In this week’s update, we’ve had a meal made entirely from vegetables out of the garden. We’re also starting to notice that summer is coming to an end and fall is on the horizon. This week also gave us multiple opportunities to share produce from our garden with family and friends, which is really what it’s all about. Finally, what is this edition’s Seed of the Week? Let’s dive in.

Eating a Full Meal From the Garden

I had several under-the-surface goals for our garden this year, and any future gardens for that matter. One was to preserve food for winter. That hasn’t happened yet but still could happen with our squash and pumpkins. Another was to share food with our neighbors and family members. More on that in the next section. A third goal was to have meals that were entirely sourced from our garden. Throughout the summer, we’ve had meals that were mostly from the garden with the exception of a protein. In these meals, the vegetables were often the side dish or used to complement the protein rather than serving as the star. We changed that this past week when we made homemade pasta sauce on the fly and ate it on spaghetti.

We used whatever tomatoes we had inside, so there were multiple varieties, including San Marzano paste tomatoes, Mushroom Basket tomatoes, and Queen Aliquippa tomatoes. With those tomatoes, some jarred garlic, sugar, oil, salt, pepper, and dried oregano, we had a great start. When it cooked down, we used an immersion blender to get it smooth, added a can of tomato paste to thicken it, and added some fresh basil from the garden. It resulted in a delicious sauce that was well-balanced. It wasn’t too acidic or sweet. It was savory and had me craving it the rest of the night and the next morning until we had the leftovers for lunch. Homemade sauce on perfectly al dente pasta is a real treat. It is wild how much better homemade sauce is compared to the jarred version. Granted, it wasn’t 100 percent from the garden. We didn’t grow garlic or oregano, and we had to use a can of store-bought tomato paste, but it was almost entirely all garden ingredients.

I had hoped that we would have enough ripe paste tomatoes to make and can pasta sauce for the winter, but that didn’t happen, which is okay. It’s a goal to have for next year’s garden, and we now have an excellent flavor profile to target when we do.

Sharing Food With Those Around Us

Living in community means helping those around us when an opportunity arises. That can mean lending someone a hand with shoveling snow, letting them have a cup of flour that they don’t have, or sharing the blessings we have. We were able to do that last week, and it touched our hearts. We shared some beans, eggplants, squash, and cucumbers with our elderly neighbor across the street. She is the same neighbor who gave us plants early in the season. We also gave our next-door neighbors some zucchini the next day. They are the neighbors whom we’ve regularly shared food with when we’ve had excess and were outside at the same time. These neighbors are also retired, and ever since we in America (in our infinite wisdom) have cut funding to social welfare programs that give food to the needy, Magz and I’ve felt led to help those around us even more than we did before. So, being able to bless those around us with the blessings that God has granted us is what it’s all about. We got a little taste of that this year and only want to do that more with next year’s garden.

This weekend, Magz’ parents and a family friend who was in town from Florida visited, and we were able to send them home with tomatoes, jarred applesauce, and baby bananas that we bought. The family friend hadn’t seen our house or garden yet and really wanted to visit before the garden was done for the season.

Fall Is on the Horizon

After a hot, sunny, and long summer, the weather and environment are starting to change. The 7-day forecast has nighttime lows in the 40s, the humidity has started to dissipate, and we’re beginning to have a fall sky. If you don’t have autumn where you are, the sky looks different in autumn than it does at any other time of the year. I’m not entirely sure why, but the sky has a slightly warmer tone than it has in spring and summer. It’s often a bit cloudy, and if there’s a high-pressure system in the atmosphere, you can see the cirrus and cirrocumulus clouds far off in the distance. While that cloud system happens in summer too, it’s most common in autumn. It’s something I’ve always looked forward to after a long summer in the same way we yearn for the first warm spring day after winter. An autumn sky is associated with chilly mornings and evenings, flannels, jackets, jeans, football (American), college, falling leaves, walks, pumpkins, apples, cider, and hot chocolate. It’s the best time of the year.

For the garden, it means that the end is approaching, which is bittersweet. It’s sad that we’ll no longer have fresh vegetables in the garden or be able to see new fruits ripening on a daily basis. At the same time, though, it will be nice to let the ground and our bodies rest. Our garden was a lot of work this year, and I’m incredibly proud of all that we’ve accomplished. It will be nice to rest, prepare the soil for next year, reflect, and plan next year’s garden. We’re seeing that the end of the garden is approaching. Our cucumber plants died off two weeks ago, and our summer squashes are no longer producing fruit or growing as quickly as they once did. The corn stalks are beginning to dry out, and the tomato plants don’t have the same vibrant green leaves they once did. And yet, other plants are thriving. Our winter squash and pumpkins continue to expand their vines, and we see new fruits or measurable growth each day.

As I wrote in this week’s post, A Parade of Pumpkins, it’s fun to see the different varieties show their different shapes, sizes, and colors. That will continue to be the case as summer winds down and autumn arrives. I was unsure how I’d feel at the end of summer this year, but I’m surprised that I’m feeling a little melancholy and sad. The garden has been a large presence in our lives since April, and this garden will never exist again. Each garden has unique characteristics that define it. We could grow the same plants in the same beds next year (we won’t) and have completely different results. So, we’ll be saying goodbye to something that we’ll never have again, but at the same time, we’ll be saying hello to our favorite season (autumn) and the early phases of next year’s garden. These are emotions I never thought I’d feel or explore.

Notes From the Garden

There aren’t a lot of notes from the garden at this stage, but here are a few updates:

• We got a big harvest from the late planting of bush beans that I sowed in June. These were sown after the first batch of bush beans failed. True to their name, these Provider beans came through, and we were able to harvest pods from each plant for a total of a quart. We ate them on Saturday night by steaming them and serving them with butter, salt, and pepper. They were delicious.
• We continue to harvest tomatillos as they ripen.
• Our paste tomatoes also continue to ripen, but they aren’t ripening all at the same time, which is sad. However, we’ll still be able to make at least one more meal of homemade sauce, which I’ll be looking forward to.
• We pulled some of our corn earlier than we wanted to because deer got through our fence, damaged some of the stalks, and ate a bunch of the ears. We’ll learn from this experience and mistake next year.
• We’ve harvested what shelling beans we’ve had ripen and dry on the plant. It’s been a struggle with these beans because of the grass, but we’ve pulled about 10 pods that have dried beans in them. The beans are stunning and look identical to the bags of dry beans you can buy in stores.

Seed of the Week

This week, I’m talking about the New England Sugar Pie Pumpkin. This pumpkin variety is the quintessential pie-making pumpkin. It produces many 4-5-pound fruits with sweet flesh that isn’t stringy. Our seeds came from Baker Creek. It’s an heirloom that dates back to the American Civil War and, according to Fedco Seeds, was likely developed out of the Connecticut Field Pumpkin strain. Our plants are growing very well. We didn’t sow them until early July, and they have taken off, with vines sprawling all over the bed and multiple fruits on each vine. We’re so excited about the possibility of using them to make pumpkin treats or to carve.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, is your garden wrapping up for the season? Or, if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, have you started to plan your garden?