Fall herb garden cleanup

Even though our temperatures are still very mild, I know cold and probably wet can't be too far away, so it's time for more garden cleanup. The zinnias I put in the herb garden so many months ago...

April 16th

May 14th

...grew into plants the size of shrubs.

October 29th

They've been leaning over and crowding the rosemary, chives, and sage for months. I started at the back - really at the easiest point to reach them - and got to work.

The cages are protecting the New Jersey tea plants from rabbits. Hopefully, next spring those little plants will grow almost as big as the zinnias.

Hiding under some of the zinnias were hundreds of dill sprouts.

I'm hoping so see more of those next spring.

The other thing those zinnias have been hiding all these months isn't so pleasant:

Yuccas!

I knew the yuccas were quietly growing under the flowers, hoping I wouldn't see them. No dice, yuccas. I know my battle against you isn't over yet, and I'm not going down without a fight.

I did find enough nice orange flowers (my favorite) to make myself a small bouquet.

This is what it looked like when I was done:

Notice that one clump of zinnias in the upper right corner of the top photo (partially hiding the truck)?

Well, when I got to that plant, look who I found:

She was a little camera shy at first and didn't want to look at me.

Hello, lovely

She's been hanging around this flower bed all summer and I had almost forgotten about her. As soon as I saw her, I stopped cutting. I hope I left enough plant to keep her protected for whatever time she has left.

Mantis hangout

To get to our front door, you have to walk right past this fence corner. Every time I walk by now, I look for her. I'll keep stopping to say hi until she's gone.

Fall in the garden

There has been little more than nothing going on around here, but fall has definitely arrived in the garden.

My kale was so covered with white flies that I stopped picking it weeks ago.

When the forecast showed a frost coming, I cut down the worst of the two plants in the hope that the flies wouldn't survive and I could still harvest some kale from the other before winter.

That first frost was over a week ago, which is a good two weeks before our average first frost date. Temperatures were back in the 70's within a couple days and have since leveled out in the 50-60's, which is perfect fall weather.

Some of the cabbages that I planted and then gave up on are staging a slight comeback.

The peanut plant (the big green plant in the above photo) is still growing, so apparently the squirrels are better fall gardeners than I am. There are so many holes in my garden beds that I'm afraid they'll be filled with peanut plants next spring, unless the squirrels actually remember where they buried all those peanuts.

The radishes look good, and I even picked a few before the frost.

Most of them, however, haven't actually formed radishes, but rather just have slightly large roots.

There's one cabbage next to the radishes that didn't succumb as quickly as the others. I've picked several caterpillars off of it, and it's starting to form a small head, so there's a slight possibility I'll get a cabbage this fall.

The marigolds are still going strong and every time I think about cutting them down, I see a bee or butterfly on them.

I need to remember next year that I probably only need one or two plants, not five or six.

I planted a pea and oat cover crop in one of the empty areas, and it has really done well.

The peas had the most beautiful purple flowers, but I forgot to take any pictures of them.

Bell peppers always seem to end the year with a flourish, and this year is no different.

One plant has several small peppers on it.

I covered all of them with plastic before the frost, and they are still doing well, so I will probably be picking a handful of peppers in the next few days.

I've been slowing cutting down the tomatoes.

They all look like crap but still have quite a few fruits on them.

I picked about five pounds of green tomatoes before the frost, and they have all since ripened inside. The plants survived that frost quite well, and I've even picked a few more tomatoes since then. I've completely removed two of the seven plants so far and trimmed the others back considerably. I will probably get a couple more cut down this weekend.

The tomato plants have been going out to the curb as yard waste, but even so, my composter is already full. It isn't big enough to accommodate too much, so I might have to build another one next year.

Last but not least, the nasturtiums that I planted late on a whim have done very well.

 I haven't paid much attention to them all summer, but they've been quietly thriving in their corner.

It's probably time for me to get out there and get to work on those tomato plants.

The garden seeks balance

The pests have really gotten to me this year, but it turns out that some of them were on my side.

While trimming tomato plants the other day, I came across another tomato hornworm. This one, however, was having a very bad day.

The white things on this hornworm are the larval stage of a parasitic wasp. If it had been earlier in the year, I would've left the worm so that those wasps could take care of any other hornworms on my tomatoes. However, since the tomatoes are about done and it's time to cut them down, this guy ended up in the yard waste like the last one I found.

I'm very conflicted about hornworms because I love butterfly moths. Also, I have never had extensive damage to tomatoes because of hornworms. I read once that cardinals eat hornworms, and I have often witnessed cardinals spending time by my tomatoes over the years, so maybe my bird feeding habit has been beneficial in more ways than I thought.

Progress on the master plan

Between work, weather, and the fact that it's getting dark earlier, I haven't been taking many pictures lately. I have been picking tomatoes every few days, but I can't seem to get myself organized enough to make a Harvest Monday post. But, I will accept my shortcomings and just post what I have been able to capture.

The morning glory I planted by my mailbox has become a beast. It's a sure miracle that three tiny seeds can turn into the mass that is this morning glory. It's also a miracle that the post office hasn't stopped delivering our mail. I've trimmed it a couple times already, and Saturday it was time for another trimming. Sadly, I didn't actually take a picture of the morning glory that day, but here's a picture from a few weeks ago. It was probably 30% larger than this on Saturday.

Once I trimmed it up, so it looked a lot like the above picture again and the mail could be delivered safely, I decided that I would pull out the landscape fabric lurking under the mulch in this garden bed. I bought 50 daffodil bulbs and wanted to put some in this garden, so the landscape fabric had to go.

Before I knew it, the fabric was gone, and I had started trimming the yuccas.

