Halloween and Harvest

 How was your Halloween?

In New York’s Capital Region, Halloween was the coldest since 2008. We live on a rural street; that, the pandemic and cold made it even more unlikely that any trick or treaters would come a-calling.

Just in case, we had a bowl of Milky Ways. After we turned out the lights at 8 PM, I took one piece of candy each time I walked past the bowl. The bowl is about a quarter full. Who knew that mooching fat and sugar could be the occasion for so much walking?

Our only live Halloween event was a turkey vulture deciding to sit on a high branch in one of our trees. But the cold weather even knocked the spookiness out of this bird. Instead of circling, as vultures do when they find a meal, it sat forlornly. While I was looking away, it slunk off; no soaring, it just disappeared.

The saving grace for our Halloween were two beautiful pumpkins from our backyard garden. Dorothy advised me to pick them before they ripened completely. We have assorted creatures that like to eat pumpkins. By last week, both pumpkins were ripe and ready for carving.

(photograph by D. Holt)

One of the pumpkins was 25 pounds. This was the biggest pumpkin I ever grew. We saved some seeds to roast and some for gardening in 2021.

No, it's not Ed O'Neill; it's just a giant pumpkin
(photograph by D. Holt)

Pumpkins were a gift that gave three times. The pumpkins themselves were great. The long vines with many large yellow flowers formed a border on two sides of the area where we sat in the yard. On one of the other sides was a stand of tall, colorful zinnias. The third gift will appear at the end of this post.

Pumpkin vines bordering yard
(photograph by D. Holt)

Pumpkin flowers
(photograph by D. Holt)

Zinnias 
(photographs by D. Holt)

Giant swallowtail and zinnia
(photograph by J. Rowen)

My 2020 gardening reminds me of the line in that Dolly Parton song, “looking better than a body has a right to . . . “ I got a late start and only got one sunflower that grew as a volunteer in the backyard. The sunflowers that usually grow in my spot in the community garden, and can be transplanted, never showed.

The single sunflower and zinnias
(photograph by D. Holt)

But the harvest was amazing. I started with a few plum tomato plants that soon looked as if they were dying from blight. It turned out they just needed fertilizer. With an insecurity about the plants dying off, I kept buying plants as back ups. I went from 18 to 24 and ended up with 47.

Ailing tomato plants
(photographs by J. Rowen)

We may have had over 300 tomatoes from these plants. Some ended up on sandwiches and in salads. Lots ended up in pasta sauce, in the freezer. All of them were ripe and juicy, unlike the pulpy versions now on offer in the produce section.

Even more compelling than the taste and texture was the smell of a large bowl of tomatoes. Some people who shake hands with a celebrity will not wash their hands for days after. I was tempted not to wash up after picking tomatoes, to prolong enjoying the experience. But there were so many tomatoes, I washed up and knew I could smell the tomatoes the next day.

Each garden visit had ups, downs and surprises. In July, I was mad when I saw that an animal chewed up the cauliflower plants. But on the same visit, I was happy to see the sweet corn thriving. In fact, we planted two waves of sweet corn. In the first, some ears of corn were as big as professionally planted sweet corn; in the second the ears were small, but still tasty.

On another visit, the carrots were not growing, unlike previous years. But pepper plants next to the carrots were flowering and then heavy with peppers. These peppers were great for salads, pizza toppings and stuffed peppers.

When I visited the garden last Thursday, it was sad to see the frost had leveled the tomatoes and peppers. But surprise and happiness came from finding a head of cauliflower that was almost as big as the ones in the supermarket - - and seeing Brussels sprouts stalks almost three feet high.

In the paragraphs above is an obsession with replicating commercial agriculture. On one level that is foolish. When we get carrots, they are smaller than the ones in the supermarket but tastier. Homegrown tomatoes are always better. Many vegetables that do not get large can be sliced to be baked and no one is the wiser about their source.

But with ears of corn, cauliflower heads, Brussels sprouts stalks or eggplant, the vegetable needs to be larger, otherwise it is hard to cook or eat.

The third gift of the pumpkins was that they inspired Dorothy to bake a pumpkin for Halloween. The pie offered an appealing, delicious way to ease the transition from early fall to the impending deep freeze.