when i opened up a bean and saw these seeds i exclaimed, “Barbie!?” they were so pink…but they dried into a beautiful Prince purple!
i saved this climbing bean seed to try again next season. i saved pumpkin and butternut squash seeds. i don’t even really have room to grow those. i mean i do, but not a designated place to grow them. there is some drive within me to save these plants we grow. i always save nasturtiums because they are so easy. i did not properly put the raised beds to sleep yet. there is still time. the garlic i planted is already popping up about 4 inches tall so i should cover those up. that may be today!
these pawpaw seeds are in the fridge veggie drawer for the winter. this will be next year’s experiment because we have an area where we have soil conditions suitable for this tree.
now it is fall and i realized i hadn’t posted any thing about the garden in a while. we went to the lake and came back to lots of vegetables.
i find beauty in some sad and ugly things. is this sad and ugly? in a way, yes, but how it is almost a yin and yang shape just had me thinking for a while.
found this while gardening at my love’s shop. it was sitting in the sand near the opening of a groundhog hole. now it guards the new garden there.
okay, now back to the lighter things! all the tomatoes we planted this season were wee in size. the top plate is ours and the bottom is what i bought at the farmer’s market. all yum.
all the bean sizes we planted this season. very fond of the long beans. i may plant more varieties next season.
zucchini climbed this year and that was fun.
grew just one spaghetti squash!
more zucchini (there always is) and what the cucumbers looked like!
well, this isn’t from july it’s from June. i picked chive flowers and made chive vinegar.
it sits for two weeks then i strain out the flowers and you have this beautiful infused purple vinegar to use for salad dressings!
this is a new long bean that i planted and it has this gorgeous flower. no beans yet.
everything has been a slow grow this summer and lots of varmits eating my plants. that dececco broccoli is all eaten up now. it’s still alive so i’ll need to spray it with a bt spray or sprinkle rye flower all over it.
i planted all small to tiny varieties of tomato this season. i can get gorgeous big tomatoes at the farmers market.
here are a few cucumber varieties. they are a little higher on the fence now. and i sunk a planter of borage seeds at the end there. i know it can take over so i’m going to keep an eye on that. i may plant that somewhere else outside of the vegetable garden.
everything but the tomato plants, garlic, and leek were all started from seeds. Here i have a little garden of cilantro, arugula, parsley, carrots (i started too many of those), and dill (that has been difficult for me this year and i have no idea why!).
basil (that’s another one that i bought) and zucchini, and one spaghetti squash. i planted more spaghetti squash over near the compost pile. it has room to really spread out over there.
fingerling potatoes, onions, leeks, and garlic bed! something is eating the potato greens this year. i’ve never noticed that happening before but they still look good. just wonder if it will get to flower? you can see our neighbor’s amazing varmit control cover of his raised beds in the background!
and the haul from that bed yesterday. i let some leeks go to flower because the bees like them so much.
just a pretty tall Verbena that a friend gave me a couple years ago amongst the jungle of grasses and Solomon Seal i need to divide in the fall.
took a walk through the yard today while the golden retriever played with his frozen tennis ball. before the 6 inch snow fall i dropped some poppy seeds in the deer tracks along the back fence line. in this photo the Rudbekia are waiting for the birds.
deer tracks all over the place, turning on all the motion sensor lights distracting us from our series!
the garden is super cozy under the snow. no deer tracks in the raised beds yet!
Echinacea seed pods enjoying the sun at 25 degrees.
the garden beds were put to sleep for the winter. before the hard frost i clipped vegetables at the stalks, left the roots, covered everything with nearby leaves, sprinkled trifecta fertilizer, then covered with burlap. i left some openings for leeks, parsley, and onions. I thought that I might use some of those plants for Thanksgiving, but I didn’t. did i mention that i did a soil test over the summer? the test results were positive. i did not have to amend the soil. this was surprising to me because the soil is ancient. at this time of year i am supposed to be planning what to plant for next year but i’m taking a break. the only thing planned for next year so far is garlic, arugula, and nasturtiums because deer don’t eat those plants.
nasturtium seeds on the left. arugula seed pods on the right. arugula was popular with the neighbors!
everything written by this author i like.
everything this author writes i like.
i probably won’t post again until the new year. this sentiment exactly to you.
the last eggplants (the round one is rosa bianca) of the season. i think i failed on the fall kale bed, but maybe it will surprise us? It’s 54 degrees today and beautiful. frost has been happening in the mornings!
next season i need to plant more potatoes. it is so fun and easy! this summer i only planted fingerlings. this was taken last week. this week has been rainy and i’ve been dividing some perennials and cutting some things back and getting ready for fall. my tiny tomatoes and eggplants are still producing. the nights are getting chillier and the skunks are about! i have been freezing herbs. i made a lot of pesto and i’m running out of freezer space. i planted some kale seeds last week. i’ll report back in October!
first of our ‘Little Fingers’ eggplant amongst our tiny tomatoes. i cooked up the eggplant in some homemade sauce last night.
this was a surprise when I was making a batch of pesto! I think this is Ruby Tiger moth caterpillar. at first i thought it was a woolly bear. I put it back with the basil because there is enough for more pesto making.
cosmo with a tiny bee.i’m trying to find out if this is a ground cherry and if I can eat it. I’ve been pulling this as a weed every year. it usually pops up between me and the neighbor’s fence. It’s in the nightshade family.
monarch on the joe pye weed. on this day there were so many bees on the flowers. i love this plant.
for eileen 