The Daily: 30 September 2024

The weather is finally turning cooler. We’ve had overnight lows — which actually hit at about 5:30am when I am getting ready for work — in the lower 40s (°F). No frost yet, but I had to turn the heat on last Wednesday because at 55°F it was just too cold to sit in the house. My body hasn’t had time to adjust, nor have I pulled out winter things like throw blankets and my fuzzy slippers. I also have not yet closed off the storm windows. I drag my heels on that, delaying that final sealing off of the house until as late as I can. Because I like fresh air in the house, but also because there will be a week or more of heat later in the autumn. There always is. And then I have to either endure the stale warmth or go through the storm window opening all over again… only to close them a few days later.

September has also been rather dry after this summer of rain every day. Each day starts out with thick fog and high humidity, but it burns off by midday without moistening anything. We did have some nice “female rain” last week. It drizzled continuously from early Wednesday morning until Thursday around 5pm, with only a few heavy showers. We got almost four inches of precipitation, the only rain we had in September. But the ground is already back to baked clay, and I’ve been hauling water over to the raised beds to keep the autumn and overwintering veg alive.

So far that is all doing well. I have all the tiny potatoes planted as well as a few tiny alliums. I am not sure what all of them are. Some look more garlicky than oniony, and some of the red onions might be actually shallots. We’ll see what they turn into next year.

There is also more garlic on the way (from Fedco) because I wanted to try some of the hardier varieties. I’ve been growing rocambole for a long time. I like it… no, I love it. But in this garden, it often makes weeny little bulbs with lots of tiny cloves, almost more paper than meat. Using it is an exercise in unwrapping. It also did not store well last year. So I bought a German porcelain hardneck and something called Russian Red (another hardneck). Both like cold temperatures and the Russian is supposed to be happy in soggy soil, which these days is a regular problem around garlic harvest time.

The carrots and beets and rutabaga I planted are all up and need thinning. Then I will cover that bed with straw and row cover and try not to worry about it too much over the winter. The greens in the cold frame are all healthy and need thinning also, but I will probably thin them by using some as microgreens. This bed will be in use pretty much through the whole winter. I don’t get much out of it in the coldest weeks, but it never goes dormant completely. Romaine and arugula and endive don’t seem to care about cold or dark, as long as I keep the bed from getting too dry. Which is a trick… because I can’t let the heat vent out too much. I have to water quickly in the middle of the day only in sunny weather.

The kale that I planted in August is close to salad greens sized. This is the first round of cabbages that the groundhog has not obliterated. The Old Farmer’s Almanac claims that groundhogs begin hibernating when the days are shorter than nights. This happened last week for central Vermont. But he’s been a bit sluggish for a while now. He is also rotund and seems to be sticking to the house side of the road. Since mid-September I’ve only seen him once, waddling for the cover of my front porch… and… well… there is kale. So he can’t be visiting the garden too much right now. (And there was much rejoicing…)

I picked the last summer squash this past weekend. There is, however, one melon that continues to grow. It is softball sized now and hard green. I somehow doubt it will make it to maturity before frost, but who knows. The tomatillos, likewise, are probably not going to get there. This is sad because the plants are enormous and covered in little lanterns. But they refuse to ripen. They are all green and firmly closed. I suppose if I want to repeat this exercise, I am going to buy one plant in April and plant it out as soon as I can. I have a glass cloche that ought to fit an infant tomatillo.

Truthfully, none of the nightshades that I started early did all that well. I had more fruit off the volunteers from last year than the plants I tended for weeks in the basement. And the groundhog wiped out the tiny chile plants. I have never heard of any animal eating nightshades. This marmot has odd tastes. In any case, next year I think I might just start seeds outside under row cover in April or so. A few days under black landscape fabric ought to get the soil warm enough for germination, probably just as warm as in the basement anyway. I had to use a heater down there this year. That seems rather excessive even if the plants came out healthy… which they did not…

The tomatoes recovered, but they are only now producing a lot of fruit. I will be making sauce in October. Strange…

I will also be making pesto in October. I have been reluctant to cut the basil because the bees are so very happy around the flowers. Usually, I don’t let herbs flower, but things got away from me and suddenly there were six inch flower spikes everywhere — and each was covered in all sorts of bees and hoverflies. So I had resigned myself to no pesto, because common wisdom says that once the plant flowers, the leaves lose their flavorful oils. But… the scent of basil is strong enough to overwhelm my neighbor’s stinky VW Bug, even after flowering. Maybe more so after flowering. So I grabbed a fistful of leaves the other day to see what they taste like — and they are every bit as delicious as they were before flowering. So now I’m trying to decide between happy bees and happy pesto, and the bees are winning. (Not least because I haven’t time for pesto-making anyway…) But I might take a few plants before it frosts.

