A Bountiful Harvest

Since I didn't get the garden planted until July, thanks to cold wet weather, I had little hope of harvesting anything but cool-season veggies. How wrong I was. Our first fall frost is usually mid-September. This year it was late October... just a few days ago. We had a bigger crop of corn than we've ever had. Cool weather peas and lettuce kept going all summer and fall. My dry beans ripened and dried; I froze huge amounts of green beans; the potatoes and onions are dug and plentiful. There were enough tomatoes to can and the bushes are still producing in the garden, having been covered on our few freezing nights. We even had the sweetest grapes we've ever had here in our cold zone.

There were failures, though. The cole crops all went to seed without producing anything but tiny heads; I forgot to plant squash and cucumbers; the popcorn is still not ripe; and my melons, though they ripened, were tiny.

But look at all those colorful dry beans! I've been saving my beans to replant for many years. They likely started out as a hybrid something-or-other because sometimes I get solid red ones, sometimes speckled, and sometimes both in the same pod. They all taste wonderful. I love pretty beans.







I don't remember ever having grapes as sweet as these are this year. I have no idea why. Maybe whatever made them sweet also made the fall colors spectacular, because they certainly were.







Around the house... the Cornus and Vine Maple lit up in different shades at different times.














In the arboretum... the Amur maples changed from one brilliant color to another.











The Norway maple was magnificent, while the Quaking Aspen were more subtle, but lovely, too.






We've had a bountiful harvest of color as well as vegetables this fall. Let the rains begin.