Oh the last of the garden is always sad, but the time has come for the good earth in Pennsylvania to take a rest. Today I took the tomato plants down, and that’s always a reality check for me.  Last week I took down green beans and had pulled up the squash plants before that.

These few King of the Garden Limas got put into a pot of vegetable soup today, along with some of my frozen tomatoes.  There are still some pods on the Lima vines, and some might yet develop some small beans if we don’t get an early freeze.  So I’ll let them in the ground for a while yet.

But in the kitchen are jars of four different kinds of dried beans to be used in recipes over the winter.  And also some canned cucumber and mixed pickle that will be good when it’s cold outside.  And lots of frozen blanched beans in the freezer, along with freezer pickles, frozen collards and  lots of different tomato products.  And frozen jalapeno poppers and plain hot peppers too, and hot peppers drying on window sashes.

And seeds!  Lots of saved seeds from heirloom veggies that give you the same good crop year after year.

It was a cold, wet spring here followed by a hot summer, hot enough to break some records.  And some things just didn’t do as well as I would have wished, but I’m happy for what grew and did well enough to produce a lot of food to eat then and store away.  And there was stuff to share too, and to me that is one of the joys of gardening.

So winter will come and the wheel will turn and I’ll pull out goodies I stashed away and wait for that first warm spring day….robins, open windows, and the promise of another garden.  More of the magic of the earth.