I am not lacking in harvest tasks though… I spent the last two weekends turning produce into food for winter. My kitchen freezer is filled with strata, quiche and fruit butters. The chest freezer in the basement has spiced applesauce, whole berries, and several loaves of pumpkin bread. But there are many more tubs and bags of ingredients — peas, corn, roasted chile, roasted squash and so on. The basement also has two bushel bins of potatoes and one filled with onions, plus one still half full of apples from my Cox Orange Pippin tree (which is more of a crabapple than an eating apple… would make great cider if I had a press and about 20 more hours in the week…). I have already emptied one bin of Zestar apples and used up the Bartlett pears that we brought home from apple picking when my parents were here.

I will be going back — probably this weekend or next — for Macouns and Macintoshes and maybe more pears. Going to farm markets and taking advantage of pick-your-own berries and orchard fruits is an essential part of eating local. I have been going to pick-your-own farms for most of my life, from spring strawberries to autumn pumpkins. I have recently expressed dissatisfaction with buying squash (because a certain marmot is thwarting my efforts in that regard), but even in a good year, I do actually buy more local produce than I grow. I can’t grow everything I need. So I buy from local growers, people I know. I know they care about their land and about producing food that is good for every body. So it is good food. But mostly, this is the local harvest. This is what is grown here. To grow the sort of localized economy that I believe is vital to both reducing our impact upon the world and nurturing healthy lives, I must support local producers by buying — and storing — what they have produced. Also, this is the local harvest. This climate does not produce food year round. If I want to eat local in winter, I need to stock up on the local harvest in the autumn. Which includes foraging from local farms.

So this is a necessary task for loca-vores in the fall. But it’s also just great fun. And apple picking is my favorite! It is always the perfect way to spend an afternoon. The scents and the colors and the sounds of happy people gathering food. Wandering among the trees with your wagon, enjoying the sunlight filtering through the branches. Or sometimes rain, because there is no weather that is not pleasant for apple-picking. And there are cider doughnuts with warmed cider if needed.

But the best part is being able to bring home a wide variety of apples, far more than my garden could provide. There are apples hanging from the boughs that you will never see in a market. The best apples are quite often the least amenable to mass production and shipping. The sweetest snacking varieties will bruise if you look at them wrong. The russets that store so very well with so little effort take a great deal of effort to pry them off the tree, making it impossible to mechanically harvest these apples without causing a good deal of damage. And many of the best-tasting varieties are not much to look at. They are small and rusty green, often lumpy or rough-skinned. They don’t sell well, so they are never produced in quantity.

I have had the extraordinary luck to find orchards that have their own signature varieties in each of the places I’ve lived as an adult. In New Mexico, it was Champagne apples from Dixon (which, sadly, was burned just before we left… there are no more Champagne apples…). In Massachusetts there are Spencers at several orchards, one of which was just a couple miles from my house. People would drive from as far away as New Jersey to stock up on these apples every autumn. I could walk there… if I could carry the apple load home again. Here in Vermont, there are strains of Macoun and Macintosh that are different from what I’ve had elsewhere. (Vermont even has Red Delicious apples that are indeed delicious…) And Burtt’s Macouns are about the peak of apple perfection. Sweet and tart, they are good for eating fresh, making pies and turnovers, turning into apple butter and sauce, and they ferment into sublime cider. They are the apples Burtt’s uses for cider doughnuts (which are also about the apex of perfection). Macouns also store well. I can keep them for months, even in my rudimentary cool storage basement. They are a late-season apple, usually not ripe until late October. However, everything is early this year. They said to expect Macouns in the first couple weeks of October. Hence, I am going back this weekend…

Burtt’s also has a farm stand for cider — and cider doughnuts! — winter squash, potatoes, and other veg that they grow and that they source from neighborhood farms. They have enormous pumpkins and hubbard squash. These, too, are very early. I bought a massive hubbard. It made ten quarts of roasted squash for the freezer. However, I held off on buying Halloween pumpkins when we were there in September, though they had plenty. Seems way too early. But now, with the massive piles of winter squash everywhere, I think that there won’t be anything left by late October. So this year, I will buy a carving pumpkin and keep it in the attic until it’s time for jack-o-lanterns. If I were to put it outside this early, it would be mauled by squirrels within hours. There would be nothing left to carve by Halloween. I plan on getting one with the Macouns. Apples and Pumpkins. It’s like living in an Anne Rockwell book.

I am sure wherever you are, there is a local harvest just waiting for you. Buying the harvest from pick-your-own farms or letting the farmer fill up a weekly CSA basket is a great way to fill up the pantry with local food. Consider it a moral duty. One that doesn’t come with frowny faces and pointing fingers, but instead comes with laughter and full bellies and, if you’re lucky, cider doughnuts. Whatever your local harvest, you can be sure that you will not find better food in the market. Yes, it comes with a good deal of work. But so does every meal. The difference is that you do this for yourself. And for your community.

But don’t dawdle… because everything seems early this year. Though… I suppose time is getting on. Tomorrow the Harvest Moon goes dark. And October begins.

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©Elizabeth Anker 2024