To The Surbiton Manor Born

  It is the first day of fall. You can tell by that particular bright blue cast to the sky. Even though 65 degrees makes for very nice running and preparing for - for example - a Halloween half marathon, pretty much absolutely perfect, it's a sign that things are winding down for the garden. News came yesterday that we are actually going to finally get our solar panels in October. It's only taken since the end of March to get to the top of the hated Xcel Energy's list for interconnection privileges.  Now, we watch the leaves die . 

  This mass of diseased vegetation needed to be cut back over the weekend. Some sort of horrible white decay attacked the yellow squash, and the cucumbers seemed to have reached a logical end.  I believe that Livingstone might have been in there somewhere...but, alas, all I found were several huge, hidden cucumbers. How those giant things hide like that will remain a mystery.  Tonight the Harvest Moon rises. We've reached the season of decay. We had one last day of mid-80's yesterday, but you can feel the change in the earth, the air, and the water.  There are a lot of yellowed leaves, and, significantly, the color of the ripe red tomatoes has gone more of an orange. I remember that from last year. We're still running at that razor's edge of having a little more from the garden than we want to eat, but a little less than justifies canning. I made a salsa with about 2 lbs. of tomatoes yesterday.  Significantly, according to my last budget, we saved about $300 in grocerie

  How things have changed. This is the view off the deck now.  This was the view in July. The temperatures have cooled. Nothing but '70's and a couple of low '80's in the forecast. Gone are the 90's and the humidity. It is always sad to see them go. Note to selves: Be careful about planting different types of tomatoes together. We planted yellow pear tomatoes in the same beds with our Wisconsin Chief tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. I thought, "Hey, they're all tomatoes, right."  Wrong. This may be common knowledge to some, but it was new information to me. Some tomatoes limit their own growth. Other tomatoes just keep on extending the vine. The yellow & cherry tomatoes are the latter kind. The practical upshot of this is that they choked out the mid-size Wisconsin Chief tomatoes & the Purple Krim tomatoes. They're tasty, but next year we'll be planting them in separate beds. We also want to plant a larger tomato. Time to experiment with a