Fiacré's spade: End of summer break

Back to work tomorrow. Bah. I know why summer can’t last forever, but I don’t have to like it. When I got up this morning, I planned to have a leisurely last day of vacation. I did the chicken chores and had my tea. About 9:30 I went out to the garden for oh, maybe 10 minutes or so to check how things were growing.

Isn’t it always the way? No sooner do you heave a sigh of relief that the green beans are about done than you realize the sweet corn is getting away from you. We’ve been picking a few ears here and there to have for supper for a couple of weeks. Suddenly, it seemed like it was almost all ready today. Terry planted 5 varieties of corn. Two of the varieties were supposed to ripen in 60 days. They had very short stalks, and the ears developed less than a foot off the ground. Both varieties suffered considerable damage from raccoons before we moved the electric net from around the meat chickens. We left the chick fence up to keep the chickens contained. Last year, we moved the netting after the broilers went to freezer heaven. We didn’t realize how long we would have to keep the dual purpose chickens.

I hesitate to open the ears to check the progress of the corn. When the husk is compromised, the beetles move in rapidly. My tried and true method in the past was to circle the ear with my thumb and forefinger. If I can touch my finger to my thumb, the ear is not ready. If there’s a half inch to an inch gap, the ear is ready. My method failed with the two early varieties. I discovered today when I opened an ear that it was far past optimal eating even though I could still get my fingers all around it. I tried an ear of Early Sunglow for lunch. After two bites, I gave it to the chickens. Very tough. Native Gem was still tender and edible even when the kernels were quite large. If we grow these early corns next year, I’ll know. The ears are small.

So I picked all of the corn varieties except for Silver Queen, a late variety, and some of the Peaches and Cream that wasn’t ready yet. I set the corn in the shade and went back to the garden. While I was inspecting the fennel seeds (only one head was ready for harvest), I noticed that the onions tops were bending over. I know from experience that the onions need to come in when the tops bend over or they start to rot. They don’t rot from the outside in or the inside out. No, that would be relatively easy to deal with. A single leaf in the middle of the onion rots, making in necessary to cut the onion in half, lift the middle off the bad layer and then remove the slimy rotten leaf from the concave side of the outer layers. Nasty business.

It was a perfect day for harvesting onions. The soil was moist from a little rain two days ago. The onions pulled easily and came up without too much soil on them. Once out of the ground, they need to be put on a rack with the leaves over the bulbs to keep them from sunburn. The onions are big this year. The shallots are perhaps the largest known to man.

Onions on the drying rack. Nearly the entire bottom shelf is shallots

I took a break for a quick lunch and then started shucking corn. I left the Early Sunglow for Hilda and did the rest myself. After blanching and cutting the kernels from the cob, I ended up with 18 bags of corn for the freezer.