Last weekend was our community garden’s fall cleanup. The last hoorah for the season, it’s an all-hands-on-deck event to tidy up the garden for the winter after our final harvest

Winter? The weekend was actually quite mild, as had been the previous several weeks. Fall cleanup weekend, to be honest, was a bit too premature. Although my basil and rhubarb had succumbed to cool weather weeks ago, other sturdier plants were still going strong.

Final harvest results

The herbs were still fragrant; in fact, I picked big bunches of dill and parsley, which were used that evening in the cavity of a medium-sized bass.

One last and large zucchini presented itself as meal-worthy, as well. Safely tucked in the refrigerator, several pasta dishes are in its future.

Three smallish butternut squashes were at the ends of weary and worn-out vines. The curried butternut squash soup they produced was most excellent, indeed.

Lavender may not be an edible crop in my garden, but I was able to harvest its last remaining fragrant stems. Treated with care, it’ll add that air of summer to home all through the winter.

There was even a crop of tomatillos awaiting me on garden cleanup day. The thing is, I never planted tomatillos! They remain in a small dish, beautifying my countertop until I figure out how to use them best.

Failed carrots

Carrots were the other crop I still found aplenty in the garden. They did not, however, find themselves into a meal. This was my first year planting carrots, and apparently this season was just a practice run. You see, they mostly developed into so many short, stubby, and cracking fingers. From my carrots’ distorted development, I cannot imagine what professional farmers do that results in stick-straight specimens.

Well, yes, I can imagine. The pros likely have smooth, fluffy, stone-free soil through which the carrots’ taproot can grow and lengthen with ease. Most of my garden plot does have fluffy soil, except this one spot that was clear this spring and just begging to be planted with something. In my springtime gardening excitement, I planted the wrong plant in the wrong place. The result? I have plenty of carrots with which to make vegetable stock.

There’s always the opportunity to get it right next spring.