Frosty Morning

Frost on a zinnia flower.Frost on dill. BTW, dill and parsley are the only fall crops that are doing well...
... broccoli and cabbage that I planted in August look sad.
Frost on a strawberry plant.
A few late raspberries. They look plump and liking the cooler weather.
Fungi on an old bush stump. Beautiful!
Crape myrtle has lost almost all leaves.
Frost on my knock-out rose.
Fall garden.
Yellow and red trees, white grass...
It's time to dig up dahlias and remaining gladiolus bulbs. We'll be out of town this weekend, so it's on a job list for the next. Hope it's not too late by then.

Fall Jobs

It's time to plant garlic. I have three varieties: 'Elephant', 'Musik' (both purchased thru Burpee last fall) and then there's random garlic from a grocery store. The latter is not very impressive size-wise, but has kept better than the other two.You can plant garlic up until the ground freezes.

Fall is also good time to expand the garden beds or prepare the existing ones for next spring. Simply put shovel in the ground, lift it up and turn over the sod (or weeds) and soil that comes with it. The method is labor-intensive and might not be fast, yet it costs nothing as long as you have a shovel. I've never rented a sod remover or tiller.

Next spring the weeds will be dead and if not, it is certainly much easier to pick them out then.

My goal is to dig up the whole veggie patch this fall as it makes for lighter soil prep work in spring.

Early Fall

Well, it's fall. When I pull out overgrown plants, I am amazed how big they have gotten in just a few months. Some warmer days are still ahead, but I've started pulling stuff out because it no longer looks good.

My veggie patch looks bare. There still are some dill, peppers, broccoli and cabbage, to name a few. I planted cabbage and broccoli seedlings in late August, but they have not grown too much, perhaps because of very dry weather we had.
Last night a deer had gotten in my veggie patch even over the deer net and tasted the last zucchini of the season.
I took off the deer fence today. It seems no longer do it's job and also there's not much for them to eat anymore. I also enjoy a less cluttered look of the backyard now.
Not sure yet what to do about the fencing next spring. The deer net was better than nothing. Some weeds have grown thru it and it is rolled away with many of them still in. Not sure if I could or would want to reuse the net next spring.

Right now "the fence dilemma--to fence or not to fence?" is not such a big deal, but I do remember how upset I was about nibbles on lettuce and beans in the spring. If I do not put any fencing up, my choices what vegetables to grow are very limited.

But now I better pick any tomatoes what are left, even though they are green.

Violas

Our small mom & pop hardware store has various violas. First, I did not indulge myself and did not buy any, but when I was back in that neighborhood today, I stopped by to pick the lilac violas (center). And since I'm there, I took a four-pack of yellow ones, too, and some magenta pansies. They all were less than $5!
Now they are in little pots near the front door.

Repotting

Today was the repotting day. According to my mom and Latvian forefathers, things have to be seeded or planted while the moon is waxing. (Do so when the moon is waning, and nothing will grow; hence it's a good time for haircuts!) This superstition was a good enough excuse to transfer some of my indoor plants to bigger pots while the days are still sunny and warm and there's another month or so before the plants will enter dormancy stage.

The task took me longer than I anticipated, mostly because after a closer look almost everything needed more root space. The collection below is about a half of my plants that were moved. For now, they'll stay in the sunroom; I plan to move them inside when the nights get colder, probably around the first frosts.

White Mum

Just lovely...

Lavender (as in color) Dahlias

I love fresh flowers. If I have to choose between vegetable gardening and growing flowers for cutting, I'd choose the latter. I get so much satisfaction of filling a vase with blooms from my own yard.

Harvest October 2

Small pumpkins (now placed near the entrance to the house), hot and sweet peppers (I made more pickled peppers), mint (now drying out for tea) and zinnias (later placed in a decent vase).

Blueberry Bushes

My order of three blueberry bushes came last week.They have been planted and I can start dreaming about a day when we'll be able to pick our own fresh berries. Considering that the plants are really small, it will be a few years, I guess.

