Last Whiff of Summer

Summer is definitely over.
Fini.
Caput.

Nothing blooms in the prairie or the garden, except a few straggling asters, such as the pale lavender ones above (trust me, in the prairie they're pale lavender), surprising atop browned stalks among browned prairie grasses, as well as a few white asters. The last whiff of summer. They might be natives or introduced varieties, I can't tell them apart. So many aster species exist, and often the only way to distinguish them is by a few subtle differences.

In the flower bed an aster is the last to maintain a few sparse blooms. Maybe it's aromatic aster? But the online pics don't look quite right. I might have mis-remembered it's name.

The summer vegetables are gone. The peppers have been roasted and frozen, and the plants quietly decompose in the compost heap

The last crisp, brown corpses of tomato plants have been removed. In their place tidy beds rest, covered in either hay mulch or short green oats and clover. I love the tidiness of season's end almost as much as the rampant growth of high summer.

Cabbages, lettuce, and other cool-love vegetables do their thing under white-draped low tunnels.

We had a couple of nights of freezing weather in the middle of October, followed by the most wonderful Autumn weather. Even the dark, rainy days were glorious. I've been able to work outdoors with just a light jacket, even in my shirt sleeves.

Goldenrod seed head in the prairie.

But that has changed. I'll need a coat today, and shoes. Freezing is in the forecast again. A bit deeper this time. Today I'll start adding layers to the fall-winter vegetable garden, pulling back row covers, harvesting some, then spreading row cover over the top of the plants, and closing the tunnel again. I hope this gives enough extra protection to keep things from getting burned.

Most of the tunnels are covered with a bit heavier row cover that they call a "frost blanket." It holds just a couple of degrees of extra warmth, which is all that is needed at this point. I will go through and determine which beds are covered with the lighter version and decide whether I need to replace it with frost blanket. In a couple of weeks I'll have to decide whether to add more layers of protection, or just harvest everything and give it up to the season.

But that will be then. Today I'll focus on what I know needs to be done and watch the season deepen. My mind and body follow the season, settling deeper into a resting state. I sleep a bit later. Feel sleepy earlier in the evening. I lack creative energy. That's fine, I tell myself. This is a period of restoration and gestation. Those creative seeds I've planted will spend their time evolving in my subconscious, and when the time is right, they'll send down roots and poke up shoots. Like the seeds in the ground, I must give them time.

Let winter do its job.

Covering Your Assets

Oats and crimson clover sprouting in a cleared area of the garden.

Whether spring, summer or fall, I find something satisfying about clearing plants from the garden. I love the way the garden takes on a more spacious, tidy look after sprawling and declining plants are gone.

But that doesn't last long. In spring and summer I'm likely to plant another veggie crop there, or I will plant a cover crop. At the very least, I will cover the soil with old hay.

Without a doubt, soil is your biggest asset in the garden, and keeping the soil covered is one step in building and maintaining healthy soil, alongside adding compost or other forms of organic matter, avoiding walking on and compacting the soil, minimizing tillage or other disturbance (including cutting off annual plants with extensive roots systems at soil level instead of pulling them), and maximizing the diversity of crops in the garden (including rotating crops, companion planting, and cover cropping).

Buckwheat seedlings cover the bare spaces between the celery and parsnips. 

Buckwheat makes potassium in the soil available to other plants.

Maintaining living roots in the soil is possibly one of the most key ways to create healthy soil (which is much more than just dirt), according to the Extension horticulture agent who gave a presentation on cover crops at last month's Master Gardeners' meeting. Those roots give beneficial microorganisms (mainly bacteria and fungi) someplace to live.  Without those organisms plants will not thrive, as the microorganisms in the soil assist the plant in taking up nutrients. You can maintain living roots in the soil three ways:

   --By planting perennials; which only works if you don't plan to use the area for annual crops for a while;
   --By intensifying crop rotation. This means that as soon as you take out one crop, plant another, preferably from a different plant family, but not necessarily. I usually plant my fall brassicas (cabbages etc.) in the same places I planted the spring brassicas. Then I give that area a rest from brassicas for the next two years.
   --By planting cover crops, which are the focus of this post.

