I read somewhere (perhaps a book of gardening advice for type A personalities) that when you start feeling like your garden is more job than joy, it's time to just leave it for awhile. A month ago--when the summer veggies were really slowing down and after the battle of the squash bugs--I was ready to do just that.
After my my month of neglect however, this morning I woke up with a whimsy for some roasted onion soup (recipe and pictures to be posted later this week), and for that I needed leeks from the garden.
As you can see, the weeds did well for themselves while I was away. The cucumber and bean vines largely withered to nothing, although there were still a few rotting tomatoes hanging on. My rosemary looked better than it had all summer (sometimes less is more, I suppose), and the leeks, while small still, were of pick-able size.
It seemed a lot of people had the same idea I did and had taken a break. The result was that our community garden--pleasantly rambling on the best of days--looked just plain wild.
I pocketed a few nice sprigs of rosemary, pulled up an armload of leeks, and went home to make my soup. The clean-up will have to be done eventually (at least by the time the garlic I ordered from Seed Savers gets here in mid-October), but for now I'm still letting it go.