If facing North, Spartan is on the left, Chandler in the middle and Blueray is on the right.
Blueberries like acidic soil. I've never tested mine. A friend suggested to add pine needles around the bushes and that should take care of acidity. Good organic solution! I'll need to swipe some pine needles in our neighborhood church parking lot... oh, the things I'm ready to do for the garden.

Weird big crawly thing

I found this huge caterpillar under oaks last weekend. Ugly looking thing!
After a quick research, looks like it might have been imperial moth caterpillar.
I'll be keeping an eye out for that moth--it must be enormous!

Harvest circa September 20

Pickings from the garden one day last week: hot peppers, parsley, dill, bell pepper and a few tomatoes.

Gladiolus

Yesterday I dug up some of my gladiolus bulbs. The stalks were getting too yellow and unsightly for the front yard... it was time. I'll air dry them for a few more days, then store in a paper bag in cool, dry place until spring.

Pumpkins

Small pumpkins on the mantel set mood for upcoming fall days.

Harvest September 12

My garden looks tired and I feel tired when it comes to gardening, too, these days. The rush of energy, almost an instinct, a calling to plant, seed, dig, weed, transplant and so on from last spring has diminished to very minimum. A rabbit has eaten my fall crop of lettuce? -- oh, well, not a big deal. In springtime, observing the same event would increase my heart rate and get me passionately angry. Flower beds are out of shape with overgrown plants? -- Let it be, I'll pull those out after the frosts start. And so on...

It is still a good feeling to pick up a few things from the vegetable patch, though. Here's today's offering.

100 Muscari

$12 for 100 muscari bulbs at Costco. Planted them all today, most in the front yard. Now the challenge will be to remember exactly where and not plant something else on top.

Black & Yellow

Last night I found two yellow and black critters in my garden:

Black and Yellow Argiope spider
and monarch butterfly caterpillar.
This made me think of two other black and yellow visitors that frequent our yard:

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly

and golden finch.

There's something very satisfying in realizing that our yard is a habitat for variety of creatures...

Mum Time

It's sign of early fall--round, bushy and colorful mums show up in stores and markets. When I went grocery shopping today, I could not resist putting this maroon baby in my basket. Only $4! This gave me a small push I needed to spruce up the entry to our house.I repotted the mum in a larger pot previously occupied by petunia and coleus. Both were not doing so well after long, hot summer. Part of the coleus could be salvaged. I think this looks nice!

Mums are perennials. Most likely I will replant this one somewhere in my garden. It will not have its current perfect round shape next year, but that's OK.

Chincoteague Island

Our family is on vacation on Chincoteague Island, VA. Yesterday I rode a bike around with sole purpose to check out front gardens. It was a very enjoyable ride. I did not stop much to take pictures--I felt I would be intruding somehow. Or I'd need to stop every half-block.

The small spaces charmed me the most.
Colorful storefront on Main Street.

Pickled Peppers

The other night I pickled our sweet banana, jalapeno, cajun and chili peppers. I found the recipe online. My husband says they are not hot anymore, but I think they are plenty spicy.

When one thing leads to another

One recent evening over beers and casual conversation I mentioned that we have lots of hot peppers and someone suggested to pickle them. I embraced the idea and decided to try out pickling this weekend. I did not have any canning jars, so I went to a local hardware store to buy some. There I noticed they had broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seedlings for sale, so I bought them.
To make some room for my new plants, I pulled out a wilting zucchini, a few cucumber plants past their prime and corn that no longer produce. I dug up potatoes I planted in spring, then picked more hot peppers and sweet banana peppers, one green bell pepper that I accidentally pushed over and a small ear of corn. There is also that yellow thing... I'm not sure what it is... might be something between a squash and a decorative pumpkin. One thing is for sure - I did not seed anything that looked alike the outcome.
While weeding in the garden, I noticed a few other things. Near parsley plants I found this black swallowtail butterfly caterpillar. Welcome, friend! (Sorry for the fuzzy picture, I could not get my camera to focus.)
My first yellow bell pepper is ripening.
Winter squash has produced a single fruit. I hope there will be more.
In the afternoon I was catching shots of a golden finch on my sunflowers.
And right then a hummingbird flew right next to me to check out crown-of-thorns on the deck where I was standing.

Good day. I still need to pickle those peppers, though.