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Saturday, October 25, 2014

Still here

Me and the garden.

The garden October 25th with Scout

After a couple brief cold snaps, we've been enjoying beautiful fall weather with highs in the 60s to 70s and lows in the 40s to 50s. Everything is still green and growing. A lot of the green in the garden now is cover crops, oats and radishes. There are supposed to be some peas mixed in there, but a rabbit found his way into the garden shortly after I planted the cover crops, and it looks like he must have eaten them.

The cosmos that I planted under my bird feeders are really enjoying this fall weather. They have more flowers on them than they've had all summer.


Despite all the green, I'll be doing a lot of garden clean up this weekend. Cooler temperatures are coming, and it's time to get ready.



Wednesday, October 8, 2014

That volunteer spirit

My garden was full of it this year. I mentioned the tomatoes growing in the green beans previously, but they weren't the only volunteers.

I saved seed from the marigolds last year and tried to start them inside. Out of 20+ seeds, only one sprouted, but look at the big beautiful marigolds that seeded themselves:


This year's zinnias have seeded themselves all over the place:


They're growing right through my late season cucumber:


The basil plants leaned over the fence and dropped their seeds in the rosemary planter:


The other rosemary planter was already contending with a tomato plant. . .


and a peanut plant. . .


which isn't so much a volunteer, as it was planted by a squirrel or blue jay.

Sunday, October 5, 2014

False alarm

The garden October 4th (with dog)
We didn't even have frost Friday night, so I picked all of those green tomatoes for nothing. I'm glad the garden gets more time.

Friday, October 3, 2014

The end?

The garden October 3rd
We've got freeze warnings for tonight, so this might be the end of the 2014 garden. I picked all the tomatoes that looked worth saving and several peppers.


The pepper plants still have quite a few small fruits, so I covered them with a sheet, hoping to spare them this time. After tomorrow night, temps are not forecast to be in the 30's again for the next several days at least, so I could get lucky. I also picked a bunch of kale which I'll blanch and freeze for smoothies.


Other than that, the asparagus plants seem to have survived the move so far, and I did get some garlic planted earlier this week. Unfortunately, I saw a few cloves out of the ground yesterday, so I think a squirrel may be trying to sabotage my garlic plans. Little bastard.