Thoughts on a rainy day

I was not prepared for the rain to come back today. Usually, we have a few more weeks of sunshine and warm temperatures before the fall rains set in. But today, the last day of August, is rainy and chilly. It makes me want to curl up with a warm sweater in front of the fire and read a good book.

After finishing Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle," I started writing down what I've harvested so far this summer. My tomato yields so far have been pretty low, although there are a ton of little green tomatoes on the vines just waiting to ripen up. I figured out why the brandywines have been blossoming, but not fruiting, and seem to have fixed the problem. Turns out that I was watering too frequently and too shallowly. I switched to a program of watering deeply twice a week, and have been rewarded by the sight of more little brandywines peeking out of their blossoms. I am certainly hoping for a good yield.

I made a bit of a mistake harvesting my broccoli. I didn't know that, if you cut off the heads, the broccoli will just keep creating new ones. So I pulled it up completely. My roommate TJ informed me about the wonderful regenerating powers of broccoli, so I quickly put the plants back in the ground. They seem to be recovering okay.

I'm trying to decide what to grow in my fall garden, and whether or not to overwinter some crops. I'll be missing the Seattle Tilth Harvest Fair this year because I'll be summitting Mt. St. Helens that day (so excited!), so I can't pick up any vegetable starts there. I might go check PCC or the nursery for some starts -- we'll see. I've already started swiss chard, lettuce, green onions, and radishes. I wasn't so great at planning out my little raised bed this year, so I won't have a lot of space until the tomatoes come out -- probably not until October.

If I overwinter anything, it will be garlic. I love garlic, and didn't grow any this year, as you have to sow garlic in the fall. I might also overwinter some carrots, snow peas, spinach, and lettuce. I haven't decided yet. Or, I could just sow some fava beans to fix nitrogen to my soil. I'll have to think on this some more.