Autumn Mosaics

The vibrant foliage of autumn speaks volumes about the austere and often transient nature of beauty. For half a year, the flower beds of our neighbor provided a most pleasant atmosphere when working in the garden. Behind the pretty tulips and perennials stood groves of trees: oaks, pines, and a smattering of willows. Throughout those warm months, the trees served as a stage of the flowers, an unassuming curtain of green. Now though, the brides-maid has outshone the bride herself in splendor. What is truly amazing however, is that while the flower's greatest beauty occurs during the xenith of it's youth, the leaf's moment of majesty comes just ere the darkness falls.

As the days become shorter and colder, my garden has become dominated by turnips. The cabbages simply couldn't withstand the onslaught of the rabbits, who cleverly chewed through my snares. The green tomatos in my cellar continues to ripen, I collected another half a dozen rosy ones today.

Cornucopia of food and pests...

Some 40 lbs of tomatos had been ripening indoors for two weeks. Wrapped in newspapers, these tomatos are kept warm and free of pests. Today, I harvested 10 beautifully ripened tomatos. When kept from the harsh autumn environment, the green tomatos are ripening indoors as flawlessly as they had outside at the end of summer. The full measure of ripening would be complete within a month. Of course, we have far more tomatos than we can readily consume. So a good number of them will have to be canned to last us the winter.

The dwarf kale, which had gotten off to a great start, was abruptly ravaged by a family of rabbits. These marauders had intruded upon my garden one night and nibbled off dozens of the tender cabbages at the bud. By the time I found their paw-prints, almost half of the kale buds that I had back-breakingly cultivated were destroyed. If I was to sentry beside the garden, no rabbit would escape my arrows, but I can't be there all the time. As such, a bit of ingenuity was required upon my part. After some educational reading, I proceeded to set several snares along the garden fencing, hopefully, I can trap a few of these vermin while egressing out of the garden.

The turnips were spared by the local wild life for some reason. As such they have prospered beyond my wildest expectations. The turnip section of the square meter garden had turned into a patch of broad, lush green leaves. The turnips are naturally cold-resistent and fast maturing. All of it's heat-loving wild competitor weeds were either dead or going into dormancy.

It's only garden rival, the kale, had been badly mauled by furry pests. Thus with almost no competition, and abundent resources, the turnips are growing like wildfire. In less than a week, the turnips have taken over almost a quarter of the garden area intended for the now weakened dwarf kale. The area that these plants have already conquored was further thickened with hundreds of new turnip green leaves. As such, I collected 5 lbs worth of the largest turnip greens today. When steamed, these greens had the delightful texture of butterhead lettuce interlaced with a spicy undertone, they were absolutely delicious. And if the winter is mild enough, continuous cultivation of these greens can be maintained until late december. That should produce enough fresh greens to strech through most of winter!

Coming of the frost...

Last week the autumn's first hard frost came one night. The end was swift and sudden for the tomato plants. Fundementally, life is composed mostly of water. Plants in general can be looked upon as billions of packets of water held together by thin walls of cellulose. The water pressure applied upon those walls gives the plants shape and structure. When the ambient temperature dipped cruelly below the freezing point, those packets of water turned into razor sharp blades of ice crystal. These crystals stabbed clean through the cellular structure of my tomatos along the entirety of the plants. The final stake was of course to be struck in the morning. With the coming of the sun, the temperature rose above freezing point, thus melting those ice crystals. In a matter of hours, the life blood of my tomato plants leaked out of a billion microscopic cuts. What had been in full bloom the day before was transformed into a dark, shrunken, and collapsing mass of plant matter.

I did my best to salvage the remaining tomatos on the vine. The tomato plants have apparently devoted the last iota of their energy onto their offspring. A dozen tomatos had to be thrown away due to frost damage. A handfull of semi-ripened tomatos went to the fridge, and about 30 still-green tomatos joined their siblings down in my basement cellar to ripen indoors. Of the plants themselves, I promptly proceeded to cut and shred into pieces. This green manure, I applied to the compost bins. What came out of the good earth shall be returned back into it. And the land that the tomatos had occupied was quickly replowed. I threw upon that land a fine layer of my own compost and then proceeded to sow seeds of winter dwarf kale. In the days since the sowing, the kale had been growing like weeds. Dwarf Kale, along with turnip have special enzymes within their cellular structure that serves as a form of anti-freeze. Thus, for all intents and purposes, these plants are nearly immune to the cold weather that we get here in the Northeast.

Tomato Destroyers....

This morning I woke up to a terrible deed. 5 fully ripened tomatos were snatched from the vine, crushed and dumped on the grass besides the garden. Words does no justice to the rage that one feels inside at such waste. Only someone who doesn't realize the pains of producing food would destroy another man's crops so carelessly. I know that I'm being irrationally mad here, but one really can't help it. This could be the work of children from this neighborhood. In anycase, this incident along with frost warnings for early next week prompted an emergency action on my part. Every large tomato on the vine whether ripened or green has been harvested. The 7 ripened tomatos are going in the freezer and the 30 some green ones are going to be wrapped in newspaper and ripened in the safety of the garage. I left more than a dozen small green tomatos on the vine. These fruits are probably too small to notice, let alone be worth destroying. Next week, the entire tomato plant will be mulched and it's plot of ground planted with more winter kale.

Peak Tomato!

The two tomato plants have given their utmost this weekend. I've harvested 37 tomatos today. There are still over 20 tomatos left on the vine. If the weather would but hold out for a few more weeks, all of them can be naturally ripened. The turnips are doing quite nicely in the recent cool weather. Next week, if the garden gods are kind, we shall have fresh turnip greens in our salad bowls!

Nomadic Vacation 9/29-9/31 Conclusion

On the last leg of this journey, my ethanol powered vehicle ventured near the population centers of NYC, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C in that order. Cities always possessed a kind of fascination for me. They are such complex mega-systems, magnificent and at the same time fragile. I was going to these cities to drink and party with good friends and colleagues from days gone by. One must keep in mind that for most of the last two weeks, I've been traversing the under-populated regions of the Northeast. The largest number of people I had seen had not exceeded the population of a small village or town. Thus seeing legions of people densely packed into small areas were quite disconcerting initially. But as food and liquor flowed, and stories exchanged, one cannot help but miss the social aspects of life. Though too much drink could've been consumed, I do not believe that humanity evolved such a proclivity towards alchohol without due cause. However, good friends and good company are essential components of life, and as such, I thoroughly enjoyed these last few days of vacation.