It is hard to believe that last week at this time I was only a few minutes away from giving my second workshop at the Monticello Heritage Harvest Festival. Where has the week gone? No complaints about the weather, that's for sure. Though not my favorite task, the lawn is now mowed, and I picked a bag of hot peppers for the freezer. I spent some of the week removing some unhappy plants, and will do a bit more today. Here is where things stand:
Side yard garden - the front row indeterminate tomatoes are done and will vacate the premises this afternoon. The pesty rabbit did a number on the beans, and they are mere skeletons; ditto worms on the collards. The rear squash actually look good but lack of sun (the angle is now so low that the garden gets but a few hours each day) and bees (very few honeybees and butterflies this year, sadly) led to a pretty poor squash and cuke yield. All of the rear garden tomatoes in bales are kaput. Essentially the garden is finished and I will be removing all dead plants and weeds in preparation for the thick layer of shredded leaves that will cover it once they start falling.
As far as planting it with greens for the winter, the lack of sun would make this a waste of time, sadly.
Driveway - most of the tomatoes were removed earlier this week, but a few hardy souls remain. I continue to pick from a few dwarfs (Arctic Rose, Sean's Yellow Dwarf, Kelly Green, Jade Beauty and Beryl Beauty fight on), and there are promising green tomatoes on Cherokee chocolate, Stump of the World, Little Lucky, *not* Arkansas Traveler, Matchless and Mortgage Lifter. Yesterday we ate an amazing late season Brandywine. Tomatoes in late September is pretty unprecedented for me.
All of the peppers and eggplant remain, and are thriving and continuing to set fruit - they are therefore receiving regular watering and feeding. We are really going to miss them; I am waiting for the eggplant to fatten up so we can make some breaded slices for freezing.
I do want to plant some pots of winter greens for growing in the driveway; lettuce, collards, kale, spinach, arugula - maybe some beets - so that we can have some home grown salads throughout. The only issue I've experienced with this in past years are digging squirrels!
Happy autumn, everyone!
Side yard garden - the front row indeterminate tomatoes are done and will vacate the premises this afternoon. The pesty rabbit did a number on the beans, and they are mere skeletons; ditto worms on the collards. The rear squash actually look good but lack of sun (the angle is now so low that the garden gets but a few hours each day) and bees (very few honeybees and butterflies this year, sadly) led to a pretty poor squash and cuke yield. All of the rear garden tomatoes in bales are kaput. Essentially the garden is finished and I will be removing all dead plants and weeds in preparation for the thick layer of shredded leaves that will cover it once they start falling.
As far as planting it with greens for the winter, the lack of sun would make this a waste of time, sadly.
Driveway - most of the tomatoes were removed earlier this week, but a few hardy souls remain. I continue to pick from a few dwarfs (Arctic Rose, Sean's Yellow Dwarf, Kelly Green, Jade Beauty and Beryl Beauty fight on), and there are promising green tomatoes on Cherokee chocolate, Stump of the World, Little Lucky, *not* Arkansas Traveler, Matchless and Mortgage Lifter. Yesterday we ate an amazing late season Brandywine. Tomatoes in late September is pretty unprecedented for me.
All of the peppers and eggplant remain, and are thriving and continuing to set fruit - they are therefore receiving regular watering and feeding. We are really going to miss them; I am waiting for the eggplant to fatten up so we can make some breaded slices for freezing.
I do want to plant some pots of winter greens for growing in the driveway; lettuce, collards, kale, spinach, arugula - maybe some beets - so that we can have some home grown salads throughout. The only issue I've experienced with this in past years are digging squirrels!
Happy autumn, everyone!
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