Besides maintaining living roots in the soil, cover crops also help smother weeds, add organic matter to the soil, prevent erosion and oxidation of the soil (thus, keeping nutrients in place), and in some cases, make nutrients more accessible to other plants.

Examples of the last benefit include legumes "fixing" nitrogen in the soil through a symbiotic relationship with certain bacteria; deep rooted plants pulling nutrients from deeper soil levels, making them available to other plants when their upper portions die; and modifying other nutrients to forms other plants can use. Nutrients might be in the soil in sufficient quantity, but in forms your garden plants cannot use. Some cover crops take care of this.

Key aspects to planting cover crops: choose the one right for the season, warm-season covers for late spring and summer, and cool season covers for late summer through winter. Decide whether you want a high biomass crop (which gives you lots of green growth that breaks down slowly), or a low biomass crop (which is not as bulky and decomposes rapidly). Plant high biomass covers in late summer and fall where you will plant late spring and summer crops, as you will have plenty of time to "terminate" them and watch them decompose before planting. Low biomass covers are good as winter cover where you will plant early spring crops (like peas and brassicas) or in spring and summer where you will plant again within a couple of months or so, as they will break down quickly upon termination.

Perennial cover crops are beneficial in areas that you intend to let fallow for a few years (some are short-lived perennials), and around large perennials, such as fruit and nut trees and berry bushes. I am rethinking my practice of keeping the area around my berry bushes and brambles clear. But not all perennial plants are good for this purpose and some may be detrimental. Do your research.

Cover crops also can break the cycle of some plant diseases and pests. For example, marigolds help manage crop damaging nematodes; grassy covers also break the cycle of certain diseases. Cover crops also can help break up compacted soil. Tillage radishes (the long-rooted daikon) and turnips are particularly good at this. Some cover crops also provide food or habitat for beneficial insects.

Crimson clover in bloom in late spring.

I can't cover everything about cover crops here, just the three I currently use. But I offer a couple of links to good resources on cover cropping. Most cover crop resources focus on large scale agriculture, but that info can easily be adapted to gardens. You can buy a hard copy or download for free "Growing Over Cover." I have not yet read through this, but it is published by the Kansas Rural Center -- an awesome program -- so I trust that it contains great info. This cover crop periodic table also has great, easy to access info, plus additional slides that describe individual cover crops. And here you can either buy hard copy or download free Building Soils for Better Crops by the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program. This covers much more than cover crops, and again focuses more on large scale production. But healthy soil info can be translated to even the smallest garden plot, containers even. I have not read through this one either (but I've got it downloaded), but I see it referenced a lot when I'm doing research.

OK. The cover crops I use are oats, buckwheat and crimson clover.
-- Crimson clover is a legume, which fixes nitrogen. It does this by taking nitrogen from the air (where it is quite abundant but not usable by plants) and through a symbiotic relationship with bacteria converts it to a form that plants can use. When the plant dies (or you terminate it), nitrogen is returned to the soil. This is a high biomass, cool-season plant. It is my go-to for winter cover and early spring cover. It survives my winter when well established, so it grows again in spring and keeps the weeds at a minimum while fixing nitrogen. It's crimson flowers provide nourishment for bees and other pollinators. However, it's usually recommended that you not let cover crops set seed or they will reseed and become weeds themselves. I have not considered this a major issue, and because I don't always get around to things in the most timely manner, my crimson clover covers usually flower. They're beautiful.

--Oats is a grassy cover. Seed is cheap. It grows quickly and can be used throughout the season, even as a winter cover. While it winter kills when the temperature hits the high teens, it remains in place, providing cover and roots to keep the soil intact. I usually interplant it with crimson clover or buckwheat. Since it is a high biomass plant, I interplanted it sparingly with the buckwheat. You also can consider a patch of oats as homegrown hay mulch. If you let it set seed, you can harvest the grain at the "milky" stage for a great herbal medicine for soothing nerves.

Arugula self-sowed to become a cover crop in a bed where the beets and

carrots did not take.

