Too many tomatoes, white pumpkins, and funky-shaped gourds

Hello dear readers,

I write to you from my kitchen desk, a wine glass of sparkling ginger beer¹ at hand. I’m on day two of a migraine, meaning I’ve certainly felt better in my life, but the ginger certainly helps. The weather helps, too, all cool and cloudy, as though autumn is finally on its way.

But earlier in the week, before the curse² struck me down, I spent a good amount of time in the garden. Things are beginning to wind down there, and I find myself gathering new seeds and vegetables each time I walk out my door.

Starting at our house: I recently pulled up about half the carrots to wash and store, and picked a number of beans off the vine to dry. There are still a good amount left out there still, but I’m drying these in stages, because I only have so many baskets to hold them! I am looking forward to the day I sit down and shell them all, though—and for when I break them out again on a cold winter day.

Recently my mom and I spent a couple of hours pulling dead plants and weeds out of the back garden, too. Things got away from me this year—it was the first that I had that big bed full of wildflowers, and I spent a ton of time writing and editing—and so I was grateful to have help pulling it back in line. Everything is looking pretty good, but the nasturtiums are next to go³.

At the farm: my tomatoes went completely nuts, and I ended up with many more than I’d expected. But C and I made a few batches of tomato sauce to freeze, and I gave some away to friends, too. I will definitely be planting fewer next year, though. And the banana peppers! They were far too spicy⁴ this year for my liking; most went to the place my grandma volunteers.

I can’t remember if I’ve updated you on the pumpkin field, but it’s… not good. For the first time in the fifty years my grandparents have lived there, the back field was taken over by pigweed⁵. Some of my pumpkins made it through, but I haven’t been able to figure out of my birdhouse or loofa gourds survived—they blend in too well with the weeds. I sure hope I can find some when harvest time comes.

The white pumpkins, though—which I will remind you, no one planted, but we are overjoyed that they’ve returned—are thriving, as are my funky-shaped gourds, which took over the vegetable bed. So, we’ll have an abundance of those, if nothing else. And some of the other pumpkins down by the house seem to be doing ok, so I think we’ll pull through.

I think that’s all for garden-related news today. I hope you’re well, and that your gardens continue to thrive into autumn.

Until next time,

—Catherine

FOOTNOTES

¹ I’m not big into soda, but ginger beer does something to me that I can’t explain; part of that likely comes from the fact it’s magic for migraines.

² This is what my other migraine-cursed friends and I call them. They really are a curse!

³ I planted way too many of a climbing variety, and they took over the back fence. And were also plagued with aphids! I’m not certain I’ll do that again next year.

⁴ I got the same variety I had last year, which wasn’t spicy at all, but these ones were. I don’t know what happened!

⁵ I’m not certain this is what it’s actually called, but it’s what we call it. Just know it is terrible and taller than I am.

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