Weekly Update: October wks 1 & 2

As the days get shorter and the garden winds down, I'm finding that having interesting things to share on the blog is slowing down as well. One of the things that I enjoy so much about gardening watching the whole process come full circle. Last years plants were composted to feed this year's crop which grew from tiny seeds and fed us for month. Now they too have come to and end and are tossed in the compost bin to begin the cycle all over again. There are so few things in life that lend that sort of completeness and satisfaction. There's the sense that even though one thing has come to an end, it is only a matter of time before something new begins.

Fall is actually my favorite seasons of the year as everywhere you look there seem to be new and constantly changing displays of color. I'm thrilled this year to have finally managed to see the fruits of my efforts from last year come into their own and help celebrate the season.

Photos will have to follow later because something seems to be wrong with Blogger's upload tool at the moment. Stay tuned!!

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Weekly Update: September Week 4

This weekend was nearly a wash-out, but I did manage to get in a bit of work in the garden in between rain showers. If everything looks wet in these pictures... its probably because it was wet!

New this week are two lovely additions thanks to our recent trip to the NY Botanical Gardens, a lovely fall blooming anemone (two pics on the left) and a painted fern. I originally intended to plant both of these out in the front beds, but I changed my mind at the last minute and put them in the back. I hadn't intended to buy another anemone since I just bought a few others last week, but I happened upon this lovely fall-blooming variety that was just about to blossom and I couldn't resist. I just had to have it out back where I can see it and enjoy it every day.

Also blooming away are a billion or so mums, including my favorite ones which have just started blooming this week. They're a great reddish-purple hue. They're actually a bit deeper in color than they turned out int the photo on the left. Also now in bloom is a fall blooming Asiatic lily. This one is a beautiful deep rust red color. So perfect for the fall.

Lastly a snapshot of my next round of plants going in (hopefully) shortly. I started to flats of ornamental cabbage and a flat each of spinach and lettuce. So far so good, but if you can see in the photos my poor cabbages are absolutely being slaughtered by cabbage worms. I've been trying to stay after the darn things, but its a non-stop endeavor. If they'd just let the cabbage get big enough to plant out, I wouldn't mind them eating it so much. I'm hoping that we can come to some sort of agreement before they just destroy the whole lot!

I may be pushing my luck with this one, but I also just sewed another square of turnips and radishes. Technically they should have time to get up before a hard frost... but we'll see. Things held on up to the last second of summer, so I didn't have any space before to get them started. We'll see how it goes!

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New This Week: September Week 4

Well, it's officially almost the end of the main season for the garden. It's kind of shocking to be spending more time pulling things out instead of harvesting. It also visually arresting to see what has been more or less walls of green completely disappear. That said, I did manage another hearty harvest this week. The Kentucky wonder beans are still bearing. I was able to clean and freeze this big batch. The bush beans are done, but the KW's may give one or two more good size pickings before frost.

As you can see from the photo, the eggplants are still going strong, and the banana peppers continue to go like crazy. This batch was pickled up with some jalapeños to make about 2 quarts of pickled peppers. Yum. I now have a whole bag full of frozen habaneros, I still haven't done a single thing with them, but I'm thinking habanero ice cream? Jason also gave me a recipe for habanero bread pudding... sounds interesting... so we'll see.

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New This Week: September 20th

The arrival of fall may be imminent, but that doesn't mean NOTHING new is going on in the garden. Thankfully!! Perhaps the most exciting new arrival is the blooming of the fall crocuses. Until last year, I never knew that crocuses bloomed in the fall. Imagine my surprise when these beauties popped up! I was exceptionally excited to see them this year because I had to move them earlier this spring right in the middle of their growth phase. They were right in the way of the new raised beds, so I had to either try and re-home them or get rid of them altogether. They spent all spring in pots while the new beds went in. Once the leaves faded, I went ahead and planted them out in the border of the bed, hoping they'd be ok.

It looks like they're doing just fine! The winter will be the true test, but here's hoping they come back just as strong in the spring. For those who, like me, aren't familiar with this crocus, they come up in early spring with very wide green leaves. They look somewhat like corn plants, but they only get about 10" tall or so. They don't bloom at all in the spring. Then in the fall, the flowers emerge. Just the flowers, no leaves at all. Very unique! I'm so glad they made it through the summer ok in their new home!

