Thinking Fall

Summer is winding down, but my schedule isn't. I was away all weekend visiting my youngest daughter (which was wonderful) and when I got back I was shocked to see how bad my garden looked. Not in three days, in all honesty. We've had storms in the evenings, or I've had things to do, and when you only have weekends to get out there, things can fall apart quickly.
However, I did use a spare hour or two last weekend to clean up some spent plants, add some manure and plant some fall crops.
This weekend the seedlings have come up.

These are snow peas. They will climb the fence behind them. In the middle of this bed I planted lettuces, which are coming up now, and radishes in the front, also sprouting.

This bed has turnips coming up.  I still need to plant kale, more lettuce and pak choi. This coming weekend is a family wedding, so I don't know how much time I'll have then, and then it's Labor Day weekend! How can that be? Summer zoomed by!

A pleasant surprise waiting for me when I returned was this gerbera daisy blooming in the concrete planter in the center of the Potager. I left that plant in there all summer hoping it would re-bloom at some point.
One bit of loveliness in a whole garden of messiness. I have my work cut out for me this week!
Before and after photos to come!

Seedling Update

Just to keep up to speed on what's growing inside, these are the onion seeds I planted on January 22. They are about 5 inches tall and are looking healthy. I had to make a decision at this point whether to pot them up individually or leave them in the flat until I plant them outdoors. I decided it would be less stressful to leave them in the flat. These are Spanish Yellow onions.

That same day I planted scallions - Evergreen and Red Baron. None of the Red Baron germinated. The seeds were two years old. I know better now. Onion seeds don't keep.
This is what the Evergreen look like today.

I find it funny that several still have their seed "hats".

Both the onions and the scallions will be moving to the Potager at the end of the month. They are in a sunny window in my guest room/sewing room with no heat on. I'll harden them off in a few weeks.

Sharing the cold room with them are the broccoli seedlings. Aren't they adorable? They will be thinned out when they get their second set of leaves.
I planted these on President's Day, Feb. 21.

To the left of them are the Red Globe onions I also planted on President's Day.

They are growing nicely.

In the bay window in my living room, I have the warm room seedlings. In the foreground are Black Beauty Eggplant and behind them Rosa Bianco Eggplant. Both were started on March 1, but the Rosa Bianco took a bit longer to germinate. Only three of them have sprouted.

This sad little seedling is one of two lavender seeds that have sprouted from my sowing on February 26th. I tried lavender a few years ago and had no luck. I have also winter sown a bunch out in the yard. I'm hoping a few will make it to a plantable stage.

The Delphinium I started on the 26th has not sprouted at all and is still in the heated cabinet, along with my peppers. I planted King of the North Bell Pepper, California Wonder Bell Pepper and Jalapeno M Peppers on the 5th of March.

They should be making an appearance later this week.

I really need to plant some cabbage tonight. I should have done that last week. So little time, so much to do! I need to quit working full time and garden full time!

"I'm not really a career person. I'm a gardener, basically."-- George Harrison

Still Harvesting

Today's Harvest: Bright Lights Swiss Chard!

Beautiful colorful Swiss Chard. Mine is much smaller than those you see in the grocery store. It has been surviving the frosts, but not growing much, so I decided to harvest it. A very heavy frost will kill it.

When you buy Chard in the store, the stems are thick and a bit tough. Mine were thin and tender and they cooked up very quickly.

You start preparing Chard by cutting the stems separately from the leaves. With mine, I only had to chop to the leaves. With store bought I usually take the whole stem out of the leaves to chop separately.

The leaves are roughly chopped separately. Make sure you have washed your chard thoroughly. This is one of those sandy greens! Do not dry the leaves - the water clinging to them will be the cooking water later on.

I sliced a shallot thinly (because I had a shallot in my pantry - an onion would also work) and chopped up a clove of garlic.

The stems are then sauteed in a bit of olive oil with the shallot until the shallot starts to turn yellow and the stems are almost tender.

The garlic is then added for a minute or two (don't brown the garlic!).

The roughly chopped leaves are then added and tossed with the pan ingredients to wilt. Add salt and pepper to taste and let them cook with a lid on in the steam from the water still clinging to the leaves until tender. This will not take long.

Yummy Swiss Chard! If you have never tried it, I encourage you to do so. And if you have never grown it - make sure it's in your garden next year!

Seedlings and Caterpillars

It was chilly in my garden yesterday - in the 40's when I went out to work in it! I hope we don't have an early frost!
The radishes I planted between the carrots are looking good. These are a blend of Black Spanish, Cherry Belle, China Rose, Easrly Scarlet, French Breakfast, Long Scarlet, Minowase, Sparkler, White Hailstone and White Icicle. It's fun to see what you get when you pull one up.

These are purple top turnips.

I pulled out the dill and put in lettuce. Now I have a bunch of dill seedlings growing with the lettuce!

Dill is one of those plants you only have to plant once!

I stuck some mint at the edge of the woods and it looks good. Mint is too invasive to keep in the garden. The deer and rabbits don't eat it, so it will flourish here.

And just when I thought the asparagus I had transplanted was dead, this little sprout appeared.
I hope the frost holds off until he grows a bit bigger.
I'm not sure what the Asparagus bed will look like next year.

Cabbage -- not so good. I need to find a way to keep the bugs out of these. They are starting to form heads, but the heads are full of bug scat and holes. Yuk! Not just the green caterpillars but also these brown guys. They are ruining my crop! I spend most of my time picking them off lately. And all the gardening books said cabbage was an easy crop to grow!

The parsley has caterpillars too, but these will turn into Black Swallowtail Butterflies. They are different from the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillars the parsley had before (which got eaten by birds!)
There are three of them. Maybe I should put a netting over them to help protect them.
Why don't the birds eat the cabbage moth caterpillars?

Thinking Fall

I can't believe it is the last week of August already.
The summer flew by.
It is time to think about the fall garden.

Since the eight-ball zucchini bit the dust, I removed it and added 5-10-5 fertilizer to the soil.

In this space I planted to the right, Golden Beets, Tall Top Early Wonder Beets and Detroit Dark Red beets. These are all old seeds, so I'm hoping they will come up.
I planted Swiss Chard Bright Lights in the center, and Purple Top Turnips to the left. The turnip seeds are also old seeds.

The cabbage plants I impulse bought at Lowes two weeks ago are looking good, in spite of the fact that the day I planted them, cabbage moths were fluttering around them. (Do they just hang out waiting for someone to plant cabbage?) I haven't seen any egg masses yet.

As for the Asparagus in the future lawn, most of it has been moved to a berm of soil behind the garden. Deer and rabbits don't like Asparagus, so this should be okay. When he has a minute, my husband will build a box around the plants and we'll fill it in properly.
They seem to be doing fine. I know it was totally the wrong time of year to transplant them, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Homegrown Asparagus is so much better than store bought!
Binx doesn't care for Asparagus, he just likes walking around the garden with me!