Colin McNickle At Large

Weekend essay: A gardener’s notes to file

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The garden is in full transition as August wanes and the cicadas herald September. And visions of fresh fall salads stretching right into the winter holidays are dancing in someone’s head.

But a few lessons were learned this year that first must be noted.

As was the case last year, and after a stellar spring growing season, the tomatoes have come in late. And, oddly, no matter their variety. Sadly, some simply don’t have much flavor. Think grocery store. Hydroponic-grown. January. Ugh.

But the Boxcar Willies are the epitome of sweetness.

Note to file: Plant more Willies next year.

Still, rich winter vegetable soup, its base made from home-canned tomato stock, cannot be far behind. There is nothing better.

Cucumbers? They, too, have repeated last year’s lackluster production. But of what has been produced, the flavor is excellent.

Still, note to file: Find a few different varieties for next year. To totally rip off a popular TV commercial, it’s time to depart from the same old, same old because, well, it’s the same – and it’s old.

That said, the bush green beans have performed their usual journeyman service, in one raised bed and in deck pots. Cooked to al dente in beef broth with onion, they’ve been a dinner staple most of the summer.

Peppers? Eh, meh. Only a few sweet reds were grown this year, in a raised bed instead of last year’s five-gallon deck buckets. A year ago, standard bell peppers offered months and months (and months) of phenomenal production, the last pepper being picked in early November.

But this year? Only six peppers thus far. And when a certain gardener kept checking on their progress, he most definitely heard one painfully slow-growing smart aleck say, “You lookin’ at me?”

Next note to file: Go back to the bells, the buckets and the back deck.

Alas, the so-so summer garden prompted a slightly earlier shift to the garden for fall. Some raised beds even were allowed to briefly remain fallow as beautifully aged compost and fresh batches of worms did their magic.

One bed, which, produced a bumper crop of midsummer onions, weeks ago was sown with carrots; they are doing quite well. Elsewhere, several varieties of peas and more beans have been sown. It’s not so much in expectation of a fall crop of either but for their wonderful ability to “fix” nitrogen in the soil. Though fall peas often are far sweeter than those spring.

Three varieties of fall lettuce have been sown in a reconstituted bed in which a crop of cantaloupe was a total fail. One co-worker quipped during the recent rains that the young lettuce just sprouting might need “snorkels.” It survived. But barely. Who knew lettuce could hold its breath for so long?

Thanks to row covers and straw bales to ward off frost and to retain heat once fall settles in and winter knocks – and thanks to successive plantings — there should be, as per usual, fresh lettuce for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s dinners.,

What a treat it has been in past years to be harvesting that lettuce as passersby question what you’re doing. “Why didn’t I do that?” they invariably ask themselves as they continue on.

The first of the 2018 seed catalogs will start arriving about then, too. Grandiose visions of the next garden that certainly will be “The Best Garden Ever Grown” will be dancing in a certain dreamer’s head.

Final note to file: Dream BIG.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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