Happening in the Garden This Week

The four-letter weather-word has shown up on our forecast for tonight: SNOW! If it happens, we will be ready for it.

One would think with the arrival of cold weather that we'd be hanging out the "Closed for the Season" sign, wouldn't one? One would be wrong! We have quite a bit of activity going on around here.

Fall Broccoli - 2013

1. The Kitchen Garden - The Third Season is in fine form out in the Box and Block Gardens. The raised beds in the Box Garden are sporting carrots (harvested the first three of the Fall last week), lettuces (3 kinds...my fave being the Red Sails), spinach (coming in fast and furious), beets (a little late here...had to replant), broccoli (pictured, right), cauliflower (replants), collards (replants), and one lone cabbage (a replant...all its friends succumbed to the dreaded cutworms, which were the cause of the replanted brassica). The Block Garden has been completely surrounded by a temporary fence (no worries...I can "open" one side of it...:-) that is supporting a good stand of (English) peas ('Wondo'...just picked some of those and popped them in our pot of soup)...and enclosing the rows where stands one lone surviving Red Cabbage plant (yes, cutworms again...you better believe I will be using cardboard collars come Spring-planting time!).

All the raised beds are sporting winter-weight row covers (purchased two years ago from Gardeners Supply...and still showing up for duty...:-), clothes-pinned to the hoops that bend over the plantings, so they should be OK down to 28 degrees. Mr. T came up with the clever idea to corral all the leaves that our neighbors are steadily gifting us with inside the fence around the Block Garden...brilliant, indeed! They provide protection to the peas...better than straw...and, of course, that lone cabbage must feel coddled, like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

We got most of the spent plant materials pulled up and into the yard waste toter, including the 5 pepper plants and the lone eggplant. Because of the high risk of overwintering of pests and pathogens on the members of the Solanaceae family (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc.), I don't compost this debris...I get it off the property. Good riddance to blights, I hope!

[By the way, I finished my latest Master Gardener article yesterday, written about the End-of-the-Season Clean-Up. Be sure to check it out here if you have the time...and LIKE and SHARE it if you are on Facebook! (If you have arrived on this post before that link is active, check back later. Thanks!)]

2. The Orchard - Granted, there isn't much activity going on amongst the fruit trees...and, since the squirrels and their pals picked all the fruit before it ripened, there wasn't much clean-up required. Still Mr. T harvested the seed pods from the zinnias and pulled up the remaining flower stalks, while I planted 6 pineapple lily bulbs (from Lakeside Farms) in the new-this-year Pollinators Garden. When the front-porch mums are finished with their blooming, I will plant them here.

I also tilled up a long bed in the back of the Way Back, across the Orchard and the Berry Patch, and planted 110 daffodil bulbs (that have been hanging out in the garage fridge for 6 weeks, as directed). They will be putting on a show, come Spring...fingers crossed; toes, too!

Seeds of the butterfly weed
Asclepias Tuberosa - 2013

We have several wonderful outcroppings of butterfly weed, Asclepias Tuberosa, in the Orchard...planted by either the birds or the wind. And, now is the time to harvest the seeds which have broken out of the pods following the recent frosty nights [shown in the picture Mr. T snapped with his iPhone (right)]. Aren't they just amazing? They are designed to be wind-dispersed, with fluffy, silky tufts. We'll keep them in a paper bag in the garage fridge until Spring, then plant...and cross our fingers and toes because butterfly weed is notoriously difficult to grow from seed. We shall see...

3. The Berry Patch - All is quiet on this tasty front. Mr. T has filled the blueberry boxes 3 (raised beds, containing the 9 blueberry bushes) with bags and bags of our neighbors' shredded (mostly oak) leaves...remember, blueberries love an acid soil and oak leaves can help maintain that. I also tilled up and refurbed another strawberry bed, this one containing the newest Ozark Beauty runners. (No snakes were found this time!)

4. The Rose Garden - All of the hybrid teas, the grandifloras, and most of the David Austen ("English" shrub) roses are winding down, forming as many rose hips as rose buds. The two notable exceptions are the coppery 'Pat Austen' and the lemony 'Molineaux.' So, when you look toward the Rose Garden from another part of the Way Back, you will see the colors of Fall: orange and yellow. Beautiful combination!

Additionally, the 'Mardi Gras' floribunda rose bush (located just outside of the Rose Garden, in the Rondel) is still budding, producing the flamboyant pinks, oranges, and yellows...all swirled together into colorful blooms. Makes for fabulous bouquets, especially when you add the prolifically-producing 'Gethsemane Moonlight' mums that now dot several corners of the property. I pruned the original 6 plants after their first growth spurt in the Spring, in order to assure lush flower production in the Fall...then dipped the "prunings" into rooting hormone...lo and behold, WORLDS of new plants. Gotta love propagation!!

The rest of our weekend activity revolved around general cleaning up and taking relaxing breaks in the swings. Since it has been a difficult week around our house, we needed some time for rest and contemplation.

And the garden is the very best place for it.  Happy hoeing!