On The Mark: There are always surprises when putting garden to bed

Three nights of frost propelled us into motion. Our roomy veggie garden still had lots growing in it: squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, chard, kale, basil and other herbs. Green beans that have been bearing for eight weeks. Latecomer beets and carrots that didn't survive a first planting are now coming into their own.

So every evening, we spread out heavy plastic tarps over every square foot. Each morning, I'd uncover them, surprised at the moisture on the undersides and grateful to greet grinning, frost-surviving plants.

The garden was a project my Danish grandfather Renus (short for "Marinus") and I created in the summer of 1973. His vintage garden had lost considerable sunshine as poplars grew high along the stretch between his land and Burlington Northern tracks. So we moved it to the north sun-facing side of the hayfields and started anew.

I loved learning from him how to grow veggies on a scale that would fill a winter root cellar. He especially loved little red potatoes. For many summers - until he died in 1981 - I'd return from my college teaching jobs and spend time writing my research articles and joining him in the garden, making music with him (piano and fiddle), and visiting neighbors and cousins.

This was a challenging summer for gardens. We endured long dry spells during the crucial sprouting season and again in early August. Covid helped, with its unwelcome invitation to stay isolated and grounded - no airplane flights to see the grandkids. I watered late in the day or early in the morning.

But the surprises. Four cauli- flowers, three of them huge, from tiny plants bought at Melanie Amundson's greenhouse near McGregor. Peas and beans that just wouldn't quit. Squash, cucumber and pumpkin vines climbing up over the pea wires. Funny seeing a butternut squash hanging primly from a sturdy wire. More delicious cherry tomatoes than I'd dreamed of. Dozens and dozens of green peppers, cored, sliced up and frozen for winter chili. Enough basil for every Italian recipe I love. Lots of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme to dry up for seasonings all year long.

We struggled, as ever, with purslane, which seems to love our land. If you leave any of it behind when weeding - a tiny leaf, a bit of root or stem - it will be back. Creeping Charlie used to be our biggest intruder, but it lies down and dies under the purslane.

Of course, the gardener always makes mistakes. I failed to find two zucchinis that grew 15 inches long and six inches in diameter. The solution, a recipe online for zucchini ripieni: Cut the overgrown squash in half the long way, dig out the seeds, chop up the good pulp leaving a half inch on all sides for the boat, saute onion and garlic in olive oil, add fresh parsley, basil, chunks of fresh tomato, tomato paste, pork sausage, bread crumbs, and salt and pepper, and bake. We've enjoyed two to three meals out of each of ours.

The garden doesn't dish up all the fruit of my grandfather's land. An enormous overgrown Dolgo crabapple tree, nearly 100 years old, would fill 30 big stovetop pots if we picked all the fruit. I love climbing up a stepladder and filling big pot after pot. The small oblong crabs are a burnished deep red verging on purple. I can shake an entire limb, and three dozen will fall onto my head, into the pot, or onto the ground. Nearby, a conventional crabapple provides the makings for wonderful applesauce.

In the kitchen, I haul out the Meju Maija that Rod bought me years ago, a Finnish invention. You fill a large first layer with water, place the juice catcher with the internal chimney (for the steam to rise up) and its spigot and tube on top of that, and place your crabapples in the top bucket with its clear glass cover. Then for most of an hour, you watch as the steam traveling through the chimney from the lowest pot rises to make a juicy mush out of the apples. From the tube, you fill sterilized quarts full of deep red juice.

Days later, I make a batch or two of crabapple jelly, tart and rosy red in pint or half-pint jars.

I love time spent in the garden. This summer, our neighbor girls Brandy and Amber Collman worked with me most weekday mornings planting, weeding, thinning, stringing pea lines, harvesting, cleaning veggies and fruits, making pickles, cooking up midday meals, and stuffing our freezer. Willing and efficient gardeners, they make a big contribution to the quality of our lives, especially since going out to eat is not easy under Covid. And, well, I like to cook.

Ann Markusen is an economist and professor emerita at University of Minnesota. A Pine Knot board member, she lives in Red Clover Township north of Cromwell with her husband, Rod Walli.