Through Summer and Autumn (Part 1)

 August.

I know, August is so two months ago.

But here I continue the summer saga. The diggers I wrote about at the end of June have been evicted. In all we trapped seven racoons, two opossums and one rabbit. All but the rabbit were relocated. Rabbits don't cause much trouble here. I know what their favorite snacks are and protect those plants with chicken wire fencing until they're too large for the rabbits to find them tasty. They and the deer prefer clover, so as long as I leave the red clover that has somehow found its way into the garden we're all cool.

July brought on the tomatoes, slowly, then the blackberries, and melons toward the end of the month. The first tomatoes to ripen were the Sun Golds, a little orange cherry type. August brought the tomato boom, however, and okra, eggplant, melons, ground cherries, summer squash and more blackberries.

This photo represents my August, which was dominated by tomatoes.

The huge tomatoes here are Amish Paste, a large heirloom paste variety, destined for slicing and dehydrating. I've grown this variety for years. It seems relatively disease resistant and has always produced abundantly. This year was no exception, although it was strange. Planted in a rainy, cool May, and suddenly thrust into a hot, dry June they nonetheless grew sturdily (with irrigation, of course). July eased up a bit and August seemed more normal. However, they went into decline much earlier than usual. Typically, they're still producing into October and I scurry to pick the remaining green tomatoes when the first freeze is predicted. But this year I took them all down by the end of September. They were the last to go, however, except for the Sun Golds, which are always the most robust tomatoes.

The Black Plum tomatoes, the ones I roast for sauce-making, are always the first to come down. However, they are so productive that I am glad when they start their decline. This year they came down even earlier, but not before I took down the slicing tomatoes. Usually my slicers hang in there until frost, but not this year. 

I tried some new ones, though. Mortgage Lifter replaced my usual Brandywines. They were nice tomatoes and nearly as flavorful as the Brandywine, with less cracking. But they went into decline early, probably a result of the weather fluctuations. I'll try them again next year, perhaps alongside a Brandywine and see how they do. Another slicer in my garden remains unidentified. It was supposed to be Dark Galaxy, a little salad tomato, dark purple with white star-like spots. This was a purple-red slicing size tomato, however. I grew it from seed saved by another gardener, so who knows what happened.

Another new variety this year was Indigo Rose, a small salad tomato that turns dark purple, almost black where the sun hits the fruit and ripens to brick red on the underside. It's a pretty tomato. When I searched for information about this variety I read mixed reviews about the flavor. You can count me among those who were not impressed. I might grow this one again for the color, but not the taste.

Because I took the tomatoes out early, you might think it was a bad year for them. However, I wound up with three and a half gallons of dried tomatoes and 13 pints of roasted tomato sauce. Plus we ate tomatoes at every meal but breakfast and gave away pounds and pounds, to friends, family and a neighbor whose plants were stunted and produced fruit that refused to ripen. 

We were rich with tomatoes. And okra, and melons, and berries, eggplant (most of which survived getting dug up by our diggers), long beans, summer squash.  Not only was August busy with work in the garden, I also spent a good bit of time in the kitchen processing the produce. Some days were spent just picking and processing.

So I was glad when September brought a little slow-down. I'll show you September later.