outside

Fall has definitely struck the garden; I don't know if I got a head enough start on the cole crops to get some broccoli and cauliflower this fall, but have good hopes for the lettuce.

My Bell Peppers are still making lots of small fruits, even though some of the plants have started to fall over.

The Strawberry plants still look fresh and pretty, I'm not sure at what point they'll die back and need mulch.

The Rhubarb is looking peaky, but still growing new leaves in each center. Again, not sure if I should wait until all the stems die before covering it for winter? do they need to save energy from spent foliage like tulips do? Have to look that up.

The pumpkin patch is pretty much a dead mess I need to clean up when I can get to it. That one nice-looking plant in the back left corner is the monster Zucchini, just sporting nice leaves now.

And of course the cold-loving ever-lasting Swiss Chard is doing fantastic. It's the most beautiful plant in the garden right now!

celery

Harvested celery. I simply cut most of the bunches off, leaving about six small ones in the ground, and brought them inside. It was a huge heap on my table

but after chopping for compost all the pithy ones and saving aside the good green stems, I was left with this:

Pretty pathetic. The good stems were for the most part right in the center of the plants; I only got one or two, at most three, off each bunch. Flavor too strong to eat raw, I just use them for cooking. Next year definitely going to try blanching the plants so I get better taste.

carrots

My baby Carrots are getting thicker! I love their delicate ferny leaves. Pretty soon I'm going to have to thin them out.

in the ground

The little plants in my coldframe were starting to look crowded, so I finally put them all in the ground. They'd been kind of neglected; I lost three Lettuces to slugs and pill bugs (which were crowded all around the bottom of the cardpots; I squished many) and the Broccolis and Cauliflors all have holes eaten in them from teensy caterpillars which I think I finally found and squashed them all too.

The Lettuces look a lot smaller set out in their plot. I only filled one garden space with them this time; as we never eat them all when I fill two. The left side is Simpson lettuce, and the right side Romaine. These were grown from leftover seed that I bought at the store two years ago; not my saved seed this time.

The Broccolis all got plastic-bottle cloches over them to keep slugs off while they recover from the onslaught of caterpillars (I do hope I got them all and haven't trapped any in there!)

And here's one of the little Cauliflowers. At least I think it is. When they're this young I have trouble telling broccoli and cauliflower apart. But I did plant all of one kind in square pots, and all of the other in round, so I knew they're all each with their own kind at least. When they get a bit larger I'll be able to tell them apart!

My mature Broccolis in the garden are still giving me some small heads, but it almost feels like too much trouble to cut them all and clean off the bugs...

herbs

I've dug up some herbs from outside to bring in and protect from frost. I've done this the past few years; they usually last several months indoors before fading away, giving me fresh flavors halfway thru winter.

Potted up five Thyme plants; this one is the nicest. I think if I pinch off some top shoots with newer growth and stick in a new pot, it should start a new plant. Going to try that (as soon as I get more potting soil).

 I'm very happy with the Oregano. My plant is huge this year, twice as big as last year's! This isn't really a good picture and it's quite crammed into its pot I didn't have a bigger one but I know it won't last long like this the roots all crowded. I'm going to have to get another and give it space then I'll take a better pic too. But I just love the way oregano looks as a table centerpiece. The round leaves growing out in a whorl, it's just such a pretty plant. Last year's oregano plant is in a picture on the bottom of this post.

I also brought inside (a few weeks ago) a stump of Basil that was sprouting new leaves. I'm not sure how it will do. (I didn't manage to get an entire tall plant like last year and the year before). The lower leaves keep dying and falling off, but it is also growing new leaves on top, so perhaps it will be okay for a while.

new things

I've been cleaning up the garden today. Cleared out all the fallen-over Basil plants, and composted the last of my Tomato plants. A handful of green tomatoes are sitting on the windowsill now; we'll see if they ripen.

Happiness was seeing Beets finally sprouting in the second plot!

And my Peas are coming up with little folded leaves, in every spot I planted them.

nasturtiums

When I took the zucchini out of the garden a few weeks ago, I also dug up all the sad little Nasturtiums that surrounded them, and stuck them in a pot. They didn't look too well:

But since then have recovered and appear very happy now!

Maybe they like cooler weather? I still doubt I'll get flowers out of them, but I'm glad they look more cheerful now.

cleanup vegs

I took the last few Green Bean plants out of the garden. The nicest beans bulging with fat seed I hung in the shed to dry, although I don't know if this will work well, I think they cure better on the plant itself. But with all the rain we're getting, I don't want them to rot, either.

The previous lot I had tried to dry for seed was a fail. When I opened them, the beans weren't white like I'm used to but dark brown. I wonder if it was from the disease bugs spread through my plants. Not sure, but I don't think I'm going to take the risk in planting them.

I was going to cut down my last two Tomato plants, but then I found a half dozen green Tomatoes and this little beauty. So maybe they are going to give us a bit more fruit!

My Chard is happy with the change of weather, which besides watering it all day, has driven the nasty bugs off. It looks so lovely now!

cleanup flores

I did a little work in the garden today. Deadheaded all the spent flowers. The Tithonia are still blooming nicely, even if some of the foliage is starting to look awful.

The Cosmos look fantastic, and I can hardly keep up with them.

Most of the spent flowers I cut look like this after the petals fall off.

I didn't deadhead soon enough this time and a few had gone to seed. Now they look like this!

