The Garden – into fall 2014

Wow, I can’t believe I haven’t posted about the garden since the end of August. I have been out there lots, the weather was crazy insane for a while. We had a rainy day or two so I was super proactive and got out all our winter gear, put away the sundresses, etc. Only to have a week of days with 80+ weather in OCTOBER. What?!?! So then I dragged out the bins and now there are clothes everywhere (as it seems fall rain has really settled in).
october garden-1
How about this, eating fresh watermelon and cantaloupe I picked, from my yard, on October 3rd?!?! All the other pictures are from the 5th.
october garden-2
Because of the sunny weather (these pictures were taken near dusk, that’s why they look so melancholy) I even did some fall clean up, filling up my bin, as well as two of the neighbor’s bins! You can see on this picture and the next where I’ve cleaned things up a bit.
october garden-8
Usually I deal with a soggy mess of stuff in the spring. The bean tee-pee is dying back, and I’ve harvested lots of dried beans for next year’s plantings.
october garden-5
I took out all of the pumpkin vines after harvesting the last one in early October. I was going to take out the melon vines, but I still have a few more on there, and they still taste great! Super impressed with my melons this year, though I only got two watermelons, so I think I’ll stick to cantaloupe from now on. I need to clean up the strawberries, I don’t like the ever bearing variety in there right now, so I need to find all the plants that have strawberries and pull them.
october garden-11
Since I had my hori hori out I decided to do a little test. This is after a couple weeks of not watering and a day or so of rain in that time. The wood chips I put out in the late spring work amazing to hold in moisture! Here is an area that had no wood chips for comparison:
october garden-12
I didn’t have many areas to choose from since most of my yard was mulched, but I hope you can see the difference. If not let me tell you about it, the ground here is hard. Where I’ve had the wood chips all summer, even where I’ve been walking (as above) the ground has gotten a lot softer. I am worried about one thing, doing some clean up I found the most insane amount of slug eggs. I’m not sure exactly how this is going to pan out, but it makes me want a duck (they love slugs).
october garden-9
The last pumpkin harvested (the variety is Jarrahdale and it is a green-grey when cured). I stuffed one already and it was AMAZING and the girls are like, more more more and I’m like, that was a lot of heavy cream ladies. The tomatoes are still putting out fairly well. Before the rains just started up again I was able to pick about 12 lbs. They will continue to ripen, but the wet weather will split them. SAD FACE.
october garden-4
The winter garden is growing well. Bj is going to make me a little PVC hoop house over those far two beds for the winter and to give me an earlier start in the spring.
october garden-13
Carrots that I can harvest whenever I need, and little swiss chard growing, my spinach isn’t doing so great here. The small containers on the deck railing are doing better, those have some lettuce as well. The hot weather did drive some of my lettuce to bold, unfortunately. I should probably throw in a last planting when I go out to plant garlic (my seed garlic just came!).
october garden-10
I have gotten so many figs this year. Even though the squirrels are getting in on the action, I’ve still had plenty. They are a kid favorite and I harvested enough at once to make a yummy jam. Plus I dried some and froze at least seven pounds. I’ll cut those and the maple back significantly this winter.
october garden-6
Even though the weather is starting to turn Tuesday is wanting to play down here as much as possible. I’ve got her cleaning up the toys every time so they stay dry in the shed in between her little coffee shop play business.
october garden-15
A terrible picture of my front yard, which despite weeds and craziness is still bright and colorful. Tuesday has been playing a lot with all the neighborhood kids so I’m out here more, and instead of lounging trying to trim something or pull a weed while I watch over the craziness.
october garden-14
Look at this crazy tree that won’t die. We need to cut it to the ground soon to prep the area of the little mini dwarf orchard tree trio I want to try. The clematis is also coming back from being chopped to the ground (it had a fungus problem). It looks better than ever (you can barely see it here to the left of the stairs).
october garden-16
And roses still delight, though would more so if I dead headed them in a timely manner!
Probably not much more to share about my garden this year as I get it all tucked in for the winter. How about you, is your garden all put away or are you trying winter gardening this year?

Join the Conversation

5 Comments

  1. Your garden looks lovely! So much color still, and I’m super impressed by your melons. I’ve never had success with them.
    I usually put off clean up til the spring as well but I’m thinking I really need to change that to the fall – it’s such a pain regardless.

  2. It looks great Amber–you’ve already made lots of progress cleaning it up.
    this weekend was just perfect with the mid seventies and sun. I was a little sad for the rain to be back today, and for the next 5-6 months.

  3. Your garden looks great, especially considering it is October. I’m impressed as well at the melons, I have never had much success growing them. Your winter garden looks great, I hope it works out well and you have lots of fresh stuff in the dark days of January. Be sure to keep us updated.
    Our garden is pretty much done as well. My one little guy is interested in any kind of yard work, so I got him to help me put the garden to rest recently. I even added some video to my blog http://theplaceunderthepine.blogspot.ca/2014/10/garden-update-october.html

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *