ripen seed where they stand, so they'll replant themselves.

Slumpy.

Fennel. I am dreaming of a roasted vegetable tart featuring fennel, onions, potatoes, and cabbage, with lots of dill sprinkled in. 

Over where I grew beets in the early summertime, I've planted rows of bok choy, broccoli raab, and curly mustard. All is doing so splendidly. I love fall greens.

I finally picked the first of our cucumbers last week. Surely a record for lateness, but I'm still happy to have them. After a few rounds of cuke and tomato salad, into the pickle pot they will go. 
In other parts of the garden, the raspberries are done fruiting (save for one or two soft, magnificent gems hidden in the shady centers of the rows, which I've delighted in finding, one by one...). I'm launching a campaign against the weed-choked far edge of the garden (the edge you very conveniently can't see in any of the photos...) this week, a campaign involving scrap lumber and long screws and end-of-season-sale perennials. We'll see how it goes; it will surely be a lot of digging. But. My summer deadlines are met, at last, and with the cooler, crisper days I am itching to get back out there and make tracks.

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