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Time for my end of summer update! I am ready for fall and have been thinking back on yet another growing season - successes and failures.
Durin
g July and August, we enjoyed many harvests from our garden and spent the rest of the time inside and out of the heat. The girls are growing up fast and keeping us super busy! They are both getting into helping mommy in the garden and we have discoverd that the little one LOVES getting dirty! Her favorite place this summer has been smack in the middle of the tomato bed, picking them right off the plant and smooshing them all over her face!
We planted 9 varieties of tomatoes, 10 basil plants and 4 eggplants.
Here is a nice shot of some of the results:
It was great fun to try so many different varietes! Our favorites were the heirloom tomatoes, of course; and the japanese eggplants. We have had so much, that we have also been doing some different methods of preservation for use through the winter. I have dehydrated tomatoes, eggplants and figs. I am excited to use the dehydrated eggplants to make pasta sauces and babagunish (sp?) I also pureed tomatoes in the blender and put them in ice cube trays to freeze for making sauces later. I also did a pesto with 5 varieties of basil that I froze in ice cube trays too - now all of our ice tastes like basil!- HAH!
Funny thing about the veggies; I always plant more than I should of every seed and it is just survival of the fittest. Well, this year, I put in a few different kinds of bean seeds and then forgot which kinds i put in - until a few months later, noticed that what had won out was the "yard bean":
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So bizarre! and actually not that tastey...but fun and the kids thought they made great necklaces!
Next year, I will give more thought to the beans...we did miss having them this year.
SO..here is the list:
Successes:
Heirloom tomatoes, will plant more varieties next year, perhaps will order some plants online for even more variety.
Cherry tomoates, love them...will only plant one plant next year....we had way more than we knew what do do with.
Artichokes, they germinated successfully and I am looking forward to them producing in seasons to come.
Asparagus, continues to do very well and next year, we should be able to harvest continually throughout the season.
Sunflowers, the "king kong" did great and next year, I may devote 1 entire bed to just sunflowers...I would like some for cutting.
Nastursums, did great. I just love them and they are so pretty!
Failures:
Green Eggplant, it did well, but is quite prickly and tough...not all that tasty.
Beans, need to give them more thought...missed having big harvests of them this year.
Wished I had planted:
Cucumbers: hubby hates them, but they are so easy and I love em'
Carrots: the kids would have had fun with them,and they are super easy too!
Squash: I always have trouble with them, but I am always trying some weird variety, so next year I will plant to standby summer squash and hope for the best. These will be great to pre-cook and freeze too!
For the Fall Garden:
Poppies: I put out some in the spring, but still dont have any signs...will try again (i don't know why I can't seem to get these going to save my live-they are suuposed to be easy!)
Spinach
Sugar snaps
Lettuce
Cabbage: I have never tried growing this, but I think it will be fun.
Parsley
Brussel Sprouts
Garlic - have always wanted to try this
The rest of the garden has been just truckin along. It is nice that we are somewhat out of major project mode (other than the deck) and the garden is down to just routine work. I am enjoying watching the beds in the back fill in. I noticed today that the purple beautyberry that was just a few inches tall when I planted it - is now doing its thing:
I am really liking the textures that are happening in this bed. Here is a nice shot with the deck in the background:
Close up of solidago and miscanthus:
An
d...bumble bee having some fun on the autumn joy sedum:
We really had a bad time of spider mites early this spring. They really set up camp in a big oak in the back yard and they migrated their way over quite a few of my plants. The fruit tress suffered a great deal and I am not sure that they will bounce back - but hey, if they don't then I have a chance to buy more plants! A failure in the garden always presents another opportunity, doesn't it???
I finally killed all the grass around the veggie beds and fruit trees and have been slowly spreading wood chips there. I want to make that area more path-like and tuck plants in nooks and crannies.
I also plan to put in some encore azaleas in the front porch bed this fall. I would like another shot of color in there and some evergreen interests when the autumn ferns aren't looking their best during the winter.
All in all, we have had a great growing season and I am ready for fall and all the cool temps to come!
Happy gardening!
-soa
pHOUSE
I just love this time of year! The air is crisp, the heat is leaving and its time to tidy up the garden and dream of another spring to come. With the hot weather cooling down, I have been enjoying some time in the garden and have managed to carve a few minutes out here and there to do some things and take some pictures.
The northern oats grass is looking lovely:
And the autumn joy sedums are bursting with color and look especially nice next to the black and blue salvia!
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The trumpet trees are in all their glory and have such wonderful fragrance in the morning and evening! A great treat with the cool air:
The cannas have finished blooming and have the most beautiful seed pods on them:
I amv ery please with how the sweet potato vine has provided weed control in this bed:
This winter I plan to get a nice blue conifer to put in the back of this bed.
We had some great rain at the end of the summer that the purple hyacinth bean and moon vine flower really loved and they just scurried up the arbor:
It will be time to dig up the sweet potatoes soon also :) Tomorrow on his way home from work, hubby is goingt to pick up a truckload of compost that I will top dress the empty veggie beds with so that I can put in fall crops of spinach, greens and brussel sprouts. Can't wait!
