Last Cull of the Season

Greens ready for the freezer.

It was Thanksgiving Day and I hadn’t paid much attention to the forecast until that afternoon. “Oh, no!  A hard freeze tonight!” I exclaimed, aghast. “I need to pull in the greens!” Suddenly, my plans for the remainder of the holiday – to spend thankful, together-time with my sweetheart inside our warm, cozy home - were displaced by the sudden need to cull the last of the produce for the season.

It happens this way every year – a sudden moment of panic occurs, forestalled by the glorious and pleasant autumn days, when autumn crisply turns to winter, regardless of the date on the calendar.

I warmed myself with a cup of hot coffee, donned layers of clothing and an extra waterproof jacket, and ventured outside into the icy, drizzling rain. “I should’ve done this sooner,” I muttered, frustrated with the new agenda.

Chaotic congregations of black birds thronged overhead, flocking in waves towards treetops south of our property.  They squawked wildly.  “It’s gonna get cold tonight! It’s gonna get cold!” they seemed to cry as they jostled for favored roosting positions.

I approached the tall, sturdy Brussels sprout plants first and grasped the heavy leaves, hurriedly snapping them off by the handful with sharp, downward yanks.  There was a bumper crop of the leaves this year, and their removal revealed thick stalks densely studded with the toothsome, pearly globes.  “WOW - More than I thought!” I exclaimed, swiftly severing the stalks at the base.

I sped over to the bed of mustard greens, racing to gather a final crop before my fingers froze, and caught sight of the chard whose leaves had grown the full length of my arm.  “MY – that will make a good meal or two!” I exclaimed as I tore the rumpled leaves from the plant.

I collected a last bag of lettuce for early winter salads and then spied feathery greens poking through the leaf mulch in the pole bean row.  “Carrots?” I surmised.  “I thought they never grew,” I puzzled, recalling the drought-ridden spring when I first planted the seeds.  I pulled the delicate fronds and bright orange giants sprang from the ground. They were not shaped like ordinary carrots either, but were thick-figured creations with arms and legs like they’d created quite a life for themselves during the half-year they spent in the ground!

For two full hours I pulled, picked and packed the final harvest of the season, finding far more bounty than I had ever imagined. Bags and buckets of produce crowded the counters and floor of our tiny kitchen, and then I worked long into the night processing all the intake. In the wee hours of the morning I finally lumbered into bed, heavy with fatigue from the last cull of the season, but I couldn’t imagine being more grateful.