Final Harvest

About 10 days ago, the weather forecast for the night ahead included a frost warning.  That afternoon, JT and I went out to the garden and picked the last of the onions, carrots, and beets from the garden, heaping them all in the basket.  We grabbed up some flowers for bouquets and then brought everything inside.  For supper that night I served roasted carrots, beets, and creamed spinach; I used one of the onions to make the spinach.

Though the final harvest was a lovely closing to the garden season, I always find the final picking bittersweet.  I'm a little sad to think I won't be marching out there to grab up a tomato for my supper.  But today, I plan to plant some bulbs that will bring flowers for the spring.  In the next few weeks, I'll be getting things ready to winter over and soon enough I'll be looking at the seed catalogs and making plans for the spring. 

And that's the lovely thing about a garden: sometimes there's work to be done and other times there's work to be imagined.  And at all times the promise of growing things makes life richer.

Update: Creamed spinach recipe will appear later this week.  And, sigh, JT would have nothing to do with said creamed spinach.