Garlic harvest! and other garden pics

[MissS]

They look good. I won't get my garlic in until late October/November. I had fun growing it this year thanks to @rxkeith. I learned a lot too.

[JayneR13]

I’m getting the last of mine in tomorrow. Seed Savers finally sent it! Krasnodar red & K white, two bulbs of each. Because I’m a seedaholic lol

[JayneR13]

I pulled the summer squashes at the pantry garden today. The weather forecast is for days in the 60s and nights in the 40s, which neither they nor the tomatoes will like. While the tomatoes have quite a few fruits left that can ripen, the summer squash was done. So out it came.

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I didn't take a picture, but more garlic is popping up there every time I see it! I've also got a few onions up. That's good to see! I'm looking forward to next year's harvest and the look on my fellow volunteer's faces when I drop 135 heads of garlic on that table! That's 150-15 for next year's seed. That space was so badly misused before, I'm glad to see it getting better.

Happy gardening!

[GoDawgs]

Well done! It's always a case of win some-lose some but it's always a good year when the wins outnumber the losses. I think your pantry guy is going to be amazed when he totes up all the stuff that came out of that garden this year.

I was going to plant my garlic mid month but I might have to wait a little for the ground to disperse the 13" of rain we got.

Miss Yin looks very content! She's had a hard life and is ready to retire to easier times right along with you.

[JayneR13]

Yes, I'm guessing that Helene shifted a few priorities and put the regular planting schedule off by just a bit! Eek! But I'm glad you and Pickles are OK, along with the majority of the garden. Life goes on, right?

[JayneR13]

I made my last garden-related trip of the year to my hardware store, just to see if I could find anything useful on sale. I did: a nice-looking variety of tulip that I think will be happy in the newly cleared section under the lilac tree.

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My new hori showed up yesterday, just in time to help!

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So I dug & planted & watered in. You all know what freshly dug & watered soil looks like. Hopefully I’ll have lovely flowers in spring!


I also walked over to the food pantry garden, to water and check on things. Nights are dipping into the 30s and there have been frost warnings a bit further north, so the time is coming. The tomatoes aren’t much longer for this earth. The garlic, however, is coming up nicely! I have sprouts in all five rows and a few onions as well. When I took this garden over in spring, this area was one huge flowering kale, a ton of dandelion, and a few herbs & wild lettuce unloved by the pantry clients. Now the area is productive again.

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It’s a cold, dark, blustery day! Enjoy gardening while it lasts. Winter is coming.

[MissS]

I think that my most used tool is my hori. They make my life so much easier.

I love the tulips in spring. I hope that they remain unmolested by the critters so that they can brighten your spring days. It was a sad day here. The perennial beds were cut down today. The honeybees and the lone hummingbird are flying around looking for the plants. Frost is expected in two nights.

[JayneR13]

It’s getting to that point here too. All that’s left in my beds are my brassicas. My calamint is still in bloom but that too will soon pass,

[bboomer]

I think that my most used tool is my hori. They make my life so much easier.

I love the tulips in spring. I hope that they remain unmolested by the critters so that they can brighten your spring days. It was a sad day here. The perennial beds were cut down today. The honeybees and the lone hummingbird are flying around looking for the plants. Frost is expected in two nights.

We hit 81 degrees today! I love it! At the same time, its disturbing. After all, it is almost mid October in Wisconsin.

[MissS]

I think that my most used tool is my hori. They make my life so much easier.

I love the tulips in spring. I hope that they remain unmolested by the critters so that they can brighten your spring days. It was a sad day here. The perennial beds were cut down today. The honeybees and the lone hummingbird are flying around looking for the plants. Frost is expected in two nights.

We hit 81 degrees today! I love it! At the same time, its disturbing. After all, it is almost mid October in Wisconsin.

I'll glady take it. We had such a lousy spring. I harvested plenty of nice ripe tomatoes today. My crop is loving this late growing season.

[JayneR13]

Since our hard freeze is scheduled for Monday-Tuesday, it was time to clean out all of the tomatoes & peppers at the food pantry garden. Those peppers were really wasted space; we got very little from them. If we bother at all next year, it'll be hots like jalapenos or similar. The pantry has a number of Latino clients and they like those hot peppers. Or PA can buy them and let me plant something useful. Anyway, all of the plants except the winter squashes are gone. The hose is up and the new compost is spread out. PA will bring me more of that, which I'll rake into other areas of course. The winter squashes will likely be pulled next week, ready or not. I would've pulled them today but PA wants to give them every last minute we can. They're mostly butternuts and a couple of acorns. The strawberries in the foreground will be dug up and/or tilled into the soil. They were planted by the last gardener and never did yield well. The fencing and the posts were also his doing. Tabula rasa, baby!

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Garlic has come up very well. Alliums like cold weather so they'll be fine. There's a tree right above them that's turning gold and dropping its leaves. One person's fallen leaves are another's free mulch.

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Because my name's Jayne, and I'm a seedaholic. While there's some stuff in here that's not useful right now, there's a few short DTM cucumbers and some greens to try in the hydroponics units. I might send the less than useful stuff in for the MMMM swap and to the local seed library. Okra doesn't grow well here. Tried and died LOL.

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This rose belongs to a bush I pass on my way to the convenience store. Posting because it's lovely. Please enjoy!

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Soon my fingernails will be all too clean! Oh well. This too shall pass.

[bower]

Ha ha fingernails. After a summer of horrifying tomato black, I found woad growing in one of the garlic beds I have to prep. Waste not, want not, right? Now my nails are blue....

[JayneR13]

The weather here has been moving like a roller coaster: up into record highs one day, down into fall & hard freeze territory the next. I've cleaned out the last of the brassicas and added in the last of the new soil. We've had a couple of hard freezes and hey, it's almost November. Gardens are done. I visited the last farmer's market of summer yesterday, just to top off. There are winter markets here, which I may or may not wish to attend depending upon the weather.

To continue my year-end review: the brassicas were a really mixed bagl. I did get enough Brussels sprouts for a few rounds at the table, but not enough to store and not nearly the size I can buy at the market. My cabbages did yield, but from nine plants I got enough for one quart jar of kimchi, and the cabbage that formed heads made really small ones. I got some seed from one broccoli plant, thank the rabbits. No heads from those! The chewed ones never did come back and I couldn't find any replacement plants at the garden center. Good thing I have kraut from previous years at least. Well, better luck next year. Getting any Brussels sprouts at all isn't a bad thing for a first time out! One quart of kimchi is better than nothing. Hopefully the new soil will help! The cabbages that didn't head were all from my own starts, and subject to the bad media problems I had in the beginning. None of them ever grew very large. The replacements headed but didn't grow very large either. So yeah, this year has been a really mixed bag.

The trees outside of my front door. They're dropping their leaves of course. It's almost a good thing that we'll have some warm weather because I have some leaves to rake. My garlic and tulips need covering.

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This tree is on my way towards several destinations. I'm posting it because it's beautiful. This day, I was walking to the museum for a Halloween dinner show. I'm celebrating the holiday in different ways because trick-or-treating just isn't fun anymore. I live down a side street and don't get much business, so why bother. So I celebrate fall by enjoying the trees and going to cool dinner shows.

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This year's show was a living history presentation, Goode Rebeka Nurse. The woman's name is Jessica Michna. She's an actress with a passion for history who acts out the role in stunning fashion. The level of her research into the part was evident in both her performance and the Q&A after. I hope she comes around again!

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It's indoor gardening time! Both the Defiant and the Totem have set fruit. We'll see if the fruits ripen.

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Some lovely Sarracenia pitchers. I find it challenging to grow American pitcher plants, partly because they're prone to everything from powdery mildew to mealy bugs! I've lost two entire bog gardens thanks to those, so I'm happy to see one form actual pitchers. Pitcher plants are gluttons so they do well keeping the house fly population in check.

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Miss Yin is inspecting the now-empty deck. She loves to go outside and will be very put out when I seal off the door! As it is she's unhappy that I don't take her out right away in the morning, and when I do, she's unhappy that it's cold. Momma can only fix so much, dear.

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So that's it for this year's garden! If there's any interest, I may start a grow log here for next year. It's nice to have a journal to keep track of things, and I enjoy seeing what others are doing in their gardens. Perhaps others will enjoy and benefit from what I'm doing in mine. Even failures are instructive! Other than that, I'm officially retired! It's been a long 24 years and it's time. Publishing just isn't what it used to be and while I've worked on some interesting books and with some lovely people, there's a downside I'm not going to miss. That's not to say I can't take a project here & there of course, but it's time to pursue other interests. Today it's time to work more on my MMMM package so I can get that into the mail! Until next time, I close my official year's thread in my usual fashion:

FINIS

[MissS]

You had a good year. Congratulations on your retirement. You think that you have more time to get things done, but the reality is that you are still so busy that not much more gets done than while you were working. You sit there and scratch your head and wonder how you managed a job and all the work around the house and yard...

[JayneR13]

No kidding! Time seems to be flying even now. I have so much I want to get done! Now I seem to spend forever doing just a few things. Age, I suppose. And computer games LOL

[GoDawgs]

Well done, my friend! No two seasons are ever the same and even the not-so-goods are instructive as we know all too well. I look forward to your Glog next spring.

And another congrats on your retirement. Shortly before I retired I started a list of stuff to do that I just hadn't gotten around to over time due to time and fatigue constraints from working. That list sat by my recliner growing now and then with additions. Once I retired I'd look at the long list and say to myself, "Now what do I feel like tackling today?" That worked pretty well because it was a choice, not a "You GOTTA do this today" thing. That makes a big difference. Gradually they all got checked off!