It's Not Over...Until It's Over

• Technically the fall season has begun. The Cardinals' Wild Card victory fever is high here, and I'm living among the faithful. Like baseball, fall is not over until it's over. There's still time for lettuces, spinach, and depending on how far south you reside, peas and cabbages, too. The quickest plants to get in before frost are the lettuces and spinach. And if a hard freeze is predicted, covering your crops (while sun and 45+ degree temps return in the daytime) will further extend your growing season.



Butter Crunch or Bibb (left) and Leaf Lettuce (right)

Spinach will give you the advantage of salads today and Spinach Artichoke Dip from your freezer tomorrow. The same is true of the pea pods. Fresh edible pea pods can be harvested sooner than the fully mature pods. Eating the entire pod when it's young and tender cannot be surpassed; it's that good. While having a variety of lettuces is wonderful, having produce which you can both eat today and freeze for later is ideal.

Last year I began a pea crop in March and it was finished by the 4th of July. Peas wilt in the heat and prefer a cool growing season during spring or fall. Replace them with a row of scallions or heat-resistant spinach until August wanes and you are ready to plant another crop.


There are several types of peas, or pea pods. While 'Sugar Snap' are quite good, you don't have to cultivate a Chinese type. Any pea may be picked while immature, i.e., the pod is flat and tender. The pea pods blend in well with the foliage; there will always be those which slip past you making it to full maturity. Harvest them for next year's seed, doing the same with beans in your garden which have been "missed."



Pea Pods

I'm Home

After a long, hot summer in a cold office basement, I am back to the place I love best. When my children were younger, they'd come in, slam the door, drop their books, and get a snack: in that exact order. And they'd call out, "I'm home." Now that half of them are gone, and drive a distance to return, "I'm home" means so much more. After spending the entire growing season in an office, I'm home. The garden was a wreck, but laboring to restore the vegetable and flower beds is the most meaningful thing I've done all season.

The water spigot here represents the font of life for my little acre. One hundred-plus degree days took their toll, reducing cantaloupes and pole beans alike to wilting masses. Cucumber beetles reigned the day. Not spending time in the garden every day allowed huge swaths of weeds to annex my strawberry and raspberry patches.


A couple breezy days of work have mended the garden; several rows of lettuce--Bibb, Iceberg, and Black Seeded Simpson--are coming along fine. The sugar pea pods are a few inches high, and the spinach has passed the cotyledon stage just in time for the rabbits to arrive. Yes, I am home.