Labor Day weekend delivered some fine weather — the kind that makes a person glad to be alive. Several nights were so chilly that the extra blanket was needed. I love that. The week following the holiday always seems like fall has arrived even though technically we have a few ore weeks of summer.
The vegetable garden is putting out its best effort. I have said many times that I am enjoying a first-world problem of too much food. It’s incredibly humbling to think of the poor folks waiting in hot cars with little children for a local food bank. How can this even be right?
I’m enjoying the trumpet vine in bloom here and there. A house is covered with it on Main street, Vineyard Haven opposite Hatch Road en-route to West Chop.
I’ve had success with Lutz beets. Also known as Winter Keepers, they are larger than baseballs and simply perfect. Last year I had some in the crisper section of the fridge until Christmas. I’m still making pickled beets. I use tons of sweet onions, straight apple cider vinegar and honey. After we enjoy the pickles, the resulting left-over pink liquid can be mixed with equal parts olive oil for a yummy salad dressing.
I am still harvesting quite a few Jimmy Nardello peppers. Sauteed with tons of onions and Grey Barn hot Italian sausage we pretend we are in a sidewalk cafe in Rome.
Every year at this time I pull the shell and/or dried beans. Except for Jacob’s Cattle, it’s been disappointing task. Both the King of the Garden Pole Limas and State Half Runner gave up about 20 each. I think that is less seeds than I started with in the spring. Such is life.
Last year my friend, Sharlee, picked a large flower from her celosia. Also called cockscomb, the flower looks like a cross between a rooster comb and a velvet brain. They are striking in both fresh and dried arrangements. Sharlee left hers on a table in the greenhouse all winter. This spring she noticed hundreds of seeds. Naturally she started them and gave me a six pack of the tiny seedlings. Violet took a photo of the grown up plants. I hope to repeat the process for next year.
Now that Covid has changed our world this is probably the year to save seeds. I understand that many more people are already contacting the seed companies. Another Covid thing I noticed on Tuesday is that the high school football field was covered in geese as opposed to returning athletes. Is it called a gaggle of geese since they were not flying? I love the term almost as much as a murder of crows.
An important and money-saving aspect of gardening is the ability to recognize baby plants. I was able to create an entire bed of astilbes from seedlings in the driveway. Also, now is the time to search for the children of last year’s kale, collards and bok choy.
Rachel Maddow spent here entire hour-long show interviewing Michael Cohen, DJT’s “fixer” lawyer. Even a convicted felon who lied to Congress presented a convincing case against his former boss. I was thinking of all the “lock her up” chants in the 2016 election cycle. It could have happened if Trump hired her — so many other of his associates are facing the proverbial music. The big news in yet another exhausting week of the Trump presidency was the Jeffrey Goldberg article on The Atlantic. The commander-in-chief has disdain for the U.S. military and his since Vietnam.
All I can say is a big fat so what! His same 40 per cent of the electorate will stand by him. He actually could shoot someone on Fifth avenue and not lose a single vote.
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