A walk through the garden

The summer garden is nearing its end. This weekend I took down the strings that supported the cucumbers and melon and pole beans. I left the yard-long beans. Amazingly they are still blooming and slowly producing. We have not had our first frost yet and none are forecasted this week. Days in the 70's and nights in the 50's. Wonderful early fall weather.

I dug up my lemon grass and will plant about 15 pieces in large soil blocks, the start of my herb business, I think. And I will try to divide my oregano, mother-of-thyme, lemon thyme, and mints so have some of those to sell next year. I have a book about propagating herbs on hold at the library and should get it this week.



The zinnas and marigold look beautiful, thought I will plant different marigolds next year the ones I have now are too tall. The tomatoes are full of green tomatoes with one ripening every day or so. I will harvest all the green ones and wrap them in newspaper when a real frost threatens. There are 2 or three yellow bell peppers and 3 or 4 ichiban eggplants that I can harvest anytime but they keep better on the vine that in the refrigerator. And there is more basil than I know what to do with. I have already dried all I need and we never used the pesto I made last year so I will skip that this year. I might just pick some to give away.







I changed my flower box from geranium and lantana to pansys with daffidil bulbs planted under them. I hope that works good. The pansys sure look nice. I have mother-of-thyme planted in the corner of the box,spilling over and lemon thyme in the back. I really like the softening they give the box. I should take a picture and put it here.

My fall garden is doing well. I have an abundance of salad greens: turnip greens, mizuna mustard, swiss chard,assorted lettuces, and one spinach plant. There is also broccoli, cauliflower and savoy cabbage that will mature this winter but I do not know which is which as the foot tall plants all look alike and I did not label them. I will find out eventually.

About a week ago I sowed seed for my winter garden, I probably should have done it earlier but at least it is in and we are having a warm October. I think everything has sprouted- carrots, lettuce, turnips(for greens), mizuna, kale, spinach, mache. I think that is all. I have also ordered 15 feet of floating row cover and will cover these crops when I get it to help them get a good start before it gets colder. I might even put blankets over them if we have really cold weather this winter. This is by far the most in season extending that I have ever done.

PS Disregard the dates on the photos, the camera was set wrong, all pictures were actually taken Oct 19, 2005. Oops.