The Minnesota Farm Woman

This was the summer if painting and remodeling, so the weeds started taking over the garden sometime in July. In September, it took me a little while to find my cabbages, and when I did, they were surprisingly small, and most didn’t grow heads. I usually have trouble growing enough dill. This year, anticipating the usual small harvest, I planted dill in the garden and in the old-washing-machine-turned-herb-garden that sits on the south side of my house. Every plant grew beautifully, and I had plenty to give away to those who had enough cucumbers to can pickles. I usually have scads of cucumbers and little bit of dill, this year, it was just the opposite. I did manage to pick enough to make a gallon of refrigerator pickles, though, so I’m not complaining. I will complain about the green bean harvest, though. The two days in late August that had temperatures dipping into the 30’s did away with my bean plants. I don’t know why I was so surprised. This is Minnesota, after all, where frost can come at any time. The tomato harvest was fantastic, and I was elated when all the corn came up, but the thrill was gone when I discovered that it only developed a few ears. My house painting project this fall delayed my annual garden clean-out , so today I finally got out there to tidy up a bit and put the beds to bed, so to speak. After eating green onions all summer, I was pleased to have plenty of mature yellow-skinned onions, fairly small but delicious. It is a good thing the weeds hid them so well, or they would have all been eaten up! I pulled a bucket of carrots, which is the last of them for the year. After rinsing them, I cleaned out the veggie drawer in the fridge and discovered a few of last year’s carrots. They were tucked in the back of the drawer in a plastic grocery bag, which I was almost afraid to open. The leftovers from last year’s harvest were small and crooked little things that I was too lazy to peel last October. They had tried their best to sprout in their safe little cocoon of plastic. Along with the new pale green stem, each carrot was covered with many little white roots, which resembled hairs. They were surprisingly firm, so I ate one. The texture was a little woody, but didn’t taste bad. The good thing about having chickens is that nothing goes to waste, so into the coop they went. I will leave the parsley and kale in the garden until they both freeze hard, because the light freezes we have been having will only sweeten them both. The few sunflowers that sprouted were late to bloom and although a little frostbitten, add a cheery fall look to my weedy bedraggled little garden. The lone pumpkin, grown from a Big Max seed, has been harvested and taken to the house of little Max for a jack-o-lantern. Headless cabbage, earless corn, and hairy carrots? It must be close to Halloween!