Coda, and The Case for Global Climate Change

Here's a quick coda to the last post.  

I'm not very good with either cut flowers or houseplants.  One touch from me and they wither and die.  Of course, if I ever remembered to water them, the outcome would surely be different, but that never seems to happen.  

This is the one time of the year where even my black thumb can't really do too much damage, because hydrangea are one of the few cuttable flowers left in the garden and by this time of year they're already pretty close to being petrified.  So I defied fate after writing about those and the anemones, and now our dining room table is graced with a vase full of both.  I don't have to worry about keeping the hydrangea alive, but the anemones have been put on notice that they may be in peril.  I can't claim to be any more adept at arranging indoor blossoms than I am at keeping them alive, but this is about as good as it gets.

Can't kill the Hydrangeas, because they're already past their prime; the anemones are on their own, however!

Now, on to the next topic.

We've lived in the same area for the past 30 years.  And in all that time, one of the few things we have been able to count on is a killing frost the first week of October.  The last weeks of September have always been a flurry of picking, freezing, pickling, and canning in advance of that merciless deadline.  Last fall was the first time this timing slipped, and we got our first hard frost in the second week.  Chalk that one up to margin of error.

This year, however, it's now three weeks into October, and we're still ripening tomatoes on the vine!  Here are the ones we plucked just hours before dinner on Friday -- plump, juicy sun kissed fruit, delicately dressed with a bit of olive oil and white balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper, plus some scallions from the next bed, all arranged on a bed of arugula dressed only in a drizzle of fresh lemon juice.

Yellow Beefsteak and Prudens Purple with fresh-picked scallions

I close my eyes and I'm tasting August.

October 22 and we're still harvesting: as convincing a case for global climate change as I'll ever see in my own back yard.

Last Bloom Standing

At this point in the season, while most folks are putting their gardens to bed, we're usually feeling smug because we have plenty of cold-tolerant crops like brussel sprouts, broccoli romanescu, and maybe an odd-colored cauliflower or two to carry us for another month or so.  But this year, gloom has replaced our typical lack of humility. The wet weather brought the bugs and the bugs got all those crops, so we're left with prematurely empty beds, one healthy looking stand of chard, and some withering tomato vines with a few fruit we're trying to coax into late ripening.  

Sad, empty beds

C'mon, you can ripen before the frost!

Chard making it's last stand

The one bright spot is some very perky looking radicchio starting to head up in the cold frame.

Radicchio head-to-head in the cold frame

But for the most part this is the point where the garden "... is "fall'n into the sere," to borrow from Shakespeare (Macbeth Act V, Scene III). Unlike Macbeth, however, we can console ourselves with happier things than the curses "not loud, but deep" that await him later in the act.  


We find our solace among the late blooming anemones.  As everything else in the garden becomes one with the mulch, the anemones rise, statuesque above their leaves, to deliver a welcome burst of color that will last into November.  Their brilliance comes just as the spectre of winter starts to chill the heart, and helps ease that brutal transition.

Anemone light up the hill in mid-October

We have several varieties -- Queen Charlotte, Prince Henry, and several without pedigrees that seem to have just shown up.  If they weren't so gorgeous, I'd have to call them invasive, because they spread enthusiastically with total disregard for barriers  -- even stone walls.  They are also capable of flight.  I found a renegade anemone this fall clear on the other side of the house in the front garden.  Since they propagate by tentacle-like roots, I can't quite figure out how that one migrated.  But I've granted it a reprieve because it's as lovely as its disconnected relatives.

These plants have rather delicate blooms, so they're best when they're massed, and when they're placed where you can get up close to admire them.

A mass of white anemones -- I think these may be "Prince Henry"

I think this is "Queen Charlotte" -- the flowers can be up to 4" across!

Anemones have many different blossom types -- here's a delicate pink single bloom

... and another semi-double white one

Anemone pile!

We also get one last gasp of beauty from our standard hydrangea located halfway up the hill.  It was filled with beautiful white panicles just a month ago, but the cooler nights have brought a blush to its petals.  It's a perfect complement to the mixed pinks and whites of the anemones that flank it both above and below.
 

Hydrangea showing off on the hill

 

Of course, this is good reason to show off

Finally, there's always somebody who doesn't get the word.  In this case, it's another hydrangea -- one of the big macrophyllas above the shed on the right side of the backyard.  It's got one last big blue pompom that just opened last week.  Just a wee bit late!

