Summer's bounty

September feels like a big, lickery kiss. The breeze is soft and whispery and feels like such an antidote to the hot heat of the previous months. The chill in the morning and the evening makes for the best "windows open" sleeping weather of the year. I've always loved September. It brings the changes of Fall to your door, but gradually enough that you can still soak up the last gasps of summer. I can see the clumps of orange starting to form on the mountainside and all the edges of my aspen leaves are ringed and crispy, getting ready to change, but for now I'm still in my t-shirt and shorts working in the garden with my sunglasses on.

My garden still isn't quite up to snuff (learning curve!) but I'm proud of the successes we've had this year. We've harvested lots of beets and carrots, herbs of every stripe, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. My big tomatoes are just barely ripening which means once again I've started them off a little too late. I would have liked to get the BLT situation up and running back in August! Jaren and I have a tradition of planting morning glory seeds every spring along whatever fence line we live by. It has been fun to watch them creep up the fence all summer. This year's patch is glorious, a mix of solid sky blue and blue and white striped flowers. I love their trumpet shape and the fact that they only open until the heat of the day takes over. It's like a little welcome to this day sign to me every morning.

I think the garden treasure I'm happiest about this summer is our peach tree. Neglected for years and under watered, we babied it this summer. We pruned it really hard last fall following the traditional rule to keep the tree to 3 main branches. We read up on the proper way to thin the masses of hard little green fruits that pop out by the hundreds in the spring after blossom time, and were shocked to learn that you take 90% of these off so that the tree can concentrate on growing the peaches you do leave on into delicious, big fruits. We've watched the 100 or so peaches left on the tree ripen all summer, going from pale yellowish green and fist sized to baseball round and a deep orange kissed with heavy burgundy. We fondled them until we were sure they were perfectly ripe and a little bit soft to the fingertip before we picked. Last night we celebrated our patience and filled an entire bucket with huge, perfectly ripe, beautiful, peaches. I made cobbler and we sat on the deck soaking in the fact that we grew these little puppies from scratch! It was one of the most satisfying moments of my summer.

Celebrating harvests is a great end of summer ritual. In a future year when I get the tomato thing down I want to have a tomato tasting party like this one I saw in Martha Stewart Living. The last couple years have taught me that I love to can and preserve and I'm eager to put up salsa, peaches,pickles, and jam over the next couple of weeks. The steamy kitchen should also make for a nice antidote to the fresh chill in the air.

Enjoy your last gasps of summer.....it's a special time of year.