Back Where I Belong

Confession is supposed to be good for the soul, so here goes: I have neglected my garden terribly this year. And it shows. 

Oh, sure...I have excuses. First, I was nursing a stress fracture and then a ganglion cyst in my foot (3 weeks, no walking...or gardening allowed). Next I spent a couple of weeks dog-sitting my grand dogs in GA (2 weeks, no gardening). Then I had another flare up of the DeQuervain's tendinitis in my wrist, followed by DeQuervain's Release surgery (6 weeks, no gardening); and wedged in amongst the health issues were some trips that gobbled up a good part of September: one week to Disney World to celebrate Mr. T's milestone birthday; a week to Iowa to attend and present at the International Master Gardener Conference; and finally another week at Dear Darling Daughter's in Georgia (3 weeks, no gardening).

  

You neglect your garden for 14 weeks and what happens? Yes, things began to look wild, and weeds do indeed take over where there is no mulch. The caged Block Garden, that had hosted our sweet corn, is so overgrown that it is heart-breaking to look at it. And even well-mulched but moisture-sensitive plants succumb to lack of rain. The beans (lima as well as garden beans), purple hull peas, melons, squashes, cukes, and pumpkins are all history. The tomatoes are on their last legs, although I did get a few tiny Juliets today and may be able to harvest a few more before frost, as there are green tomatoes on several of the survivors.

But, remarkably, some veggies just keep on growing...and growing...and growing...

When I checked the garden after the torrential rains of last weekend, I was immediately drawn to the first row in the Kitchen Row Garden, where bright colors were calling to me. The peppers, as usual, are finally coming into their own. I harvested green (bell), gold, purple, and red sweet peppers...they may be small in size but they are lovely to look at. I'll bet that if I dice all those up, it will look like "confetti!" 

Further along the same row, I saw them. Reds and golds and greens...all jumbled on tall, healthy, lush-looking plants. The two hot pepper varieties I planted last April (Dragon Cayenne and Tabasco) are groaning under the weight of all their fruit! "Prolific" does not begin to describe it! More hot peppers than we could use in years. These will make fabulous Seasonal gifts...Patricia's Pickled Peppers!

And then I did a double-take when I came upon the eggplants. These are the two plants I babied from the moment they went into the ground on April 13, putting tomato cages around them, and covering the whole thing with row covers to protect them from the wide variety of pests that seem to love eggplants. I removed the row cover in early July, but had imagined that the neglect of August and September would have done them in. Amazingly,  they are healthy...and the fruit on the Black Beauty is gigantic! Probably not edible, but enormous nonetheless. 

Turning to Row 2, I tripped over the sweet potato vines. They have reached out to Rows 1 & 3, even! What a mass! And I could see some pretty large sweet potatoes pushing each other out of the planting holes which were cut into the landscape fabric that serves to keep the weeds at bay. 

I had planted 15 slips of Beauregard Sweet Potatoes in the 35' row, along with trialing 3 slips in the center square raised bed, last May 8. This row had been the recipient of a good addition of composted leaves last year, which Mr. T had tilled in well. He again tilled this row to a depth of 8-10" to allow the roots to reach down deep. If you go by the plant tag and the calendar, Beauregards require 90-110 days from transplant, so I should have been able to begin harvesting mid-August or so...during the height of my neglectful period. Didn't happen. 

But, after the recent excessive rains and ahead of frost (which is an enemy of this warm-season plant) and Mr. T's upcoming knee replacement surgery and 4-6 week recovery period (which will probably be another good excuse to neglect the garden), I decided to tackle the chore of digging sweet potatoes today. If not now, when?

Oh. My. Goodness. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into! I first pulled back the vines. Then I gently wedged the garden fork down the outside edges of the holes...trying to avoid stabbing the tender roots. Then I loaded up my small trug, since I really shouldn't be carrying much more weight than it will hold, and carried the harvest to the deck, where they could dry out in the sun. All-in-all, I loaded up my trug 5 times! 

I weighed each haul, recording a total of 130 pounds of sweet potatoes. You read that right. One. Hundred. Thirty. Pounds. The largest weighed in at 11 pounds (no, not even close to the record, which was over 89 pounds!). And the funniest looks a lot like a duck!

Oh, and my trial of growing sweet potatoes in a raised bed vs. a (raised) row? Of the three slips that I planted in the center square/raised bed...I harvested one usable root. One. So, growing in the the row wins hands down!

Elsewhere in the Way Back, the signs of neglect are evident. It appears that some of the roses lost all of their leaves and have weakened canes, due to lack of moisture. Still I am hopeful that the recent rains can save most bushes from death. Of note, I see that several are putting on buds for a final show of the year. We shall see.

Both the Berry Patch and the Orchard are showing signs of the approach of Fall, with the pear trees having lost most of their leaves in the strong winds of the weekend. I need to give the strawberries a good trim, but will wait until it's time to cover them with straw for the Winter.

Yes, I'm glad to report that I'm home again, playing in the dirt. Back where I belong...

Happy hoeing!

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!

Still Get a Thrill

Yes, I know it's 82 degrees in October. We should be thinking about lighting the fireplace, instead of cranking the AC up. Ah well...let's concentrate on a Fall Garden Report.

Regardless of the toasty temps, the cool season crops are coming right along. Today, I harvested another salad's-worth of romaine and Red Sails lettuce and the first few pods of green ("English") peas...yeah! Then I thinned the beets (pictured below) and the carrots...and decided to let the spinach and the turnip greens grow in thickly. {Giggle!} I was a bit heavy-handed in planting the beets, wouldn't you agree?

If you are wondering about the diagonal wood strips in that photo above, you may recall my saying I had repurposed some lattice we removed from our deck surround to create a cucumber trellis (which worked great this summer!). I had a couple small pieces left over and am using them in the raised beds to help me lay out my plantings and space my seeds in the boxes (which are not as easy to 'eyeball' as the rows are for me). And I have learned (the hard way) to leave them in place to protect the tiny, young seedlings from Abbie's mad dashes.  Yep, this is the SECOND planting of both beets and spinach this Fall. Sigh.

While we wait for some things to reach maturity, we are still enjoying the fruits of our warm season labors. Several of the Summer stalwarts continue producing in the Kitchen Garden, including the green and red bell peppers, jalapeño peppers, Sun Gold tomatoes, okra, and eggplant...as you can see below. Plus, most of the zinnias and all the roses are supplying us with flowers for gorgeous bouquets. 

And guess what else is starting to open? The heirloom green Nanking cotton! You may remember that I got these seeds a couple of years ago at the Seed Exchange held at Old Salem. Well, these plants (all 36 of them!) are the result of my own seed-saving from last year's cotton crop...8 whole plants! As I've said before, I hope to raise enough fibre to eventually hand-spin some yarn and knit...something! Girl's gotta have a goal, don't you know?