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!

First Frost

What a busy week we gardeners in the USDA Zone 7b Piedmont of NC have had! First frost arrived almost on time in the wee hours on Wednesday 10/24, followed closely by our first freeze this morning. [Want to find out the average dates of First and Last Frost for your garden? Go to the Dave's Garden site and enter your ZIP code: http://davesgarden.com/guides/freeze-frost-dates/#b]

My own To Do list to prepare for First Frost (which research assigns to October 20 for HPNC) included:

1. Harvest warm-season crops that would be injured or killed by frost or freezing temperatures. Tender crops still producing in our Kitchen Garden include green and jalapeño peppers, okra, and eggplant. Here's a photo of the green pepper haul, below.

2. Cover cool-season crops -- meaning all the cabbage family crops (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and collards), lettuce, spinach, carrots, and beets. Turnip greens  (shown below with a row of nasturtiums pre-frost) are actually better after a light frost or two, so I choose not to cover them. I also didn't cover the peas, since they grow up a fence and already have a straw-mulch.

This is the most labor-intensive part of the frost-prep work. I had to install the hoops, spread the cover fabric out in order to cut to size for the 5 new-this-year raised beds, spread the covers, clip to the hoops with clothespins, and anchor the edges of the covers with rocks. You see I had a helper with that whole cutting and anchoring process below. Ahem.

We bought these GardenQuilt fabric covers four years ago from Gardeners' Supply (click here to go there: http://www.gardeners.com/GardenQuilt-Cover/11748,default,pd.html).  They work splendidly and have outlived their promise of two years' service. I've stored them off-season in the shed, folded (more or less) in a laundry basket, making sure they are thoroughly dry before putting away. Since we had 40 foot rows, we ordered the 50' length...hence the need to cut them down to fit the new 6' boxes. (The Row Garden is now mainly for Warm-Season crops.) Because this is a fabric, not plastic, I can leave the covers in place without worrying that warmer temps will damage the crops. What's not to love?

3. Bring vulnerable container-bound perennials like citrus trees, ferns, herbs, and palms that are living north of their Zones into the plasticized screen porch for Winter protection. There are a couple of mature and mostly yellow lemons on the Improved Meyer Lemon tree, along with one full-size green (immature) and loads of tiny little lemons from a recent late blooming. I imagine the little ones won't survive the drastic change in available light, but a gardener can dream, can't she?

4. Empty soil out of clay pots to keep them from cracking from expansion during a freeze. While working at my potting bench, I potted up some crocus and tulip bulbs to spend the Winter in the shed...and to be brought out in late February to encourage Easter-time blooms. And then, I pulled all my zonal geraniums from their containers, shook the soil off the roots, trimmed the stems by half...and put them in a paper grocery bag to also spend the Winter in the shed. Iowa State Extension's site has a great guide to dormant storage and overwintering geraniums here: http://www.ipm.iastate.edu/ipm/hortnews/2004/9-17-2004/geraniums.html

5. Cut all open blooms on zinnias and roses to bring inside for a huge vase of fresh flowers. There are worlds of buds on both that may not survive a hard freeze, but aren't far enough along for a bouquet. Sigh. Still, I must focus on how much we have enjoyed all the beautiful blossoms this year...and hope that a few last until the warmer weather on the way. I also gave the basil its final haircut, since this heat-lover won't survive temps below 50 degrees...popped the cuttings into another vase, hoping for a rooted branch or two to pot up. Fingers crossed...toes, too!

Whew! I need a day of rest...how about you?