From a planting perspective, there have been a couple of new additions. On the left you'll see the new Gencianas that I just put in. I've never seen this little annual before, but it's a late fall/early winter bloomer here in zone 6, so I'm excited to see how it holds out. It will be nice to have a bit of a splash of color still going as the rest of the summer annuals die back. The photo on the right are the recently started cabbage, lettuce, and spinach seedlings. I think I was pretty late getting the cabbage going, so we'll have to see how they make out. The lettuce and spinach is just now sprouting and that should be on schedule for a good fall crop. We'll see!

Lastly, one of the plants I'm most excited about! While we were on vacation two weeks ago we went to the NY Botanical Gardens. Needless to say, I came back with a list about a mile long of things I wanted to try out. This little guy is Anemone Robustisima. A Japanese Anemone. It turns out that these get planted out in the fall here in the Northeast, so I had a perfect window of opportunity. It was a bit difficult to find, but I ordered a three pack online and got them in this past week. I put two in the back yard and one out front. I just learned this evening that they can take up to two years before they bloom, but I guess like many things you have to wait to get really amazing results. The photo below is what I have to look forward to in a summer or two:

Beautiful single pink flowers on delicate airy stems. (This photo taken at the NY Botanical Garden.) After the trip I also picked up a beautiful little painted Japanese fern that just came today and I'll be planting this week. I also stocked up on a ton of seeds for next year for plants that I was inspired by during our visit, but I'm not going to give away any of those secrets until next spring. That way you'll have something to look forward too as well!

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Weekly Update: September 20th

Well this weekend marked the last weekend of summer. Still quite a bit of activity going on in the garden, even as signs are starting to point towards the winding down of the season. The white flies and aphids won the battle for the tomatoes, so I had to end up just cutting them all down. Next year I'll be better prepared to wage war. They just got to far out of control before I had a chance to fight back! The photo on the right shows the bed now that the tomatoes are gone. The poor peppers look pretty lonely. The only good thing is that I may now actually have some space for the fall lettuce and spinach that I started earlier this week!

(I'd actually forgotten that I hung up Jason's iron pieces on the fence this spring. They've been hidden behind plants all summer.) I also pulled out the rest of the zucchini as it had run its course and mildew was setting in on the leaves. I did manage to pick enough for 4 more loaves of zucchini bread!

I tackled a couple of small "infrastructure" projects since the planting and harvesting tasks are winding down. I installed edging around the border of the lawn. This one is pretty cool, made entirely of recycled cardboard and plastic bottles. It was a pretty easy process and should be a big help in keeping the edges of the beds and what's left of the lawn defined. The two constantly seemed to be creeping into each other, and in some cases it was difficult to tell where one ended and the other began.

Quite a few things are still going pretty strong: (From Left)

• The New Guinea Impatients are blooming again in full-force. I just love the bright pinks against the dark green/black foliage. The hosta and coleus in the background have also been extremely happy campers!
• The bush beans are pretty much done, but these Kentucky Wonder Pole beans are still going strong. We get almost 2 lbs per week at this point. It looks like they are slowing down, but we'll probably get one or two more pickings before the end of the season.
• A really stupid photo, but I was trying to demonstrate the height of the towering okra plants. The tallest one (pictured here) is now officially about 6" taller than I can reach. I'm thinking almost 10 feet tall now? AMAZING!

Putting this week's post together, I was going through photos and happened upon this photo from earlier this summer. Take a look at the obelisk and nasturtiums in June week 3 (on the left) and compare the photo on the right taken this weekend. It's amazing that at one point I was actually worried that they wouldn't fill in the tower fully enough. Keep in mind that I have to prune this monster every week to keep it from taking over the entire yard!

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Critters & Creatures

In addition to all of the amazing plants and yummy veggies this summer, the garden has also been literally PACKED with really fascinating creatures big and small. Some are really fascinating and some are extremely annoying, but I guess its like most things in life. You take the good with the bad!

Here are just a few of the non-plant highlights from September that I've been delinquent in posting. (I was out of town for a whole week, so give me a break!!)

This guy was a really beautiful leopard patterned slug that was randomly hanging out near one of the bed. He was about 6 inches long when fully stretched out. If you open the full photo and look closely you can actually see the "slime glands" open on the side of his body right under what looks like it could be his shoulders. Very fascinating to watch. Unfortunately he's also very destructive so sad to say he's no longer crawling or slime-ing any more. Circle of life and all that...

