September 2026

I’ve been growing garlic for years.
Dry years, wet years.
Hot years, cold years.
Good soil, bad soil.
TLC and neglect.
And I’ve never had a bad crop.
Until this year, when everything was fine until mid-summer, and then every single garlic plant died. We didn’t know what to make of it, because the shallots in the same bed did fine, and the onions in the next row thrived. WTF?

We were stumped, and we decided it was a fluke, and we’ll just turn some manure into the soil and try, try again.
I was doing the spade work, and my brain was in low gear. I was thinking idle thoughts about gardens past, and an olde-tyme mail order paper-and-ink seed-planting instruction book came randomly to mind.
“Plant your <something> where you’ve never grown <somethingElse>,” it read.
My brain shifted into second.  What if <something> is garlic, and <somethingElse> is onions? After all, last year was the first year we’d ever planted onions. And they practically surround the garlic bed. Then again: what’s that got to do with it?
I gave up guessing and googled it, and it said: “Yup. Don’t do that.”
Onions attract a bug that eats garlic for dessert.
Good to know! And hats off to thinking in low gear.
Now ask me about beneficial nematodes.

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It’s apple season.
It seems to come earlier every year, and I’m never ready for it.
This year, I’ve got a lot on my plate, and I wanted to just … not do it. Skip it. Drink beer instead.
But the apple trees were not cooperating. They were chuck full of apples. Lush, ripe, juicy apples, blushing from the treetops in the sunshine, calling:
“Pick me”
“Crush me”
“Press me”
“Taste me”
“Sell me for free from a cooler with a sign on the driveway.”

The apples are the Siren call of Fall, and I get seduced every year.
I couldn’t resist, so I got started. I put the brush hog on the tractor and started clearing a path between the trees I wanted to pick. And when I got to the farthest tree, the tractor died and wouldn’t start.
Shit.
lt goes without saying that: No tractor, no cider. No a-lot-of-things. I can’t live without the tractor.
So suddenly, I have a full-fledged, poorly scheduled emergency on my hands, and my tools are far, far away, in the shop. Not looking good.

Now, I should mention, here, that sometimes the tractor just won’t start. And when it won’t, there’s a wire in the back that I know I can jiggle, and it’ll usually start right up.
Sadly, this wasn’t working.
I cracked the books, called up the electrical diagram, and bypassed a relay with a nice, thick piece of wire. Worked like a charm, and I hogged a hiking path through the meadow and back to the house.
For dodging a bullet, I felt pretty good about it.

Meanwhile, the apples were dropping.
Early apples don’t wait for me to get my shit together. When they fall off the tree, they fall off, like, all at once. And by the time I show up with my picker, they’re usually on the ground, and I’m too late for early apples.
By the time I got the tractor hooked to the boom, it was late, but not too late, and I picked 5 trees. The boys watched my every move. We made 2 ciders and gave them away.
Mary helped, and Celia learned the ropes.

I picked 2 more trees, we made 2 more ciders, and then the boom broke.
A major moving part started moving when it shouldn’t, and it wasn’t safe.
Even I think so, so it’s gotta be bad.
So I had a choice. I can:
– Fix it now.
– Fix it later.
– Or don’t fix it at all.
I thought long and hard about this. Am I getting too old to pick apples? Here’s a convenient excuse to call it quits at the top of my game.

I found it. I fixed it. It was just a hose with a hole in it, and now I’m good to go.
So I picked another 3 trees and called it quits.

But wait.
The kegs are already full, and I’ve just picked 3 more trees, but if I were to press them, I wouldn’t even have a place to put the juice.
This happens every year.
I tarped over the apple boxes and let them ripen for a few days while I thought about it.
I bottled off everything I could, and filled a cooler for Celia to take to the boys’ soccer practice, and every soccer mom in town went home with a bottle.
This freed up 3 kegs, and I finally had a place to put the last of the juice from the last of the apples.

I hear you.
I must be nuts.
I don’t disagree.

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I finally wrapped my head around it and took the Stowe house down. And suddenly, instead of owning the ugliest house in Stowe, I own the nicest building lot in Stowe.

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