I absolutely despise yuccas, and this yard was full of them. I dug out about five from the herb garden last fall, and the plants in this garden have been in my crosshairs ever since. Yuccas have their place, but it isn't my flowerbeds.

After considerable effort, I had removed a couple clumps of yucca and a huge root.

Don't ever let anyone tell you it's easy to get rid of yuccas. It takes considerable effort, and I'll be fighting these plants for years. Any piece of root that is left in the ground will sprout. I've been pulling sprouts out of the herb garden all summer, and I know there are some big ones lurking under the zinnias even now.

Speaking of the herb garden, once the yuccas were gone, I dug two clumps of black-eyed Susans out of the herb garden and stuck them where the yuccas used to be.

I had no qualms about digging up the black-eyed Susans. I successfully transplanted several of them this spring, and they grow like weeds in my yard. The next day I planted daffodils and crocuses in the empty area.

I can't wait to see what this garden looks like next spring. Remind me that I don't want to plant morning glories by the mailbox again.

If it ain't one end, it's the other

The good news is, I have been getting quite a few ripe tomatoes the past couple weeks. The not-so-good news is, they are suffering from a condition I haven't encountered before: yellow shoulders. So, this year I don't have blossom end rot, but I have yellow shoulders.

You can see it really well in these pictures:

9/18

9/18

From what I've read, yellow shoulders can be caused by heat and/or soil conditions. Given the weather we've had this year, heat could certainly be the culprit. Since I've never grown tomatoes on this property before, however, it could easily be that the soil has a nutrient imbalance. It apparently affects heirlooms more than hybrids, too, and all of my tomatoes are heirlooms.

I'm not a very scientific gardener, so for now, I'm probably not going to put much effort into figuring out the cause. I am picking enough tomatoes for our use, and the yellow shoulders just mean I have to trim off more than usual. Also, I might be hallucinating, but it seems to me that it isn't happening as bad on the tomatoes I've picked more recently.

9/23

If it happens again next year, I'll have a little more data, and a lot more incentive, to figure out the reason.

I almost forgot

When I was cutting down the Mexico midget the other day, I found a not-so-little friend. I was actually picking up some branches I'd cut off a couple days earlier, and I almost grabbed him. Startled me, that's for sure.

I know these guys are terrible for tomatoes, but I just can't squish creatures, especially creatures that big. Besides, like I said, he was on the branches I'd already cut off, so I just dropped his branch in the yard waste bag with all the rest. He probably got squished when the trash guys picked up the bag today, but at least I didn't squish him.

Ready for fall

If it wasn't for the lack of tomatoes in my cupboards and freezer, I'd definitely be ready for fall. By this time of year, the garden is always showing its age and is far from the bright, beautiful, orderly place I started the season with. This year seems worse than usual, however. Between the rain and the BUGS, there has been a lot of ick in the garden.

I haven't written much about the pests, but there have been a lot of them. I secretly blame the people who lived here before me. They left so many types of pesticides in the garage, I'm surprised anything can live in the backyard. My theory is that the bug population is out of whack because of all their pesticide use. That belief has gotten me through this year, and I'm hoping that next year will be better.

At any rate, one day after work last week, I went out to the garden to see what I could pick, and I ended up deciding that the green beans were done. Some of the plants still looked okay with a few small beans, but some were starting to turn yellow, so I tore them off the trellis and threw them in the composter. There's a big empty spot where they used to be.

That'll make some room for my cabbages to grow. That is, if the bug that's been eating them doesn't kill them all first.

This is one of the better looking cabbages at this point.

Some of them are leafless. I've sprayed with an alcohol, water, and soap mixture, but it didn't seem to help.

Oh well, the radishes don't look too bad, and neither does the cabbage living next to them.

The beets are growing, but are a little scraggly looking.

I felt like doing a little more fall cleanup this afternoon, so I cut down the Mexico midget cherry tomato plant. I've reached the point where I can hardly give away more cherry tomatoes, so I picked what was ripe and cut the plant down. The tomatoes went in the dehydrator.

big hole where Mexico midget used to be

We do have a good forecast for the week ahead, and there are a lot of almost ripe tomatoes on the vines. Maybe canning and freezing are in my future.

Harvest Monday 9.12.16

Linking up with Harvest Monday at Our Happy Acres again. It really is fun to see what others are harvesting.

This was a week of more for me. I've been getting some tomatoes, but this week, I was picking quite a few more each time. I also got one more zucchini.

Sept. 5th

Sept. 6th

This one weighed in over a pound.

At this point, I had enough to can seven pints.

I almost tore the bean plants out last weekend. I'm glad I didn't because when I finally started paying attention to them, I realized they were covered with beans.

Over a pound at one picking.

Sept. 7th

And more a few days later.

Sept. 10th

I pulled my pressure canner out of storage, but I haven't gotten up the nerve to try canning them yet. I haven't mastered the whole pressure canning thing, but I think I have enough beans to justify another attempt.

On Sunday afternoon I picked a few more tomatoes. I forgot to take their picture, however, because I was in too much of a hurry to turn them into garden-fresh tomato juice for some homemade bloody Mary mix. My bloody Mary recipe needs some perfecting, but the tomato juice was delicious.

More hope for fall

Even though the Mexican Sour Gherkins were still growing, I decided to pull the plant and use the space. I haven't developed a taste for them yet, and the ones falling off the plant now seem to be more sour than the first few.

before

after

In the space, I put two rows of red radishes and one row of white icicle radishes. I've read about roasting radishes, and I'd really like to try it.

While I was working, I saw this guy.

He ran away pretty fast, but not before I got a picture. I saw another, bigger one, but he got away from me. I have seen mantises of all sizes this year, from barely an inch long to the six inch giants. I love them all.

In other fall garden news, the beets are growing.