Showy fall flowers

Crossword puzzle clue: Showy fall flower

Answer: Aster

Did you think asters?  Since a crossword puzzle is part of my everyday routine, 'aster' and 'showy fall flower,' are always linked in my mind. Asters are very pretty, I admit, with their yellow centers and purple petals.  But when I walk outside at this time of year, I wonder why other flowers do not vie for showy fall flower honors?

Why do the puzzle writers not think Tall Golden Rod? The fronts of golden rod are neon yellow turning to red gold and rust at this time of year.

Why don't they consider Maximilian Sunflower? Growing taller and more gangly all season, the Maximilian sunflowers now reach eight or nine feet and sport bright yellow flowers all along the stalks. Stunning.

Equally showy are the purple sweeps of hosta blooms south of my house.  A rather plain dark green hosta throughout the year, this one variety has two things to commend it. It multiplies like crazy, filling in space wherever it's planted. And when it blooms, it puts up countless stems of purple blooms.

I get it. Asters are showy fall flowers, but perhaps more important, their name includes the letters so helpful to forming other words. I just think puzzle writers and solvers would benefit from enjoying the many flowers that brighten fall gardens.

Vine ripened, ready to eat

Growing up on the farm, we had a big garden. Big enough to fill our fruit cellar and deep freeze. Enough to feed our family at every meal,  through the winter, until the garden gave up its bounty again the next year.

One thing we did not grow was melons, though we loved them dearly. Instead, we waited for Dillon Marlow to drive his truck down our lane. Every summer he came, the back of his pickup loaded with melons. And then did we feast! As much watermelon as we wanted, every day until it was gone.

He only brought us watermelon once a year. I never thought much about the fact that he only delivered melons once each summer until we began to grow melons on our acreage a few years ago.

We only plant one hill of cantaloupe and then we wait. We watch the vines branch out and the buds blossom. We watch the melons form and fill out, first green and then yellow. Then all of a sudden, they are ripe. Almost all of them. On the same day!

Of course there is no way for just two of us to eat so many melons, though lord knows we give it our best shot. There is nothing so sweet, so tasty, as a vine-ripened melon. For a week we eat like royalty and share our largesse with friends.

This year, today is the day for melon. I brought in six melons. Several others will ripen over the next week. But then they'll be done for the year.  Unlike other produce, melons don't preserve well. Melon is one of those fruits it's best to eat fresh.

When I carried all the melons into the house today, I thought of my neighbor who came with his truck just once a summer. All of his melons vine ripened and ready eat. At the same time.

Ready, Set, Be Patient!

It can't last forever, this snow. I keep telling myself that. The days do get longer. Melting snow slides off the roof, plinks into the gutters, trickles in a steady stream out the downspouts.  Yes, spring is coming. I know it.

But, I have a hard time keeping my desire for sunshine and warm weather in check. I am so eager, so impatient. I ache to see the snow gone, to feel the sun on my cheeks - knowing I can shed my coat on morning walks, to find the ground dry enough to work in the garden.

That's it, really. I want to work in the garden. That desire, that itch, to plant the seeds, to see them grow, is age old. The itch runs in our family, most likely in the blood of all farm people.

Each spring, my dad took oat seed from the bin, sprinkled it on a damp handkerchief, rolled it up and sealed it in a fruit jar that was placed on a south-facing kitchen window sill to catch the sun. In a week or so, he opened the jar, gently unrolled the cloth and counted the seeds that germinated. That annual test of whether the seed in our oat bin was viable was the signal to me that spring was coming.

Soon enough, Dad was in the machine shed, getting the tractor and plow ready to roll.  He said as soon as you could sit your bare bottom on the ground without getting cold, it was time to plant. I admit, I never actually saw him do this.

These days, I'm sure spring is here when my husband brings out his box of vegetable seeds, sits down with the season's stack of seed catalogs, and begins to sketch out this year's garden plan on a yellow pad. He's been working it over in his head all winter, but it's serious when he finally puts pencil to yellow pad.

For my part, I look with anticipation at the sticks littering the ground - hid until now by snow drifts, but revealed stick by stick as the snow melts - knowing I'll be gathering them up and throwing them on the chipper pile. I dream of hostas and cone flowers and Black-eyed Susans emerging so I can divide the new shoots and transplant them to my son's garden. I calcuate how much effort and sand it will take to right the leaning garden sculpture.

Oh, I have dozens of projects that will let me get dirt under my fingernails, result in an inevitable ache in my back, lead the way to bug bites and complaints about the heat. I don't care. I want it all. Now!

I am ready. I am set. And, I just have to be patient.

Here at last!

It was a strange year in our vegetable garden. It didn't help that my husband - the one who usually does the planting - broke his ankle in April, so planting was left to me. This is a task I'm completely capable of, having planted garden every year of my life from age 2 to age 18, and many years since. But that's another story. Then there was the cold weather and the constant rain.

The result was extremes on both ends. Excellent string beans. And wilt that killed the melons, cucumbers and summer squash almost overnight. In the next rows, grew the tastiest sweet corn we've ever eaten. A real roller coaster ride, our garden.

But what we wait every year for - can hardly bear to live another day without - is tomatoes. They just did not mature. Even the cherry tomatoes held off giving us a tiny sweet taste until after August 1.

But they are here now and we are ecstatic. We eat bacon and tomato or peanut butter and tomato sandwiches several times a week. I cut up tomatoes as a side dish to scrambled eggs for breakfast. I canned 36 pints of salsa. Enough, we hope, to last two years. So far, I've canned two dozen quarts of tomatoes. We give tomatoes away.

Tomatoes are Iowa summer for us. And we are in heaven. The tomatoes are here at last!