Some of my Marigold plants look very spent

but others are still full of vivid greenery and bold flowers. I'm not terribly fond of Marigolds, but they do make that corner of the yard cheery with their bright color.

The Sunflowers are drooping dull heads now. I'm leaving them up hoping they might feed someone overwinter.

celery

I finally cut some Celery! It looks beautiful, doesn't it?

But sadly, only two stalks of this entire plant were edible. Most the inside of the stems were pithy and white, only a few nice and green.

The flavor is very strong, too, almost too much. I should have blanched them. Too late now.

peasie weasies

I finally got the last of my fall garden started, and planted some peas yesterday. Here they are after a night's soaking.

I was anxious to get them into the ground because we suddenly went from hot high-nineties into a week of nice cool rain which is fantastic for starting seeds, I don't have to worry about watering them every day! Basically I planted peas in all the empty garden spots: where the zucchinis used to be, where the watermelons were, and the prior cucumber patch. Some of them I planted around a tomato cage in case they're inclined to climb; the others just went in rows into the ground. The package says they're bush plants not vines but I've never seen a pea plant that didn't flop over without something to cling to.

Now all I have left to do (besides lots of cleanup) is put my started lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower out of the coldframe and into the ground.

fall food

Even though my garden looks pathetic right now, it's still giving us occasional eats. There's a few Tomatoes out there I hope I can ripen in the window. I pick itty bitty oh-so-tasty Bell Peppers about twice a week, and those plants are still flowering in spite of the cooler weather. And yesterday I cut some Broccoli. All very small heads, but collected together they fed us well.

little growth

My little Beets are getting bigger!

and the tiny Carrots have ferny leaves now.

But sadly, the other two plots of each are pretty much a failure. The other carrots never sprouted, I don't think they ever will. And the second set of beets, every time a little one comes up it disappears soon after. I think pill bugs are chomping them.

a tour of my backyard

because Chris asked for it!

Well, my backyard is pretty big compared to everywhere else I've lived before. Most of it is lawn, with a strip at the back where nothing much grows except weeds because of tree shade, and a row of hyacinths and other random stuff up against the fence. I want to plant some small shrubs and something like ferns back there, someday. That part's not pretty but I'll show you the rest! All around the edges of my lawn are borders of planting areas.

On one side there's a raised bed walled in with concrete, that was already here when I moved in. It extends off my main patio. The soil's not very good on this side, still kind of heavy clay but I turn compost into it every year and hope that improves it. Here's two views of that. The closer end of it has strawberries planted in it; the further end the remains of my basil and tomato plants this year. In the middle is where I took out the sick zucchinis. Oh, and you can just see my open coldframe in that first picture.

On the opposite side there's a long bed that at first was just shaped by a boundary of wood (something like old railroad ties). I made these little paths in it with brick edging and gravel, so that I can reach each part of the garden without stepping on the soil. It also divides everything up nicely so I can keep track of what's planted where each season. Here's two shots of that side, one looking right over the compost bin. It's mostly empty now, although I've started carrots and beets in two of the plots for fall. At the far end you can barely see my row of swiss chard, behind some more the remaining basil plants (I put tomatoes on each side of the garden to keep cherry and big ones separate in case I wanted to save seed, and they were both accompanied by basil).

Against the house is a narrow bed edged with round stones (with celery, peppers and baby beets in in now, from left to right), and behind the small patio on the right is another large square space (with just broccoli in the middle now that I've pulled all the green beans out). When we got the house, this square spot was full of broken concrete, I think it used to be part of that small patio. I've dug most of the concrete out, but there are still some pieces under there so sometimes the plants can't get their roots in deep and tend to fall over :(

In the back I've started to convert part of the ugly grass/weed area into growing spots, too. Here off the end of the raised bed I made a new patch this year. I killed the grass by piling up trash bags of leaves for a few weeks (not pretty) and then put down some boards for a temporary edge. This is where my pumpkins and sunflowers have been growing! Kind of looks messy now because the pumpkins are dying. Behind them is another spot boarded by big flat stones turned up on end (that was already built when I moved in, too). It's where my rhubarb lives.

And the middle of it all is just plain old grass. Not very exciting, but lots of space for the kid to run around.

Here's looking again at the raised bed on one side:

and the divided bed on the other:

That edge of rocks in the foreground is eventually where I want my lawn to end, once I figure out what to plant in the back under the trees. I just don't like mowing so much!

lettuces

My baby Lettuces are getting crowded in the trays, and have their first true leaves, so I figured it was time to move them into individual cardpots.

Here are the Romaine

and Simpson before potting.

 And after, the coldframe full again.

I potted up about twenty-five Romaine and thirty Simpson seedlings, and just half a dozen of the Bibb lettuce (my husband's least-favorite).

hibiscus

In the back of my yard against the fence I've started cleaning things up. There's lots of undergrowth and tangled shrubbery. I trimmed all the Hibiscus a few weeks ago, to just above my head, hoping it will make them fill out more. Now they're flowering again! I didn't notice before they have different colors.

Some are white.

Others more purple or pink.

When the flowers fade they turn blue.

another new bug

I think I've identified this one. It's a blue-winged wasp. I noticed it crawling in the celery leaves because the bright blue irridescent wings caught my eye. My photos don't really show the blue color well.

It has two yellow spots on each side of the abdomen.