After two weeks off to soak up the last summer sunshine, fall fell fast. I couldn’t quite get used to the change in season. It is hard to switch from heat wave to near freezing. There was a week between digging up strawberries on a hot day and looking for mushrooms in my winter jacket.

But I’ve made that point, haven’t I? Truth is, I too more time off to get through the worst of my winter depression–at least the onset upheaval. I will still be battling the ongoing depression due to lack of light and warmth. The shift has traditionally been especially bad, though, and this year I decided to let myself take the time to deal with the transition–and to mourn the summer that never really was.

But I am okay now.

First, I took time off. Then, I wasn’t ready to resurface. I saved seeds, cooked meals, did odd jobs, but I didn’t often pick up the camera. Many tasks were left undone, more undocumented.

The start of the semester was approaching fast, and I felt overwhelmed by what I’d wanted to finish before then. The apartment was dirtier than usual, and I was falling behind on just about everything.

I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for the winter semester. I wasn’t ready for winter.

I’d recharged my social and political batteries, but I needed a break from most things.

I took long walks through the cold forest, and foraged the occasional mushroom.

In an effort to reduce my hate for the cold season, I am trying to notice what I love about fall and winter. I have to admit, the foggy mornings in early fall are hard to hate.

In the garden, I merely kept an eye on the harvest, checking on especially the beans every day. soon, I’d need to get over myself and deal with the growing list of things to get done. Soon. But not yet. So, instead of rushing my feelings, I gave myself the time to mourn the summer that never really was.

On what looked like the last nice day of the summer, I returned to the garden. The forecast showed the day as the last with temperatures over 20 degrees for as long as I could look ahead. I had a feeling–and it was right–that the sudden fall was indeed fall. While people around me held out for a return of summer and a slower fall, I was already mourning summer.

The temperatures were dropping. Rain and clouds returned on most days. Most of all, the light vanished. Mornings were late, night fell early–and it rarely got bright in between.

Frost was a real possibility for the near future, weeks before our first average frost date. The frost still hasn’t arrived as I write this, now roughly at our average frost date. The garden is prepared for whenever it arrives.

Our summer was a six-week heat wave with little actual summer before–and none after.

I made the best of the last nice day and got a lot done: I pulled the tomatoes that had finished fruiting, leaving only a few branches. I moved more water around and tackled a lot of little things. I covered some soon-to-be beds. A good final day of summer.

And then the dark and stormy days arrived and hit me in full force. During a break in the rain, I headed to the garden to save the beans from the endless wet.

I hid from the world with headphones on my ears. The soccer field next to my gardens is getting new, well, everything. The old buildings have been torn down, the asbestos removed, and they are now constructing new locker rooms.

While listening to an audiobook, I heard little of the noise, and harvested in peace. I had planned to leave them to dry on the vines but with the rain returned, I’d changed plans. I’d take them home to finish there.

I’d resurfaced in time to rescue the beans. Winter was coming. But I was okay.

I still had a few weeks before classes started, a few more before the ground would get too hard to work. So, in good old Kate fashion, I wrote an endless task list. And then I ignored it. This, surprisingly, worked well. Whenever I needed motivational boosts, I’d go through the endless list and find tasks to check off. For a wonder, it worked.

Yesterday, I checked off the final tasks. I got everything done that I had planned for the semester break. Only two tasks remain on there, and both are pending other people’s time or input. I did it. I am very proud.

Harvesting the beans hadn’t been on the list. I hadn’t planned to take them in yet. But they needed to be harvested before the rains rotted the shell through.

Even on a grim day, it was hard not to enjoy the bean harvest. The Brunhilde bean looks stunning with the purple pots. They turn green when cooking, indicating their doneness.

The plant was laden with beans. The pods were large and firm–and all over the plant. The variety has more than earned its spot in next years garden.

Planning for next year’s garden has been a huge part of getting me through the fast fall. Not only do I have something to look forward to, but the tasks until frost hits won’t feel as gray.

Take the bean harvesting: I might have gotten wet knees while harvesting but I was also taking in the seeds for next year’s garden.

I’d be drowning in preservation tasks for weeks after this. Winter would start to sound like a break. I’d need to take another week off in early October. But that would be overwhelm, not winter blues.

Surrounding the Brunhilde bean plant were purple teepee beans. They’d finished their work for the season as well, so I harvested the remaining pods. The later plantings were never as prolific as the first bean plant I’d added to the bed. I’ll plant more earlier next year.

But I’d gotten a good harvest. We never got to preserve any of the green bean (well, purple beans that act like green beans and turn into green beans when cooked…) but enjoyed them in many dinners throughout summer.

A few weeks later, I’d be able to take the lessons learned from this harvest to plan the beds for next season. Plenty of growing space would go toward giving beans something to climb up early on.

In another corner of the garden, the lemon balm provided a final chance for syrup from the garden. I harvested most of the plant. The leaves and stems will soon die back. The roots and rhizome system would survive the winter and regrow next spring.

Making our own syrups with various flavors from the garden or foraged herbs and blossoms has been a highlight of the year. It all started with a large batch of elderflower syrup and delivery issues of our favorite mango juice. Now, we no longer buy juice. Instead, we have fun with all kinds of syrups.

But let’s return to the harvests: the bean plants on the string trellis had grown less vigorously than the one on the pole, though they all came from the same pack of seeds. But they were also planted later. The later teepee beans hadn’t done as well either. No way to tell yet if this is timing or trellising.

There were still a lot of beans, and the pods were full and firm. I’ll need more garden years to see what makes them grow better. I can’t wait to gain the experience.

Finally, I harvested the beans from the three-sisters bed. It’s only technically the three sisters–unless we want to count the single zucchini growing next to the corn as a squash in this bed. The actual squash never made it further than flowers. There is only a single cob on the corn. But there were beans.

I’ll grow corn again next year, both maize and sweet corn. I’ll start them much sooner, though.

The neighbor had donated what he’d called the last of this year’s grass clippings. I made good use of them. The pitiful remains of the tomato bed needed a new layer of mulch to suppress the weeds. I also pulled the grass from the bed edges–the rhizomatous kind that’s a pain to remove.

I’d mulched heavily all summer. I’ll keep doing heavy mulching. It’s been working more than well. “Mulch is a lazy gardener’s best friend,” is one of the lessons learned this year. A lesson, I keep telling you about, I know.

Before I left, I gave the tomatoes in the greenhouse a trim. They were just not getting the push to ripen. A few weeks later–and a few days ago as I write this–I’d be binging on video tutorials for green-tomato recipes. The tomatoes would never ripen, and I’d harvest a giant basket of green tomatoes to turn into different jars of goodness.

Another lesson learned.

So long, and thanks for being here.