When the Frost Is on the Punkin, Maybe It’s Time to Give Up

I might as well admit it: the season is over. An evening of temperatures in the low 40s a few weeks ago claimed most of the plants that were still growing, and I had to work hard to harvest all the tomatoes and pull up the tomato plants. I was lucky, for the frost that had blackened every plant and shrunken its leaves left the fruit intact. Only one small, green tomato, sticking up on a branch above all the rest, was frozen.

About six gallons of mostly green tomatoes came indoors with me. I placed them in shallow bowls and platters on the dining table, and they have been ripening a few at a time, prolonging the illusion of summer. These ripened “greenies” still have that home-grown freshness and savor. The red ones are still sweet, the green-and-yellows still tangy. The texture is not as firm as it was (moisture loss, I guess), but altogether they are better than I would have predicted.

The last two cantaloupe plants put in a fair effort at producing a new set of fruit, but ultimately failed. Clinging to the withered vines were some half-dozen tennis-ball-sized muskmelons. It was fun to throw the unripe melons across the yard in the general direction of the trash can, but it was also sad to contemplate the unrealized potential they represented. Their predecessors were truly the best muskmelons I had ever had the joy of devouring, tender of flesh and full of honey-like sweetness.

The snap beans grew until the frost, as well, but now they are frail skeletons clinging wearily to their posts. I’ve left them there because the snow peas, which are still alive, have been using them as a trellis. Some kind of rodent is eating the leaves of the pea plants. I doubt they will manage to produce a crop before they are either eaten to the ground or blistered by freezing rain.

Underneath the trellis, my lettuce seedlings have hung on, but I fear that they will freeze soon, too, unless I can find some suitable pots to transplant them into. I don’t know whether lettuce will grow well inside, but it’s worth trying. I transplanted the three basil plants that survived the frost (two cinnamon basil—very special and zingy—and one ordinary basil), and so far, they seem to be quite happy in their sunny window.

The entire row of Swiss chard, stalwart in cold as in extreme heat, endures, crisp, green, and thick-leaved, although the leaves are not growing as fast or large as they did in summer. I have grown to enjoy Swiss chard, and have found that it breaks down pleasantly in soups. It also makes a good stir-fry, as long as there’s something in the stir-fry that is flavorful enough to cut the leaves’ natural bitterness. Best of all, though, is sukiyaki with Swiss chard in it. Somehow, the broth of soy sauce, sake, and sugar brings out all the most pleasant qualities of this vegetable. It softens, but doesn’t get mushy, and its strong flavor subsides just to the point where it adds interest. This makes it superior to the usual Napa cabbage or bok choy.

At any rate, I’m glad to have something still growing out there besides my perennial herbs. I’ve contemplated planting onions, but it’s probably too late, and they would interfere with the rotation I’ve planned for next year. It’s time to plant a cover crop of some sort (more on that later), then sit back, drink some tea, and read—about gardening, naturally. After all, there's no better time than fall and winter to fantasize about what the next summer may bring. Only in the cold season can the gardener unleash her imagination without bowing to practical realities and the day-to-day drudgery involved in Making It So.

Coming up: cover crops, herbs, the fall vegetable roundup (what worked and what didn’t), book reviews, and plans for next year (of course!).

Rabbit-Proof Fence

Two months ago, a litter of cute, fist-sized bunnies was born in a furry nest beneath my neighbors’ kitchen door. While others fawned over the little creatures, I stood away, muttering grim prophecies that have, at last, come to pass. The rabbit is out of the bag, and he is a hungry devil, who brings all his friends, brothers, sisters, and associates to the banquet.

The main attraction of this lapine smorgasbord, for the last two nights, has been my formerly six-inch-high pea plants, tender-leaved, succulent seedlings that were far too young to be allowed out at night alone. Most of those plants are now one or two inches high, and those that have more than one leaf left can count themselves fortunate indeed. A pole bean seedling, meanwhile, fared far worse in the latest rampage, having been foully and mercilessly slaughtered, cut down to the ground just as it was feeling its way toward a strong support.

One neighbor (who is a non-gardener) suggested planting marigolds to deter the creatures. I pooh-poohed the idea. Even if I believed that marigolds are a strong rabbit repellent, I would still have no confidence that flowers alone, howsoever stinky, would deter a rabbit that knew quite well what it was going after. I offended my neighbor by mumbling something about rabbit stew. Later on, I bought a length of two-foot-high nylon-covered wire fencing and unrolled it around the garden. Perhaps the little marauders will find a way under my fence, but the barrier will at least tax their ingenuity and strength for a time, and siphon off some of the energy they have already usurped from my high-maintenance garden plants.

At night, I am re-reading Watership Down for perhaps the eighteenth time. Though I still love that tale of rabbits on the run from residential development and still sympathize with Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and the rest of their crew, I am not deluded thereby into believing that bunnies are our friends. Like all the other creatures on the earth, rabbits are herbivorous competitors that must be discouraged from consuming the dainties we desire. My mother, who memorized Peter Rabbit when my brother and I were young, says I have turned into Mr. McGregor. So I have, and it is only natural that I should. The unwritten code of the ancient and hard-working cadre of gardeners requires me to accept that I must do a certain amount of fighting for my future meals, and that the fiercest of those struggles will likely be against my fellow creatures.

A Tale of Two Trellises

My neighbor, the Man with the Perfect Lawn, built his trellis a few weeks ago. As usual, I’m playing catch-up—rather lamely, it would seem. We both were dissatisfied with last year’s yield of bush beans, so each of us decided to plant pole beans this year. Naturally, to grow pole beans, one needs a beanpole.

Lawn Man tried teepee trellises for his cucumbers last year and didn’t like them. This year, he has nailed together a tough-looking structure from two-by-fours. He’s a construction worker by trade. While I’ve wielded a hammer from time to time, I have little confidence in my ability to cobble together wood-frame structures. Instead, I chose materials I could easily lift and created a rickety trellis of my own from bamboo poles tied together with a kind of nylon twine that has an annoying tendency to fray on first contact.

I think this will work for the beans, but I’m not so sure about the peas and cucumbers. All the books I’ve consulted recommend nailing up netting that the peas can climb. As for cucumbers, my family has always grown them on the ground, where they trailed limply for about six feet or so. These cucumbers produced adequately, but they were never wildly successful. I’ve also had thoughts about training winter squash on my trellis, but the idea has begun to seem impractical. If the vine doesn’t climb up the thing automatically, why waste time tying up each tendril?

The melons, meanwhile, must go elsewhere. In 100 square feet of space, it’s hard to keep plants apart from each other. According to The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible, Edward C. Smith’s guide to organic gardening in raised beds, melon plants should not be allowed to mingle with cucumbers. Smith claims that melons pollinated by cucumber flowers will taste bitter. I’m not entirely sure I believe that, but planting cucurbits apart from each other makes sense to me.

Last year, I planted the cucumbers, melons, and squash together in the same infertile plot. The poor soil quality guaranteed that anything planted there would fail to thrive, but the cucumbers, at least, produced a few odd-shaped specimens. The winter squash died, and the zucchini struggled, producing only male blossoms. Both were early and frequent victims of squash bug infestation. Squash bugs prefer squash, but they don’t mind dining on cucumbers and melons. Thousands of tiny, yellow cucumber beetles, both spotted and striped, also descended on my poor, struggling plants.

I’m hoping that if I keep apart the squash plants and banish the zucchini to the front yard and the melon to the flowerbeds, the insects will be forced to divide their time among three separate locations, reducing the damage they inflict in any one spot. So my trellis will host only the beans, peas, and cucumbers, and the squash and melons will be left to find their own way.