Speaking of the circle of life.... Ms. Spider whom I featured in an early post has recently relocated her web to the other end of the bed and is currently incorporating the rosebush as one end of her marvelous creation. This change of location seems to have paid off in a a HUGE way for her. Yesterday she caught the BIGGEST flying insect I've ever seen. A cicada I think, but easily the size of a small humming bird. The thing but

up QUITE a fight, but amazingly the web held strong. I was actually in the kitchen making dinner and heard it buzzing and flapping all the way inside the house. I went out to see what was going on. In the picture

to the right you can see the underside of the bug and one of his wings. Up in the upper right you'll see Ms. Spider just waiting it out. About an hour later and the fight was over, as you can see from the left. Ms. Spider moved in for the feast. She still had him wrapped up and was apparently feasting again this morning, but by this evening she had taken down the used web and there was no sign of him. She had a new preliminary web tacked out, but was no where to be seen, I'm guessing that after a meal like that, she's probably sleeping it off somewhere! I checked in on her two egg sacks that she made several weeks ago, so far no changes. No sign of any new little spiders... so we'll see what happens!

Last but not least an adorable photo of Grant enjoying the sunshine on this last weekend of Summer. He begs and begs every day to go outside and check things out. It's his own private garden paradise. (Or so he thinks!)

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Weekly Update: August Week 4

I've been waging war on the white fly infestation in my tomato plants for the better part of the summer. Just when I think I'm getting ahead of them, they seem to explode. I started out trying not to use pesticides at all, but it was really hard to watch my precious tomatoes just fading away with my natural remedies doing little if anything to stop them. I finally decided to go with the "if you can't beat them join them" approach and try fighting fire with fire. Or in this case, fighting bugs with bugs.

I can now add ladybugs, lacewings, and wasps to the things that I never thought I'd actually buy, let alone have shipped to me via UPS. I bit the bullet and ordered up 1400 lady bugs, a bag of lacewing larvae and the little cards which are loaded with wasp eggs. (not the scary kind of wasps). The goal is that these little guys combine forces to eat up the white flies... I turned them all loose one evening and so far it seems they've done just about as good as anything else I've tried. I panicked initially because the day after the release I couldn't find a single lady bug in the garden. A few days later I was coming in after a brief rain shower and suddenly there were lady bugs everywhere. So I guess they hung around long enough to help at least a bit! No sign of mature lacewings, and the wasps are so tiny its hard to tell if they're hatched or not... but the overall infestation of white flies has slowed considerably. I should probably plan on ordering another round of lady bugs, but we'll see. Here are a couple shots of the ladies at work:

Last week I posted the first look at our resident spider. It seems like she's had a busy week as well, crafting not one, but two impressive looking egg cases. They are both about the size of a ping-pong ball. It is funny, and I'm not sure if its scientifically true or not, but if you compare the pictures of her from last week before the egg cases to this week, she seems much thinner. They look absolutely amazing close up. I haven't touched them because I don't want to get all up in her space, but they look like they're made of very densely woven fibers. It will be interesting to see what happens. I'm not sure exactly how many spiders might be in there or where they'd all set up shop when they hatch, but we'll see how it goes I guess! (Knowing she's harmless makes it much easier to feel good about letting her hang around. It also makes me feel better about the fact that I routinely exterminate the spiders that try and take over the front porch!)

Speaking of eggs, the other eggs growing in the garden have actually started ripening as well. Check out the crazy bright yellow colors of the eggs on the Easter egg plant. It is an absolutely crazy sight!

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New This Week: August Week 4

Still playing catch-up! This past week marked the second major harvest of the Roma tomatoes. As you can see, we had quite a few - 9.5 Pounds! Crazy!!! Jason turned all these lovelies into sauce. We sampled it on Tuesday night for the first time and it was absolutely delicious! Made in the oven to caramelize and then run through a food mill to process out the skins. It has a wonderfully rich flavor. I'm hoping we can get enough to make a few more batches to keep us going over the fall/winter!

This week I also harvested the rest of the onions. I've got to say that I was relatively unimpressed by the onion production. They took FOREVER and even then only a very few of them ever really even amounted to much. In what can only be seen as a parallel to real life it actually turned out that the onions with the biggest and most impressive shoots and flower heads actually turned out to be the smallest ones of the harvest. As they say... "The people with the biggest drums don't always lead the band..." (Bonus points if you know where that saying actually comes from). For reference, each of the boards in the photo is about 5 inches wide...

