It turns out grapes spontaneously mutate into slugs when left out overnight.

Or maybe they don’t. The mothers gave us a generous plateful of their Concord grapes, but I don’t like them and Eric didn’t get through them before the number of fruit flies multiplied to the point where I found one in a covered bowl of rising bread dough, and that is not acceptable. So I put the plate out on the back porch. This morning I walked out and stepped on something squishy that turned out to be a slug bigger than I thought they made them in Ohio. There were other nickel-sized slugs around, too. It must be slim pickings this time of year because they had to travel up three steps to get to the grapes.

In other news, there is no other news. Well, I picked most of our remaining pears, and made a pear tart (no whipped cream, brown sugar in the topping, and half cinnamon, half allspice instead of all allspice; it was delicious but much too small) to eat while we watched the VP debate. I think this was the first time Eric and I have ever sat down and watched two hours of non-DVD television together. I’m continuing to pick a few tomatoes every once in a while, waiting for the tomatillo husks to brown, watching the broccoli like a broccoli-growing hawk. Still hoping to get some bricks from my stepmother-in-law to pave the herb garden, but if not I can go buy my own now.

I think Iā€™m actually hoping for frost. That’s not quite true, but Iā€™m past the denial stage of mourning for summer. Now I want to be able to clean up the garden–not that I couldn’t, but I didn’t get enough out of it to justify pulling the plants before they’re entirely spent–and see what frost-sweetened carrots and leeks are like, and quietly contemplate next year’s plans.

Also I want to know why I’ve got tomato and bean seedlings in the lettuce and spinach beds. I spread compost there after I pulled them so I can see how tomato seeds might have escaped, but I don’t think I threw any beans out. Where did they come from?