There it is on top!

Clearly, that plant get points for enthusiasm in the contest for for "Last Bloom Standing!"

Processing The Things They Left Behind

I'm delighted to report that despite all the pestilences that have been visited upon our tomatoes -- hornworms, fussy raccoons and chipmunks gnawing and disfiguring (the fruit, not one another!), week after week of rain creating the perfect climate for fungus and rot -- there were still plenty left for us.  Usually this means I'm stuck inside on a lovely fall weekend to wrestle several baskets of ripeness into jars for the winter, and rather than enjoy the crisp outdoors, I have to suffer through an afternoon of agonizing Giants' football while I put up tomatoes.

This year, however, the weather has been so relentlessly awful that it rained all weekend which made the whole processing process way more fun than usual.  Don't get me wrong, it's always a really satisfying endeavor -- since the outcome is a tidy array of our own veggies preserved to carry us through the winter.  But when there's a whiff of fall crispness in the air and the sun is out, I'd really rather be trying to locate my errant golf shot, well hidden under a stray leaf, than toiling over steaming pots of tomato elixir.  This year there was no such trade off.  The golf course is so swamped that it's been closed for several days, and with the steady thrum of the rain audible through the kitchen fan chimney, I was able to throw myself into the Zen of tomatoes and thoroughly enjoy it. 

I actually designed the kitchen with this annual ritual in mind.  It begins with a sinkful of tomatoes -- which is why I have an extra-large, extra-deep (18" wide; 12" deep) prep sink.  This and the wash-up sink (which is also 12" deep) took some getting used to when we first moved in.  After clearing the table, I'd release my sink-bound dishes about 2" too early, and it took a week or two of broken crockery before I got used to lowering my arm the extra distance to place, rather than drop the tableware to the bottom.  Old dog; new trick.

Fortunately, tomatoes aren't that fragile.  So I just dump them all into the sink, wash them, and pile them into colanders to await their finial ministrations.

Bathtime for tomatoes

Many tomato processing recipes call for skinning and seeding tomatoes before cooking them down into sauce.  That's not a bad idea for a couple of pints and a small amount of sauce.  The first time I tried canning, I was so terrified of doing it wrong (failed seals, exploding jars, insufficient acid) and giving everyone in the family ptomaine poisoning that I dutifully followed all those steps. For each tomato. Individually. Dunk in boiling water, peel, halve, seed, put in pot.   We're talking bushels here. It took forever.  For. Ever.  Never again. 

Washed and ready for processing

Years later, I've gained in confidence what I've lost in patience, and discovered a huge shortcut.  Since I haven't killed anyone yet, I've gotten over any guilt associated with not hewing closely to tradition.  Here's my technique:  Wash thoroughly, cut off the blossom end and any dark or bad spots, quarter, dump in large pot, and cook -- skin, seeds and all:

Into the pot

Simmering away

I cook all the tomatoes until they're thoroughly soft and mushy, let them cool just a bit, and then put them through my favorite kitchen appliance -- a newer version of my mom's 50-year old Foley Food Mill.  It's my hero, really.  The sole reason I no longer have to painstakingly peel and seed individual tomatoes.  An ingenious lo-tech device, it simply forces whatever you put in it through a sieve small enough to trap the seeds and skin, but lets all the tomatoey goodness through.

My lo-tech hero!

In just minutes, and with no electricity or energy source other than my forearm, it turns this...

Cooked, pre-food mill

... into this...

Pureed, post-food mill

Having embraced that shortcut entirely, this year I dared a second: freezing instead of canning.  Now I do feel a bit guilty about that -- using a hot water bath to preserve tomatoes in jars does create a more complete feeling of accomplishment -- and requires no refrigeration to store them if you do it right.  And seeing a cupboard full of my own jars really is very rewarding. But. It takes much longer, I had to get dinner started, and there is still a bit of that nagging fear about ptomaine.  So I took the easy way out.  A bit less ecological to be sure, but they'll keep just as well, and it's only a little less impressive to look at a stack of freezer containers than Ball jars.  I can live with that.

Ready for the freezer

And come December, when I'm simmering a daylong Bolognese on the stovetop, no one will be able to tell whether the tomatoes came from the freezer or a jar.