We know where our wet spots are. I think I mentioned in my last prattle the extraordinary amount of rain this summer. Every gardener in Vermont has a different success and failure depending on the location of their “wet spot.” My failures were cucumbers and squashes. Their poor tendrils were literally floating in our maze of “creeks” that our garden became. My son’s favorite activity was catching frogs in the garden! After the rain ended, the anxious waiting for a sun warmed ripe and juicy tomato began.
About mid August I spotted the first rosy orb, a Brandywine, and I have been processing tomatoes since. Although my life has been bogged down with tomatoes for the past month, I have not tired of them. Four weeks is not long enough for that luscious fruit. My fingers are crossed that Jack Frost will hold out a few more weeks. But now that I have canned and frozen enough for my family for the winter and have started the less time consuming task of giving them away, I can thankfully spend less time in the kitchen and more time in the garden while there is still some warmth in our days.
With scraps from abundant fresh produce and the dried remnants of plants that have done their seasonal duty, whether it is flowering or fruiting, I have been able to quickly put together a pile for composting. It is also still warm enough to get it cooking and through its cycle to use as mulch this fall. I used, well, tomato leavings, amongst other vegetables, chopped up dried green bean plants (this was the largest portion), straw I had used for mulch, and some horse manure. I’ll let you know how it turns out. The brown liquid (compost tea) that has dripped out the holes in the bottom of the ComposTumbler, I have been pouring on my fall transplants. I hope you all have had more successes than failures in your gardens this year and that the successes are still flourishing!
