Garden Report

Mid-August garden report.  An inch of rain last week helped considerably.  We had been watering, but a good, slow, soaking rain reaches every corner of the garden, something my watering system does not do.

Saturday was a harvest day.  I dug two long rows of onions.  We have two grocery bags of onions—I leave on the tops, which we tie together and hang up in the garage so the onions dry.  What a year for zucchini.  Once more I planted a few hills too many, so we had two grocery bags plus more of this prized green vegetable.  Ruth makes bread, muffins, and cake from zucchini.  Natasha has umpteen zucchini recipes, so we use them all from the finger-size ones, to those that are a couple feet long.

I dug the early red potatoes—a so-so crop, perhaps a half bushel.  And I dug the late potatoes that are ripe—another bushel.  Some of the potato patch is green and growing, which we will leave until the plants dry down.

The tomatoes are late; we picked perhaps 50 or so in various stages of becoming red, with many more to come.  Cucumbers have done well; we grow a long, skinny variety that is great for salads.

The sweet corn is also late.  Natasha picked a couple grocery bags.  Can’t beat fresh corn on the cob, ranks right up there with garden-ripe tomatoes.

My experiment this year, collards, have done well.  This is about the third harvest and they keep coming back.  They make a fine salad and are supposed to have big-time nutritional value as well.

More rain would be welcome, to top off the potato crop, keep the tomatoes doing well, and assure us of a decent squash and pumpkin crop—a few pumpkins have already turned yellow,  a reminder that summer is leaving us.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: Troubles in your life—a vegetable garden can help them disappear.

NEW NOVEL OUT IN SEPTEMBER: The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County can now be pre-ordered. It's all about how a small town deals with the possibility of a frac sand mine coming to their community.  Go to this link for further information: http://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5392.htm

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT:  It’s time to sign up for my writing class at The Clearing (Saturday, November 1). It’s about writing stories from your life—to be shared with families, friends and more. Go to this link for further information. http://theclearing.org/current/classes_workshop_description.php?id=3

If that doesn't work, write or call The Clearing:
12171 Garrett Bay Rd, Ellison Bay, WI 54210
(920) 854-4088.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

August 20, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters. Madison. 5-7 p.m. Stories From the Land.  For more information: elindell@wisconsinacademy.org

August 22, Verona Library 7:00 p.m.  Farm Stories.

August 26, Neville Museum, Green Bay. 6:30 p.m.  Breweries of Wisconsin

September 9, 6:30 p.m., Monroe Library, Limping Through Life.