Fall, Falling, Fallen

It is well and truly Fall. I love this time of year. This is when we have our best weather. Not because the heat of summer has abated, quite the opposite, the weather has finally warmed up. But the sun is less intense. The days are shorter. I hear dead leaves rustling. It's a bittersweet love.

In the garden the plants are growing more slowly, some are senescing. Vegetables and seeds are maturing.

I'm waiting for the big Aji peppers to start ripening, they are always the last.

Aji Amarillo Grande

I might have a good wait still for the Aji Amarillo Grandes. Last season I was harvesting them in December, January and February.

Aji golden

Aji Golden and Joe's Giant are new so I have no idea when they will ripen.

Joe's Giant Aji Amarillo

Aji Angelo?

Don't know what's up with Aji Angelo, it's larger and more wrinkled than the ones I've grown before. Perhaps I mixed up the labels or it crossed, I grew these from seeds that I saved a few years ago. It will be interesting to see what color it is when ripe, a true Aji Angelo should be red.

Taos Red Beans

The dry beans are starting to dry on the vines. The leaves are falling off the Taos Red vines as the bean pods dry. Tarahumara Sitakame is staying green and is sporting a lot of new flowers and baby beans even while there are mature bean pods drying on the vines. It's flowers are day length sensitive so perhaps the shorter days have given it the signal to bloom again.

Tarahumara Sitakame Beans

 Oh what a tale of woe in the corn patch.

Hopi Greasy Head Flour Corn

Hopi Greasy Head was the early favorite of the rodents. I thought first that it was rats, but never a one could I snap in a trap, not near the corn at least (got one in the tomatoes though). Then I thought perhaps it was ground squirrels because some damage was occurring during the day and I had by accident caught a ground squirrel in a trap intended for rats. And then I finally caught a very large and fat vole under the corn plants. Ah, that made sense, voles are active day and night. I have been searching and searching for their burrows but can't find one.

Santo Domingo Rainbow Flour Corn

They soon turned their appetites loose on the Santo Domingo Rainbow corn. Are they lazy, do they prefer the Hopi Greasy Head because the plants are so much shorter? They seem to know when the ears of corn are mature and as sweet as they can be. They just chew through the husks, littering the ground with the shreds, until they get to the juicy kernels inside which they devour on the spot. Wrapping the ears in fabric, a tactic which succeeded in protecting the ears last year, was of no avail, they chew right through the fabric. Covering the tops of the ears with hardware cloth, the rodents used to start at the top and work their way down, didn't work this year as it did last year, they attacked from the bottom up instead. Perhaps half of the Hopi Greasy Head ears have fallen prey to the gnawing jaws of rodents. And they found what was probably the only ears of K'uyu Chuspi that managed to get pollinated somehow. That corn was dysfunctional - the tassels were done delivering their pollen well before the ears revealed their silks. I didn't think any ears had been pollinated but the rodents proved me wrong. There's a few fat ears on the last 2 stalks, but it's questionable whether or not there's any kernels developing. The size of the ears are no indication of what's inside, that corn has the thickest husks I've ever seen on any ears of corn, layer upon layer upon layer of husks until you finally get to a teeny tiny little ear inside. I can't believe the rodents just kept gnawing and gnawing and gnawing until they found the little bit of goodness that was to be found. Won't be growing that corn again. I may not bother to grow any sort of corn again - it just ain't worth the heartache and the battles.

Armored Ears of Corn

The remaining ears of corn are now fully encased in hardware cloth. Eat that you effing batards.

K'uyu Chuspi - any kernels in there?

One more sign of fall...

Kurin Kabocha

It will soon be time to gather the winter squash. The skins are hardening and the stems are getting corky.