We were thrilled to find helpers in our garden this year – a toad, wasps, spiders and a praying mantis. They kept some of the insect pests from doing too much damage. This praying mantis was not intimidated by the size of its prey. After a few flashes from my camera, he flew towards it and grabbed with his long legs. His attack reverted my attention back to weeding and watering the garden. Could that have been his plan? He has that “get to work” look.
It is October and we still have ripe grape tomatoes!
We were super thrilled to find another kind of helper in our garden this year – a little girl. Our neighbor’s tomato loving daughter picked and ate from our garden when she played outside. A child enjoying our home garden and their veggies, that is the perfect garden visitor!
A clear blue sky, crisp cool air, warm sunshine plus adventure equals a perfect Saturday in autumn. We headed for our garden plot this afternoon but had a few diversions before arriving there. We stopped at a pet store and a fall festival. We went to the pet store to purchase biscuits for our dog and my son discovered a playful kitten. My son slipped a thin metal wire through the kitten’s cage. The cat flipped, batted, jumped and kicked at the bunch of cardboard strips hanging at the wire’s tip. My son roared in laughter. He did not want to leave the pet store. We redirected him with hope of a hayride at our community garden site. The Howard County Conservancy was full of activities for its fall festival. We bumped through rolling fields and woods on a hayride pulled by a tractor with wheels taller than my son. A master gardener at the compost demo gave my son a bunch of pink and blue balloons. My son slurped honey from a straw and chatted about bees with a woman from the Howard County Beekeepers Association. We listened to steel pounding on steel as a blacksmith hammered a hot orange metal rod into a fork after heating it in a coal fire stoked by large bellows. My son said the banging was his favorite. While my husband and son lingered and asked questions in the blacksmith shop, I finally visited our garden plot.
Turnip Seedling
Our plot is still producing tomatoes, peppers and beans. I picked two grocery bags full of red and green tomatoes and peppers. I pulled out and composted three tomato plants that had toppled to the ground. Our fall plantings sprouted! Radish, turnip, spinach and lettuce seedlings now sprinkle the brown earth in unplanned patterns of curving rows, circles, clumps, pairs and triples. Some extra seeds must have dropped from my hand during planting. Many seedlings will need to be pulled out to allow more space for underground growth.
Those unexpected sprouts remind me of our day. Unexpected adventure and fun popped up despite my plans. Thank you God, for your goodness and for dropping some extra seeds outside my rows of plans.
Some of our tomato plants are still producing small amounts of grape and cherry tomatoes. We planted indeterminant tomato plants this year. An indeterminate tomato variety will continue to set and ripen fruit until killed off by frost. We collected thousands of these sweeties this season. Picking them can be tedious, but tasty. My husband and son would pop them right into their mouths as they picked. I tried several ways to cook and preserve these little guys. I roasted them (at 250 degrees for 2 hours) until they became shriveled like a sun dried tomato, then froze them in little baggies. I sauteed them with garlic and olive oil and tossed in penne pasta. I gave them away to friends and family. This week, the batch in the photo traveled to the Howard County Food Bank. A much appreciative staff carried them away to a refrigerator. I am sure they will be enjoyed. I hope more produce from our garden will travel to the food bank this season and future seasons.
Our Garden Plot 
