Usually by this time of year I’m hoping for frost, and it’s later this fall; hinted at coming tonight. The great killer of harvest insists that I quickly cut flowers, pluck tomatoes, pull the beans.
I’ve a sinkful of grapes–though I swore this year I would try to ignore them. Last year’s wine still needs to be bottled, and jelly’s a trouble to make. I held out as long as I could till the guilt overwhelmed me, then went and picked what was left from the birds and the deer.
Last weekend and the weekend before I made my best-ever chili, using fresh tomatoes rather than canned. This week I’ll make up another, or maybe just a nice sauce. You never get enough of the big tomatoes when you want them, and I’ve been using the bowlfuls of cherry and plum.
The turnips will sit there alone in the garden, made better, I’ve heard, by the pinch of the nightlayering frost.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology