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.