What’s going on in your garden? As the harvest season is peaking and some of our summer vegetable and herb plants are winding down, it is time for preserving, tidying up and getting ready to plant a few fall crops.

Tomatoes and chile peppers are coming in full tilt boogie in my garden. So we eat them daily raw, in salsas and sauces and cooked in every way imaginable. The nasturtiums, calendulas, sunflowers and marigolds are peaking adding their rowdy colors to the garden green. Squash and cukes have slowed down. Both basil and summer savory, seasonal annuals have been cut back a few times already and what with the cooler nights, they too are slowing down. Some of the squash and melon vines are dying or have died and it is time to pull them out. Of course the weeds are the most gung-ho of all of the plants–this time of the year our gardens start to look a bit unkempt.

The basil, mint, lemon balm, thyme and savory have all been cut and hung in bunches or spread in baskets to dry. I have also made syrups and vinegars with the fresh-cut herbs. I made pickles and used a whole flower/seed head of dill in each jar.

I have been saving lots of seed. Dill and coriander seed have been dried, removed from stems, and bottled for culinary use. I’ve been removing calendula seed heads as they turn brown, saving those seeds for next year’s planting and to share with gardening friends, since they are plentiful.

Recently, I visited with my gardening friend Deborah, who grows most of her vegetables and herbs from seed. So I have fall plants like new baby kales, chard, broccoli, tatsoi, endives, chicories, radicchio and fall lettuce mixes from her to plant out in the garden in the next week or so while the moon is still waning.

Right now I have to go tackle a bushel of Roma tomatoes! … Enjoy the bounty–happy harvest season!