And finally, the rest of the harvest continues rolling in as well. I did another batch of pickled peppers and zucchini bread in an attempt to stay ahead of the tide. It certainly has been a bountiful summer!

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Weekly Update: August Week 3

I spent most of the time this week trimming up the never ceasing ivy plants and trying to tame the grape vines which never make grapes but insist on attempting to dominate the fence line and everything in a five foot radius. Not exactly the most photogenic of developments, so I figured I'd just give you a couple of visual updates. The photo at the left is of the two large pots along the street. If you remember (or visit older posts) these were originally planted with the red fountain grass and the red coreopsis. The coreopsis eventually bloomed themselves out and all I had left in there was the grass. One day we had a few sweet potatoes that had gone to sprout and I was taking them out to the compost and for some reason I decided to try just tucking them into the pots with the grass. Several weeks later, and they're growing like crazy. I'm really liking the combination of the green of the vines with all the red... probably the lowest maintenance effort of the year!

Lastly, just a quick comparison shot. I realized the other day that I haven't posted any "overall" shots of the garden for a while. This one deliberately cuts off the white fly trauma of the tomato plants on the left side, but you can see just how far things have come from earlier this spring!

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New This Week: August Week 3

On the non-consumable side this week was the installation of a new evergreen specimen the cryptomeria japonica:

This is a beautiful slow growth cedar native to Japan (as the name might suggest!). This particular cultivar has a very unique branching habit. The branches extend out into what to me looks like pom-pom clusters of the needles. Eventually this should be a nice round mound. I needed to get some more winter-hardy stuff going so that as the summer/fall flowers die off I'll actually have something to look at this winter! I saw this plant featured on The Garden Guy with Paul James on HGTV a couple weeks ago and decided that I'd give it a shot. It's hardy in Zone 6, but I'm not sure how it will do in a pot. My other evergreens seem to do fine, so here's hoping!!

From an edible perspective this was the week of the pepper. I know this photo isn't the greatest... but it does give you an idea of the scope of the pepper varieties now coming to the table (clockwise from lower left):

• Another huge crop of banana peppers. I've already pickled this bunch since the last effort was so successful!
• Beautiful and yummy bell peppers.
• Jalapeno peppers that also ended up pickled (most of them).
• Orange habanero peppers... nothing yet... but they're destined for salsa as soon as the next batch of tomatoes ripens.
• Red sweet peppers. These guys (and a few of their colleagues) were roasted up for the baba ganoush and fresh spaghetti sauce we made this week.

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Weekly Update: August Week 2

Just a quick week 2 update since we're already half way through August week 3! (Slacking I know!)

I know the photo is a bit blurry, but I thought I'd post a quick snapshot of one of the other critters enjoying the garden. Jason was impressed by the size of this guy, according to him its the largest spider he's ever seen "in the wild". (I told him that it was obvious that he didn't grow up in Arizona! I've squished much bigger!) I'd peg his size at about a half-dollar size, you can kind of tell how big he is by the size of the ivy leaves too. He is actually quite stunning and we took quite a few pics while he sunned himself. There were already a couple of things wrapped up in various parts of his web, so I guess he's doing pretty good for himself! I did a bit of digging and learned that officially he's a black and yellow Argiope (Argiope aurantia for you sticklers). It is pronounced ar-GUY-oh-ee. Totally harmless to humans, so

we left him alone. Now if I could just figure out how to train him to take out the white flies I'd be all set!

And the comeback of the year award goes to the Mona Lavender... This is one of my favorite anuals to grow. Last year I had a great specimen at the beginning of the year, but I didn't realize that they really need part shade and it basically got fried by mid-summer. This year I found the PERFECT spot for it so that it could get morning sun and then have mostly shade in the afternoon and it looked great this spring. In late march though it started looking shabby and I was traveling so much I just couldn't figure out what was up. One weekend though we had a storm and I went out to find it standing full of water. Basically the holes in the bottom of the pot became clogged so the poor thing was just constantly saturated and the over watering was causing it to die off. It was in such bad shape that I considered pulling it out and just waiting until next year and starting over. I have a hard time getting rid of anything that still shows some life, so I unclogged the pot and hoped for the best. Over the last couple of weeks it suddenly seemed to turn the corner and started perking up and putting on new growth. This weekend I noticed that there were even a few blooms popping up. I'm so excited! Hoping that it will give some great color right up until frost now! Keep your fingers crossed!