--Buckwheat. No, it's not related to wheat at all. It's not even a grass. Buckwheat is related to rhubarb, dock and other members of the polygonium family. This warm-season cover can be planted mid-spring through early autumn. I've planted it in March and gotten very little germination, but planted in April and it grows thickly. Until the Master Gardeners' lesson on cover crops I didn't give buckwheat a second thought as winter cover. It is killed by temperatures in the mid- to upper-20s. However, because it is low biomass, it is great for planting where I will put my early spring vegetables. Buckwheat takes up potassium from the soil and converts it to a form other plants can use. It grows rapidly, so when planted about a month or so before your expected first frost, it makes a nice stand. It was the first of the three covers to sprout this fall. Bees adore buckwheat flowers and make a rich, dark honey, that works great in suppressing coughs from the nectar. A large patch of flowering buckwheat nearly roars with the industry of bees.

--Other plants not usually called cover crops can be useful here, as well, even some weeds, such as henbit. (Why weed it out then? Just let it serve you.) Definitely don't let these weed plants set seed, though. Also some leafy green vegetables and annual herbs can serve as covers, it they sprout thickly enough. Right now I have a cover crop of arugula growing where the spring crop dropped seed. The beets and carrots I planted there did not germinate well (too hot and dry), so I let the arugula take over. Not only will it remain there until some pretty deep cold, I can eat it, too.

When planting cover crops, keep the seed bed moist until significant germination occurs. Then water occasionally until they get well established.

I will say no more. Check out my links for much more information. Just get your assets covered.

Remainders

Garlic chives in full bloom produce an arresting site. Shortly before this photo was taken a tall Lady in Red salvia sported tall spikes of scarlet blossoms in front of this clump of garlic chives; scarlet and bright white together made a striking picture -- unfortunately I didn't get around to taking a photo until the red blossoms had dropped.

Garlic chives bloom relatively briefly in late summer -- for about two weeks or so. During that time the clump of garlic chives becomes a popular dining spot for all kinds of nectar-loving creatures. When the blossoms fade, they are replaced by little green capsules, that in time dry and spit out a black seed each. Dozens and dozens of seeds per clump of chives. Dozens and dozens of viable seed ready to turn into more garlic chives. This can be considered a good thing, or an annoyance. It all depends on where the garlic chives grow. These in my "ornamental" flower beds prove to be an annoyance when they start to spread. So before the little white flowers turn to seed I've got to cut off all the flower stalks.

One of the many visitors that dine on nectar of garlic chive blossoms.

However, I intentionally scattered seed around some fruit trees, where they've created a lovely spattering of starry flowers. Some friends of mine who live in the woods have a large patch of garlic chives (which do taste and smell like mild garlic) along the narrow path to their house. It is quite lovely.

These plants are hardy, suffering through heat and drought with no complaints. And -- I don't know if it's proper to use this term in relation to a non-critter -- fecund, with all of these seeds ready to make babies. I did not realize how persistent these gems are until I recently went to my parents' home for a family reunion. Around the southwest corner of the house, where I planted my first herb garden, garlic chives bloomed. Some of them had obviously been taken down with a string trimmer or mower, but numerous small clumps bloomed. I'm sure my mom didn't plant garlic chives, so the only explanation was that they were remainders from the herb garden I planted as a 16-year-old. Decades have passed since then.

As I've lately pondered about the impermanence of life (as I often do when summer moves into autumn, trees lose leaves, etc. etc.) I came up against something that wasn't quite so fleeting. The original garlic chive plant that I set into the ground decades (I mean decades) ago no longer lives, but its progeny do. The herb garden planted when I was a fledgeling herbalist/herb grower still survives in some form.

I wonder, will the offspring of these chive blossoms flower beneath the red cedar trees that overtake this land decades from now?

NOTE: Garlic chives, Allium tuberosum, also called Chinese chives. Distinctly garlic in flavor; leaves are flat rather than round like regular chives. Originated from Asia, particularly northern China. Related to onions, etc. A member of the Liliaceae (Lily) family.

Fleeting Glory

The actual color of these beauties is a deeper purple, but the camera didn't pick it up. Grandpa Ott's morning glories.

Every morning I take my daily cup of tea or coffee onto the screened in porch where I meditate on the landscape before me. These days the sumac at the edge of the woods has taken on a bit of red. In a few weeks all of the sumac foliage will be brilliantly scarlet.

Trees still adorned in green rise behind the sumac; I think I see a bit of color in the green canopy, however. In front of the sumac the black raspberries lean on the trellis and stretch their canes down, hoping to touch tip to ground and take root (something I keep trying to discourage).

Long beans cover a trellis at the front of the vegetable beds on this side of the house. One end of that trellis is studded with rich purple morning glories -- Grandpa Ott's morning glories that have gone feral. They climb the pallets and fencing that enclose my compost area, so their seed winds up in the compost and morning glories spring up everywhere. I weed out some, let some grow, and miss some when I'm weeding leaving glorious weeds.

Is this the Heavenly Blue morning glory? An appropriate name.

While they grow all summer and start blooming about mid-summer, they are at their most glorious in late summer and early autumn. At some point I must have planted morning glories other than Grandpa Ott's because this lovely sky blue glory has covered the wire cage that supposedly supports a purple tomatillo. That's ok, because the tomatillo plant didn't fare so well. At least it's been replaced by something pretty.

A trellis in front of my house boasts a differently colored glory, an incandescent pink. While the blue glories might be descendants of a variety appropriately named "Heavenly Blue," I have no idea of the variety name of the pink, perhaps I'll call it "Stunning Pink."

Shall I call this one "Stunning Pink" morning glory?

Whatever their variety names, morning glories (genus name Ipomoea) belong to the Convolvulacea family. A black sheep of that family is the nefarious field bindweed, as well as the hedge bindweed, two small vines with pretty trumpet flowers (just smaller versions of morning glory flowers). Unlike morning glories, the bindweeds are perennial and extremely difficult to eradicate -- one reason they are designated a noxious weed.

A sweet potato blossom.

Morning glories also are close relations of the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas), which produce a much more robust vine. And, yes, the vines that grow from our vegetable sweet potato roots also bloom, although not nearly as profusely as the morning glory vines. The ornamental sweet potato vines are possibly just varieties of this vegetable, but they are not tasty in any way, and I've never seen them flower.

To enjoy the morning glory blossoms I must get into the garden during the first part of the morning. By late morning they are closed and withering (except on cloudy days). Glorious as they are, their time is brief, impermanent.

And so they remind me, that while my "blossoming" is much longer than theirs, it also is impermanent. Everything I labor for on this land is impermanent. Once my hand no longer touches this place, everything will change.

At some point, I presume, human tending of this land will cease and Nature will do what she sees fit. Most likely the area will be covered by woody species -- first the sumac and flowering dogwood, an occasional hedge, elm or redbud, all of which will eventually be engulfed by the red cedars. Beneath it all, sleep the roots of an old prairie that began its days when the glacier retreated. As massive and powerful as that glacier was, shaping the hills and leaving behind gravel and large stones from places far to the north, it also was impermanent. Deeper down, the limestone bedrock tells the tale of an ancient seabed, now permanent in its impermanence. Beneath that, I don't know -- tales a billion years old. None of them permanent, yet the memory of all of these lies embedded in this land.

My tiny little piece of time here will go unnoticed in the sea of time. Like the morning glory blossoms, it will be brief. However, they flowers remind me to do my best to make it glorious.

Triage Begins

Raindrops on the plums.

These guys are ready to pick. They're not fully ripe, but in year's past I've learned that it might be a mistake to leave them on the tree too long. So I'll pick them and leave them out to ripen. Most of them will probably be dried. They are prune plums, after all.

Back to the raindrops... It's only been a little more than a week since our last rainfall, but two rains then totalled little more than a third of an inch. In all of July we received slightly more than an inch. And it's been hot. The water in my catchment tanks was getting low. As I started my weekly watering schedule yesterday I denied some plants their usual dose.

Hoping the rain forecast came true, I held off watering the asparagus and sweet potatoes, knowing they could withstand some dryness better than many other things in the garden. But the most critical decision was to hold off watering some of the tomatoes. It's time for triage.

