One of the biggest ideas that makes farmers salivate is the idea of Promise. The promise of a good fall crop ensures survival, sustenance, and surplus for a progressively increasing harvest. Thankfully, Quail Cottage is not solely reliant on the harvest of its gardens, but the feeling is still there; when you (attempt to) grow your own dinner, you want the harvest to be as successful as possible, and when you compare it to last year's, it strives to be more and more successful as the years go on. If you ever grew "less" food than the year before, then naturally you must be doing something wrong!
As we started into the season with good promise, more than a handful of seeds, some great compost, and Jesse's help with more wine barrels and soil, we felt like it was going to be a great year. And it was: this summer's growth, regrowth, and multiple decent harvests at the cottage was a great example of Solid Results. There were many things to learn; Where do peas like to grow? Can pumpkins climb trellises? Will the blue jays eat the nectarines? In most of these cases, Good Lessons were learned, notes were taken for the following years' plantings, and still a good harvest was taken. The peas, in fact, don't like heat at all; stunted and bitter at a foot tall in the full sun on the potters bench, they shriveled up and declared "holy crap it's hot!" Reseeded in the shade of the house next to the coolness of the basement, already in a month's time they're two feet tall and producing succulent, toothsome peas. What a difference a microclimate makes! Melons, seeded in pots on the bench, grew rather stunted in their tiny houses, but as soon as they were transplanted into the wine barrel, they dug in, stretched their feet, and soon started producing darling fuzzy melons the size of tennis balls. (We're assuming the fuzz wears off...) The beets were rather more puzzling, since they haven't done terribly well anywhere they've been. But with a shuffle into a more shady and steadily temperatured pot near the side door, they've seemed to grow once again, although the skin of the bulbs might be tough from an overly extended seedling season.
Carrots, though, oh my... Three types of carrots, planted in the mid-sized patio planters back in March, were the first to harvest; Chantenay, Dragon, and St Valery. Chantenay seemed to be the overall winners, a fragrant, almost perfumed, awesome carrotty flavor! Red Core Chantenay was planted as a second round, and now the regular Chantenay is back for three excellent carrot harvests this year. Easy to seed, eager to grow, and tolerant of heat and slight drought, carrots are the eager puppies of our thriving garden. Several other vegetables yielded nice foods as well; China Choy in the house-side planter box, harvested quickly before (shortly after) bolting in the summer heat, made a great sauté with the remainder of last year's leeks. And two lettuces in a patio wine barrel were a nice (albeit slightly bitter) contribution to the Quail salad plates. (A lettuce reprise with the last pinch of seeds from last year's glorious lettuce made up for it in a later planting, more buttery and delicate... must find those seeds again!)
So, while Italian pole beans grew like wildfire up the various trellises on the back garden's wall, tomatoes on the potter's bench grew like hardwood trees, stalling for months at a time while the weather calmly decided to warm up a bit. Lemon cucumbers in a wine barrel on the patio soaked up every ounce of water they could find, wilting in the heat of the day, yet giving us good sized fruits (also the size of tennis balls, and slightly fuzzy) with a hearty skin and a casual lemony flesh for our salads. Tiger's Eye bush beans planted in pots on the bench were dwarfed, yielding pretty much the same number of beans that were planted. Pumpkins grew like green wildfire up the back walls, helped by a solid trellis that John built, sturdy enough to rest pumpkins on; five fruits are already orange, with more on the way! The fruit trees, although bearing a good amount of nearly ripe fruit, also netted a problem; humans are not the only beings who enjoy ripe fruit. Squirrels or birds, destined to enjoy the fruits of our labor, gnawed away at the nectarines on our tree, nearly destroying half our harvest. The apples, thankfully, seem a bit harder to wear down...
Now, the tomatoes are finally starting to ripen, and there have been some hidden pleasures found in their recesses; not only did several cherry tomatoes ripen deep in the undergrowth, but the green onions that were planted and immediately overwhelmed have stuck their heads out, tastily added to our Saturday morning huevos rancheros. And an experiment with strawberries turned out decently, with a couple of alpine berries nibbled on as a snack every few days; such potent, almost candy-like strawberry flavor! A few yellow zucchini, not nearly as threatening as some claim, have grown a few extraordinarily large, half-yellow blimps, which tend to make great sautées.
Aside from the Quail Gardens, the Cottage itself was productive and happy this summer. An organization quest led to a cleaning of the garage, which sadly evicted the Cottage Mouse; far from Martin the Warrior, this poor little guy was living in a bed of John's socks, although at least he had the taste to choose the French imported Marriage-Freres teabags to raid from the compost pile (even the mice at Quail Cottage eat well!) A new commercial drink fridge was added to the Quail Cellars, a handy storage for leftover mead, some white wine from a pair of friends' wedding, and the cases of cava and prosecco that flow through the house like... cava and prosecco. Some new Chinese lanterns were painted by visiting friends, many fires were built in the fire pit, and several grand dinner parties passed through. We experimented with meat on the fire; after an embarrassing attempt at creating a spit out of a cast iron fire poker, we found a great way to cook with flame is the standard notion of sear quickly and roast slowly. A chuck roast turned out beautifully, likely because of the large wedges of fat that we saw in there as we wrapped it up. A large leg of lamb also turned out well, although a bit more dry, since it started a bit more lean than the chuck. All of these were powdered with whatever remained of the spice rubs from John's mom, a fennel spice for the lamb, sixteen spice for the chuck. And over the smoldering coals, Jesse, John, Joe, and Josh hatched out a plan for a sturdy iron spit that could be hung over the fire pit... We'll have to work on acquiring some the pieces!
Autumn continued her famed production in the Quail Yarnery, hatching together a plan for a wedding gift for two of our great friends. With some Scottish visitors in town for the wedding and other more local talent, they crafted together a ginormous crocheted quilt, iconic of an EFN gaming favorite. Such a large effort! After crocheting fifty white granny squares, Autumn declared one night over a glass of bubbles, "thank goodness for a change of color!" and promptly brought out the green yarn with such relief. (The project was very well received.) Other projects included an intriguing but stalled attempt at Tunisian crochet (beautifully consistent, but oh so time consuming) and then a cute little cozy for the French press. What other things can we cozy in the kitchen, we wonder...
Tonight the first rain of fall continues, as we finish this tardy account of midsummer. The weather is finally cold enough to close the windows at night, although we hesitate because the sound of gentle rain is so lovely. Recent occurrences need accounting but will have to wait for another time when the night is younger and a new glass of wine is in hand. Until then, bottoms up, sleep well, and may you dream of running your hands through forests of ripe tomatoes!