And, I am reminded a lot lately that the garden in faithful and continues to go on with or without me...and i am able to enjoy it all the same :)
I've had a great week in the garden! Spring just keeps on springing and I have enjoyed watching it unfold in my garden :) On Thursday, the order that I had placed on-line for the "bones" of the creek plantings arrived. I ordered everything from Direct Gardening (which I had heard bad things about, but for the price...I thought it was worth taking a chance) I ordered 3 Green Giant Arborvitaes, 2 Weeping Willows and 1 Colorado Blue Spruce. The total order was barely $30, so I pretty much expected the worse, but thought it was worth a try. Needless to say, when I received the order, I literally stood in my kitchen, laughing out loud as I unpacked the wee plants! The "Green Giants" looked like twigs with a few roots. More like the jolly green giant. HAH! But, I thought...for the price and considering they are supposed to grow like 3-5 feet a year, I will just take my chances. What's even funnier is that they were packaged in vacuum sealed plastic bags. My order did include 3 of those baggies for the green giants...but, only 2 had plants! So, I called the customer service # and they were quite nice (to my surprise) so, hopefully I will receive that 3rd arborvitae :) Funny thing is that those were the most expensive out of the order and they were the smallest...the willows (which were $1 a piece) were the largest. The colorado Blue Spruce was a fairly decent size too. The order also included some freebie bulbs labeled shamrock and exotica. These were about the size of raisins, so I plopped them in the ground by my irises in the back and we will see what happens :) On Saturday I got around to planting the goodies...
The green "giants" found a home on the back creek bank to hopefully create a nice privacy screen:
I topped with a good dressing of compost and marked it with a stake, so hopefully he will have a fighting chance!
Here is a pict of one of the willows, planted on creek bank to help prevent erosion:
The Colorado Blue Spruce found a home where we took out the maple earlier this winter...I have great hopes for this guy:
On Friday I had a great day helping my mom in her garden. She is a landscape designer, so she always has some wonderful project up her sleeve...on Friday, I helped her lay some fescue sod in a pathway. I had never worked with sod before, so it was fun to learn how to do that...and talk about instant gratification! Of course, she let me take some divisions of things in her garden too. I came home with a great bunch of hellebore seedlings, 2 autumn ferns, and a huge clump of sedum autumn joy! Love those freebies :) I got them planted around on Saturday also:
Hellebore
s landed amongst the liriope in front of the azalea bed with the other variety of hellebores. Will be very pretty when they grow up to start blooming:
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The autumn ferns went under the fig tree with 4 other autumn ferns I transplanted from under my redbud (they were not getting along well with the vinca) I know the fig will give them a nice shady home come spring:
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And, when they grow up all nice a fluffy...they will help hide all the utility nonsense! I am still thinking about where to put the sedums...
This Sunday afternoon, I just did a couple of odds and ends: some weeding, moved 2 artemesias from a shady spot to one where they will get more sun, and leveled out some ground in the back of the azalea bed ( the former owner of this house, used to dump his house plant soil in a mound back there). I also took a few minutes to take some pictures of the early spring bloomers:
Minia
ture Daffodils:
Larger Daffodils planted under redbud in the front yard. I love the white...just brightens up that spot perfectly:
The
Georgia Blue Bells are full of blooms and such a wonderful blue color:
And, the first crocus has shown itself:
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In the next few days, my husband will be working on the rest of the chicken wire surrounds for the veggie beds...planting time will be here before I know it :)!!!
Oh, and on a side note...turns out the "owl" in my previous post was actually a hawk! My mom noticed from the picture and then it was confirmed again when we saw him again this weekend! Guess we will have to come up with a name for him too :)
I ended up having the day off today....so my little girl and I spent a while playing in the garden this morning (once it warmed up a bit).
I noticed some more signs of spring (just when I was beginning to wonder if some of the things I had planted and moved survived).
The globe allium blubls are emerging!!!!!! That is SO exciting. I got them on sale, but even then they weren't so cheap. Also, the autumn joy sedums that I divided last spring seem to be coming back nicely. And, the iris that I divided in the fall is starting to show itself again. So fun when things work out the way you hoped!
Of course, things don't always work out...one of the coreopsis that i got during a summer sale and looked great until frost is not showing any signs of regrowth and the other ones are. I will give it a bit more time before I give up on it completely.
Well, we had a bit of a drizzle today, really didn't even wet the soil beneath the mulch, but provided some nice humidity for the garden. I got a couple of projects checked off my list...moved my blueberry bush to a much better spot...hopefully now it will actually produce for us. Also, divided a Sedum Autumn Joy and scattered the divisions around my front porch bed. Had to water my transplants with dish water, but I think it worked just fine.
Also, did some more clean up.
Some light weeding
and Cutting back of some fading bulb foliage
I think I will work on some more dividing this weekend.
For the first time here the weather has not gotten much above 80! It feels so wonderful and that fall breeze is in the air. The garden is doing great! Weeds have slowed and the leaves are falling. Everything is ready for my fall projects soon to be started. Colors of fall are starting to show as well:
Wild grape vine that grows here...I usually pull it out with a vengence, but I let it go a bit wild on my porch and I must say the fall "fruit" is very pretty!
Autumn Joy Sedums are in full bloom:
Miscanth
us looks loveley in the fall breeze!
And, best of all...the figs are finally starting to ripen! The drought delayed them a bit this year, but they are still nice and yummy:
HAPPY FALL!!!!!!!!!!
Despite the heat, some things continue to do great and more happens in the garden each day! I spent some time watering and weeding this afternoon as the weather dropped from 108 to 96.
The angels trumpet has started to bloom and I look forward to nights through the fall when it will be loaded with blooms!
The Zebra grass has all its plumes now and they are so pretty in the wind:
All of the autumn joy sedums have their buds:
Makes me yearn for fall even more :)
We continue to have good harvests! Guess the veggies like all this heat!
I have had some casualties due to this heat wave and drought:
I have lost:
But, fall is just around the corner!
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