I don't expect this to be a drought-breaker. We got just 0.61 of an inch this morning. It's a relief. It means I don't have to water as much today. But it's not a drought-breaker. The 10-day forecast calls for another good chance of rain in another week. However, too often we've missed out when the forecast was 80 percent chance, or just received a small dose. And often I've gotten excited about a rain chance just a few days away, only to watch the percent chance dwindle as the day nears. So this lets me kick back a little, puts more water in my storage tanks, but it's no drought-breaker.

So, yesterday, I decided I could let go of most of the Black Plum tomatoes. As always happens with this variety, they've started looking pitiful before all of the other tomato plants. Their leaves are turning brown, and some of the stems are dying. It does this every year at this time. This variety is so productive, however, that I've gotten about as many as I can stand by now. Quite a few pint jars of roasted Black Plum tomatoes have been stashed in the freezer for later. I'm OK with letting them go. I've earmarked a couple of plants for saving -- the best looking ones -- and next week I'll start taking down the rest. I actually like being forced to remove some of the tomato plants early. It saves me time later when cold weather kills the rest.

These squash plants are now compost.

I've already removed one patch of summer squash. They were very happy plants, in spite of the fact that the squash bugs were multiplying. They sprawled into the paths on both sides of their bed, in spite of my constant moving them aside, making travel down the paths difficult. Most important, though, was that I had a difficult time dealing with all the squash. Four more cluster of squash plants grow in another area and are hitting their peak production. I just couldn't anymore. The other day we invited a neighbor to take as much of it as he wanted. I saw him carry several armloads of squash to his truck. Still... more squash. The next day another neighbor picked a large basket full of squash.

Still, more squash. Yesterday I picked another large basket full of somewhat oversized squash and some smaller ones. Yesterday I steamed a bunch of squash that had been in the fridge for several days, and some of yesterday's smaller pickings. A small boxful of  will be shared with people at my husband's clinic. Today I sliced several of them to dry into chips. And I've still got more to deal with. Some (the round lemon squash) will be sliced and dried as chips; the long, green and yellow Zephyrs will become lasagna noodles. Bags of roasted and steamed squash, as well as squash grated for winter batches of "zucchini" bread, sit in my freezer already and I expect to add even more before all is said and done.

Lemon Squash; because of the shape and color.
It tastes like summer squash, not lemons.

When a friend on social media asked people to describe the past few weeks of this summer in two words most people replied with the obvious, "Too Hot," "Too Dry." My response was, "Mucho Squash," as that has been the dominant theme here, other than the weather.

And cucumbers. Lots of cucumbers. What do you do with all those cucumbers? We eat them almost every meal -- slices, chopped, and made into fatoush (a Mediterranean salad that features cukes). We use them in infused water with lime and mint. I've fermented cucumber dill pickles. I'm even toying with the idea of using them in stir fry, as suggested by a few other bloggers. But I took out one of my patches of cucumbers. The earliest one that was looking a bit rough.

Now that it's time to plant the fall garden, reducing the watering seems not just appropriate, but imperative. Anything that's either overproducing or not pulling its weight can go. I'll let the Black Plums go for a while, taking only what water falls from the sky. Then it's "off with their heads." For weeks I contemplated pulling out the purple podded pole beans. Then I saw tiny pods on the vines. Yesterday I picked quite a few. So even though they look really, really rough, they can stay for a while. Until I determine that they're no longer worth the water.

Triage.

Far from being a sad time, I feel rather excited about clearing some of the planting areas. I love the look of a recently cleared bed laid with fresh hay. Like spring cleaning, only in summer.

Waiter, There's a Bug in My Soup -- Can I have More?

Crepe myrtle supposedly is a favored food of Japanese beetles, but I haven't seen
any on my crepe myrtles.

Many gardeners I know have been talking about Japanese beetles this summer. They've hit some of us in plague-like numbers. They finally worked their way to Kansas (after accidentally being introduced to the U.S. in the early 1900s) in recent years and their numbers are on the rise.

In the last few years I've seen a Japanese beetle here and there, but not so many I became concerned. Last year I heard about them attacking an apple tree and some other things at the Medicinal Plant Research Garden near Lawrence. But I wasn't worried.

