Anticipating the first frost

The soft patter of rain drops on the roof reaffirms my decision to not take any precautions regarding frost tonight. Even if it should clear up at some point during the night there is little danger of anything getting hurt in the garden. Last night it was the opposite scenario: after a couple of cool, rainy days it cleared up just in time for nightfall. Deciding to heed the frost advisory issued by Environment Canada I went out once the drizzle let up late in the afternoon to gather as much of the abundant – and so often taken for granted – blessings of summer as I could. For a few days at least I would enjoy bouquets of  zinnias, sunflowers, nasturtiums and dahlias, gracing any level surface in kitchen, dining and living room, plus, of course, my desk. The sweet peas at least would be safe; it has to freeze pretty hard to kill them.

Hops - so far nobody is planning to use them for beer making

 

These beautiful purple climbing beans can get up to a foot long

The needs of the soul taken care of I turned to the needs of the body. What else was there to look after? The tomatoes in the greenhouse were quite safe as long as I closed the door, but the sprawling row of yellow grape tomatoes in the garden needed to be covered. 

Cucumbers have threatened to dry up for a while now, but with every new bit of rain the ends of the vines started to grow again and have certainly produced a great crop, just like this year's late bloomers, the yellow zucchini. I picked all but the smallest fruits of both. Now only the planters in front of the house remained. They were kept warm by a motley assortment of old bed linens and table cloths, while the big flower pot of basil and Thai basil was out of harm’s way already: it took up residence in the kitchen right before the last (expected, not materialized) frost about ten days ago. It is time for all this to happen, of course, but I wouldn't mind a few more weeks of this abundance of warm colour.

I was pleased to find little to no damage when I removed the blankets this morning, and even the uncovered basil plants, cucumbers and squash only showed a little browning around the edges of the top leaves. A little respite, then, and maybe a few more days to enjoy zinnias and sunflowers.

But the garden harvest is one matter, the ‘real’ harvest in the field quite another. We have not harvested anything since the end of August when we finished the last of the wheat on Magnus’s farm. August was an amazing harvest month! It doesn’t happen very often that two thirds of the crops are harvested before September even starts. Contrary to our misgivings the drought had not had devastating effects on the yield; while they weren’t great they were better than expected, and at Magnus’s on a couple of fields even good. 

What remains is the canola, cut on our farm, still standing and waiting to be straight cut on Magnus’ and Courtney’s. It needs a long time, and the first swathed fields have barely been down for three weeks, but if the weather stabilized we would try combining now. This is shaping up to be a September of the kind we were familiar with at the beginning of our farming life thirty years ago. The last few years spoiled us a bit. It’s easy to get used to finishing harvest before the end of September, and it looks more and more unlikely that this is going to happen this year. Still, so far things are not worrisome for us yet. It is much more serious for farmers who still have cereal crops out, especially if they lie in the swath. Too soon they will start sprouting in this moist weather, making harvesting difficult and rapidly losing quality.

It’s midnight now, the rain has stopped and the stars are out. The temperature still is eight degrees, however, so I don’t’ think I have to put on my head lamp and cover things. Picking tomatoes at midnight has never been my favourite thing to do …