end of season

Here's what was still growing end of last month, in my garden.

Peppers. I had already potted up a second bell pepper to bring into the house for winter, simply because it was growing straighter than the other one I kept in a pot on the deck all summer. That one was leaning crooked, looked funny.

Then I saw this plant making narrow, long peppers- which must be jalapeños or serranos, either one of which I'd love for cooking beans and lentils. So I potted up one of that, too. Now I have four peppers overwintering in the house, and that's the limit.

Some herbs came back with a flush of new green after the heat waned: thyme

oregano

here a sage plant next to a young pepper- which is now dead, but the sage still thrives.

In fact sage stays green and nice-looking so long into the coolness of fall, I'm starting to think I should use it in the landscape- I've got so much seed. And I love the blue hues in its foliage.

Parsley looks like nothing- because we have been eating it!

Now that many bugs have died from cold- no more attacks of whitefly, and the caterpillars that plagued my broccoli are all gone- the plants are growing new leaves

and some are even forming tiny heads.

And now that I don't really need its services anymore- driving away problematic bugs- the marigolds have taken off and produced tons of blooms.

Especially the red one, which is my least-favorite. Of course.

Without much care is the swiss chard. Soon I will eat it again.

I planted more chard from seed, they are just coming up. But the soil around them keeps getting loosened by digging rodents (grrrr) so I don't know if they will grow well.

And here's a tiny thing I'm happy to see is still green- the rosemary I started from a cutting. Go, rosemary! you can make it through the coming winter I will bury you in leaf mulch above your head.