Spring Again

Time for a new post...I've completely neglected the blog over the winter and promise nothing this year.

Snowmaggedon is long gone, and last weekend gave me two perfect days for getting the garden in shape. I had done a few things over the winter...like pruning the blueberry bushes. (Should be done very year. I had never done it. There will be more next winter, I suppose). But mostly, I just left things.

So this weekend was a bit of a flurry of activity, although there was a lot less to clean up than last year. Or maybe I just did less. Anyway, I got things organized, and got the first planting in. This consists of:

1. half a row of kale (red and green)
2. half a row of kholrabi
3. Some peas (an experiment)
4. A row and some more of onions.

I planted the peas where some of my cucumbers will eventually go. I am not going to fight the cucumber blight any more. Instead, I am going to plant to put in a couple of plants every two months through July (when the beetles should be gone) and just let the early plants go. At least we should have cucumbers all season.

Thanksgiving---still picking!

What have I been doing over the past month? Not so much, except for cleaning up and getting everything ready for next year. All those lovely, huge plants are gone, for the most part, in the direction of our compost bin or in a paper bag for the city to compost. I've pulled a few weeds and put down some black fabric that I had to see if I can keep at least part of the flat area from being overrun with weeds in the spring.

The garlic is coming up, and there is still sage and parsley. Hence the title of this post, since sage is perfect for today's turkey and stuffing, and it's really nice to have lots of it just cut. It's also nice to get something---even so small---to use today.

We do have a few other things from the garden in our thanksgiving meal. Onions, for example. And garlic. And green tomato pickles.

Pickled Green Tomatoes

I put up seven pints of them today. Finally, a use for the tomatoes that will never ripen.

That is all.

Sukkah (A Little Late)

This year's sukkah certainly belongs on the blog. I took pictures when I put it up, but haven't gotten around to posting until now. Better late than never (at least it is before next year's sukkah.

I started with the gourds that I managed to grow by simply leaving last year's gourds around the tree in the back. Sure enough, I got a plant, and quite a number of gourds. (Described here.)

The really cool thing is that it is possible to put these up without cutting them. I left a couple of vines with the gourds on them, and just draped them over the sukkah's roofing. Worked great.

I also put the leftover sunflowers to good use. Even though the birds ate all the seeds, the heads were still impressive, and they are on long and stiff stems. So I draped them over the roof and pushed the sunflowers through the schach.

Here's the sukkah's entrance:

with a sunflower and some gourds by way of greeting. And here's a view inside:

There's one of the sunflowers, and some gourds in the background behind the light.

A view with decorations:

These were provided by our neighbor's preschoolers and toddler. No question but that they make the sukkah. Every sukkah needs decorations made by kids. Really, I need to rent out children to decorate once we become empty nesters next year.

Been Awhile

Between fall holidays, the fact that the garden is winding down, and my desire to include pictures, I've been neglecting the blog. Even though I've got a few interesting things.

First, the garden in fall:


I cut down the sunflowers (and more on their fate in another post). So everything looks short. The tomato plants may look droopy, but they are still producing a few tomatoes. And I'm still losing some of them to fungus. Next year I'll spray! There is still some basil, and lots of parsley. I don't have time to freeze it all (or make and freeze another batch of pesto). I will regret this during the winter.

From another point of view:


I'm not sure there is a "before picture" from this angle earlier in the blog. But there used to be butterfly bushes next to the fence on the right-center. I started to prune them for the sukkah---they need to be heavily pruned---and ended up removing them. Which I have been meaning to do. My plan is to fill in the space with red currants which sound really interesting, easy to grow, would fit in the space...and are not attractive to birds! Anyway, that's the plan.

Meanwhile, I've already started next year's garden! At least one part of it. It was time to plant the garlic, and I've now dedicated a row to it (21 cloves, to be precise). And I used fertilizer. Believe it or not, I've never bothered to fertilize when I planted the garlic. I got smaller than usual bulbs this year, which got me thinking, however. Which is usually pretty dangerous.

Slowing Down

As the weather gets cooler, production slows. But doesn't stop. We're still getting some tomatoes (although about half have black spots that spread and make the fruit inedible.) There's still lots of basil. I used over six cups two weeks ago for a couple of recipes, and it wasn't like I was lacking it today. I'm drying it in the oven--why buy?

I got a zucchini this weekend as well. The plants are hanging on, although the fruit doesn't always grow very big. Still getting raspberries, although not as many as a couple of weeks ago. Other things are beginning to go brown.

My next outdoor project is building a sukkah, and the garden will provide some interesting schach this year. Like the sunflower plants, and maybe the ornamental squash, which got huge---but is now dying. It's only after I take the sukkah down that I will finally (probably in late October) pull up the remaining annuals and finish getting ready for the winter.

It's Still Summer. Isn't It? Isn't It?

I guess it really is fall. The weather has turned colder, still warm but not really warm enough for most of the plants in the garden. I notice that the tomatoes don't turn ripe as quickly, and the beans don't seem to have produced anything in over a week. I am still getting raspberries (not quite as many, but enough). However, I can see the end of the year coming.

The birds ate all the sunflower seeds. The empty heads hang down from the plants, some of which are 6-7 feet high. I will cut these down when it is time to build our sukkah.

I pulled up the cucumber plants, which were mostly dead. So much for "County Fair." Next year I may try planting at different times, so that some of the plants will go in after the beetles are active.

It was a great year for basil. I've made pesto a couple of times, a pesto-infused chicken dish, and I dried some for the winter. There's still plenty more. Also a lot of sage.

I'm still getting tomatoes, however. Also some interesting squash.


These are all from one plant. I left the ornamental squash we got from the CSA last year near a maple tree, and now I have a huge squash plant producing these things. So I guess our Sukkah theme will be squash! Too bad I can't figure out how to eat them.

Now I have to plan the endgame. Actually, what I have to plan is planting the garlic. Which is really staring to think about next year!