Overheard on the porch when discussing the mona: "It's not a comeback - it's a return!" (Norma Desmond)

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New This Week: August Week 2

Ok.... so I'll admit that I'm starting to get a bit worn out by ALLLLLL the fresh produce! (Really? Did I say that???) Well maybe just tired of the weekly photo session. This week I admit I just started washing, packing, and eating stuff instead of gathering everything together for the obligatory photo. (Hey... I had to cram the entire weekend of work into 4 hours... so take it easy on me!)

I did capture a few interesting things though:

• After one rather serious thunderstorm the cherry tomatoes were obviously out of control and threatening to take down everything around them. I did some SERIOUS pruning this weekend. Keep in mind that we only have two plants... still I filled 2 1/2 55 gallon trashcans with vines. Some of them were 15 - 20ft long. YES, that is feet. YES, I did measure. I know! I didn't believe it myself. In the process I managed to harvest a whopping 6.5 pounds of chocolate cherry tomatoes! CRAZY! This is on top of what we've already picked. I think at this point I'd estimate that we've managed to pick about 40 lbs all together. All from two tiny tomato seeds.... I know! Hard to believe. Anyway, the evil white flies have found them now, so I'm not sure how much longer they'll be going. We'll have to see. I'm sure the big trim probably didn't help much either, but at this point I figured we've certainly enjoyed them for long enough that if they don't keep going I'm not going to be terribly disappointed.

• The okra continues to be the surprise of the summer. I mentioned before that I've never grown it before... so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, but I swear the stuff grows like crazy and is just producing non-stop. I don't know how tall it is "supposed" to be when it has reached full maturity, but this stuff is now taller than me! (MUCH taller than Jason as you can see in the photo.) It's not a camera angle thing. He's literally standing right next to the stalk. Wacky! Boy are the fast at setting pods too! I picked four last night and by tonight another four were ready to go. I've never seen anything like it before in my life! The only thing I'll do differently next year is to plant them all at once so that there's a consistent amount on hand. This year I planted two and then another four a few weeks later. They're all going strong, but it is taking a couple of days to get a pound or two for cooking. Next up on the okra rotation is a Cajun okra/shrimp/tomato dish. Then maybe pickled okra??? Who knows!
  
• Overheard in the Martin/Whetstone kitchen this week: "Is there any way we haven't had eggplant?" (And the answer ended up being yes... but not for long... Jason unearthed a recipe for Baba Ganoush... hmmmm we'll see how that goes.)

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Weekly Update: August Week 1

Lots going on this week to be sure!

I turned a vast portion of last week's tomatoes, onions, and peppers into some fresh salsa. It was delicious. I think next time I'll add a bit more salt, but other than that it was pretty good for my first ever attempt! (I forgot to take a picture... but trust me... it looked good too!)

Not a lot new on the veggie front, everything is producing like crazy, but not much new to see. There are some other fun developments on some of the less-edible fronts.

ABOVE: A monarch butterfly came by to check out the crazy blooming nasturtiums. He hung around for quite a while, so I'm hoping maybe he'll tell his friends and we'll see more! At the base of the nasturtium tower the ornamental marble peppers are starting to take on some color too. They are ornamental, but Jason insisted on tasting them this weekend, and according to him they are "hot" very hot!

BELOW: My dwarf lilac shrub is just growing beautifully. I was a bit nervous since it showed up last fall as about three dead looking twigs. I planted it and hoped for the best. I was pleasantly surprised when it budded out this spring and now it is in full bloom and looking very healthy. It's a huge favorite of the local bee population. Hanging out above the lilac are the gerbera daisy's. These two are the tallest from the plant this season with stems about 8' long or so. Finally, the Easter egg plant is loaded down with eggs. No color yet... but they REALLY look and feel just like eggs. It's really fun!

FINALLY: A shout out for some "volunteer" impatients. They are coming up like crazy in the area under the hose. I planted them out there last year (before the pine tree from out front was given a summer home there) but decided not to put in any this year because they were constantly battered by the hose and never did very well. Well apparently they did well enough to re-seed themselves and these little guys have been just going to town and filling in all around the tree. I've NEVER had impatients come back from seed, so this was a doubly big surprise. The other interesting thing is that they seem to have adapted as a dwarf form somehow. They're no bigger than the groundcover but absolutely full of flower. It's really something. I've been really surprised in many ways this year by the way the plants seem to be able to adapt instantly to changes in the environment in ways to make themselves as successful as possible. Truly amazing!

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