This year they descended on Spirit Bird Farm in force, first becoming noticeable on the ripening peaches. This was a blessing in disguise. Because the beetles threatened to consume all of the peaches, I climbed into the trees to salvage what I could, as well as knock as many beetles as possible into buckets of soapy water (which quickly drowns them). This meant I got the peaches before the squirrels did (mostly). My harvest was much larger than last year's.Two quarts of diced peaches in the freezer may not sound like much, but it's more than double what I put away last year. Plus I've eaten fresh peaches and baked a pint-sized batch of peaches with ghee (clarified butter) and powdered vanilla. Extraordinary.

Then I found hordes of the shiny green beetles on the grape leaves, the okra, a tall wildflower called gaura, and some of the apple trees. They were not only eating the apple leaves but some of the fruit on the summer apple. These little beetles can't cut through an apple skin on their own, from my understanding, but took advantage of breaks in the skin made by birds or other critters. Then they converged on the vulnerable apple and ate a cavern into it. They've eaten on the Souvenir de la Malmaison rose a little, but not too badly, even though roses are one of their favorite foods.

So for the past month I've been focused on getting rid of Japanese beetles. Hand picking, insecticidal soap and neem oil, possibly pyrethrum are the organic methods. But they're like the rabbits -- kill a few hundred and there are thousands to take their place. Fortunately, according to a Missouri Conservation publication, the beetles usually disappear around mid-August.

Or is it fortunate?

After seeing the quantities of beetles I collected in the soapy water, my husband asked an inevitable question (inevitable in our household, anyway), "Are Japanese beetles edible?"

I wrote about eating insects last year, when we started looking at ways to diversify our diet and started munching on crickets and especially grasshoppers. When cooked, dried and ground, grasshoppers have a flavor somewhat like chili powder without the heat.

Japanese beetles on the underside of an okra leaf.

Anyway, the answer is, yes, Japanese beetles are edible. Rinse and cook them first, of course. But the answer to "How do we control Japanese beetles?" might just turn out to be "Eat them." So far the main info we've found is to confirm that the beetles are edible. We haven't found recipes, but it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out how to cook them, especially after our first foray into insect cuisine. Saute them, bake them, boil them. Then throw them into whatever dish strikes your fancy. I can see baked or sauteed bugs as a crunchy salad topping. Or dry and grind the cooked beetles and use them as a protein additive to soups, stews, and even baked goods. No one will know about your secret ingredient.

Their grubs, and those of the June bug and Green June beetle, also are edible. But the adults are much easier to gather.

The bugs are best collected in the cool of the morning or evening hours, especially when in shade, when they are more sluggish and less likely to fly. I've been knocking them into a wide mouth pint canning jar and slapping the lid on before they fly away. My husband just discovered the suggestion to use the upper portion of a plastic bottle inverted like a funnel into a jar. The bugs easily fall in, but can't fly out. That way I'm not constantly dropping the lid.

When I'm done collecting the beetles, I stick them in the freezer. An easy and humane kill.

So now that I've taken to looking at Japanese beetles as another thing to harvest from the garden, their numbers are decreasing. Figures. At least now I can almost look forward to their return next year.

Almost.

Summer...

Summer has matured into cicada song.

Yesterday evening I sat on the porch drinking in the magnificent colors of the waning day.

Pink-gray clouds floated against a nearly turquoise sky. The whole world was bathed in a golden light. All the other colors of the world shone with more intensity -- the straw that lines the side of the foremost raised bed became the color of true gold. The red blossoms of the royal catchfly almost hurt my eyes in their intensity.

And, of course, green glowed with brilliance in the golden light.

This was not the soft golden light that envelops the world at sunset in late fall and winter -- the light created by long, slanting rays of sunlight.

No, this light was created by atmospheric conditions hinting at a summer rain and storm -- at least the potential. This light had an energy that said "wake up."

I sipped my tea and watched the colors change.

Then I noticed the cicada song, not the constant drone of the full cicada season, but one buzz here, one over there... In the space between cicada calls I heard a distant bird song, then a frog croak.

A few nights earlier the air was full of frog song.

Now the cicadas, after a year underground, are emerging to live their last few weeks flying, singing, and mating. The cicada song pulled my attention so completely into the moment that I almost felt I'd stepped into a dream.

The golden light dimmed...
And the fireflies began dancing.