the end of the summer

Here's the dying-tomato picture I've been avoiding: This isn't nearly as bad as it is now, even. It's seriously just barren sticks, with a few unripe fruits hanging off of them. And at first, the tomatoes themselves were healthy and fine, but toward the end they were getting some brown spots and weird rotten patches. No idea if that has anything to do with the wilt, but it isn't pretty.

Goodbye, parsley: Both this and the basil was so entrenched that I had to pull it out by the roots. The parsley -- flat-leaf Italian, for future reference -- is now mostly residing in my freezer.

The final big haul: Yes, those are trash bags full of basil. Two trash bags, and that was only about a third of it.

This sounds cheesy, but I feel like the land is sort of being reclaimed -- like the garden was on loan to me, and now it's time for me to give it back. At first, there were more animals invading, more bugs and snakes etc., but now it just feels like it's slowing down, dying, ready for fall.

Lessons for next year:

- Hey, I can grow stuff! Experiment more.

- Diversify. One mistake I made this year was feeling like the yellow squash seedlings came in a pack of four, so I have to plant all four, and I shouldn't waste the seedlings, and I shouldn't buy more if I can only put a few in the ground. But the small expense of throwing away a few seedlings would be worth it. On next year's wishlist: sugar snap peas, green beans, zucchini, broccoli, sungold tomatoes.

- Put in seedlings earlier. This one wasn't my fault this year, but the peas and the beans would have come to pass if I'd been able to plant in mid-May.

- Try some flowers. The accidental sunflower and the marigolds have been really fun.

- More herbs. Scratch the peppermint and halve the basil at least; increase the chives and dill; try spearmint, rosemary, cinnamon and Thai basil, sage, thyme.

- Fewer tomatoes. Duh. I'd keep two cherry and two grape, but I only need one, maybe two of the other varieties.

- Figure out what went wrong with the butternut squash and fix it.

- Plant bug-repellent plants earlier. I think the hot peppers and the marigolds did some good; not so sure about the lavender.

- Try the soil-burning method with black plastic bags to try to keep the squash bugs down.

- Pick earlier. Green tomatoes ripen faster off the vine than you think.

- Do an earlier second planting. I could have gotten the buttercrunch lettuce in right after the arugula was finished, and it would have had an extra few weeks.

Meanwhile, post-frost, things are still happening. No one seems to have notified the cherry and grape tomato plants that it's getting cold, and they're still going strong. The lettuce is also coming up, although I'm not crazy about the way it tastes... it seems a little bitter, and research suggests it might be because it's later in the season.

But it's apparent that it's drawing to a close. Goodbye, garden! I'll miss you. Until next year.