It is August-going-into-September as I write this and one can still enjoy summer activities - swimming, beach parties and lawn picnics. Yet, the vegetable garden knows summer's coming to an end. Potato plants shrivel, turn yellow and their tubers begin their seasonal slumber underground.
Their stems will remain visible briefly on top of the soil, helping me locate the potatoes underneath. But usually I wait too long to dig them up. Once their stems are detached or missing, I have no clue where to dig. So, some potatoes remain underground and the cycle of volunteer potato plants starts anew, affecting the next season's planting.
In early summer, garlic grows loopy stems called "scapes" which can be made into pesto or stir-fried. If left alone, each stem end produces a cluster to tiny bulblets. Each bulblet seeks a new place to grow when it falls to earth. That is probably how the garlic informally entered my garden in the first place.
Meanwhile, the single clove planted by the gardener has grown into its own cluster of cloves tightly-grouped around the stem. By mid-August, the garlic leaves have withered away and the stem has dried out but it is still firmly attached to its underground bundle of cloves. Now is the time to pull up the garlic by its stem. If you delay, its cloves will start to separate, and the central stem will detach, leaving the cloves to be dug, one-by-one, out of the soil.
I have enjoyed discovering the garlic's growth habits and its strategy for reproducing via two methods - above ground and below ground. There's still more for me to learn about them.
By late summer, the zucchini plants are producing their fruits at a more moderate rate. But the shortening days have spurred the Mexican cherry tomato plant to greater feats. It has extended its reach to 10 feet or more along the wire fencing and beyond my homemade trellis made of sticks. The plant is in an uproar, producing red tomatoes so rapidly that I have to go out daily to harvest.
On the other hand, the plum tomato seems shy about ripening any of its fruits; they are remaining staunchly green. Even the volunteer tomato plants, growing and stepped upon in the garden walkways, have been more productive. Two of the volunteers are providing the yellow-orange tomatoes that are one size larger than the typical cherry tomato. The yellow-orange ones are my favorites, which shows that we ought not to scorn the non-conformist rebels that grow out of place.
Susanne Farrington is a roving environmentalist and nature lover from Hamilton.
September 07, 2020 at 01:11AM
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The vegetables know it is summer's end - News - Utica Observer Dispatch
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