We had our first frost warning of the season last weekend, which is about normal for this area. No actual frost in my yard, but it was enough to make me cover the beds and reflect on one of the few benefits of having a tiny garden- it’s small enough to cover with old bed sheets and a single bundle of row cover. I still remember trying to spread giant tarps over the raspberry patch when I was a kid, at the direction of my mother, who understandably wanted to keep that last taste of summer going as long as possible. But why she had to wait until it was dark every night to tell us that there was a frost warning and we needed to cover the raspberries, is a mystery I will probably never solve.
In any case, my little garden is still chugging along despite the cooler weather, and I’m hoping for another week or so of mildness, to give some of the last tomatoes and peppers a chance to ripen. I put in a row each of carrots, peas, and lettuce about a month ago, and I think they’ve established themselves well enough that they’ll come up early next spring if I mulch them over the winter. I’m also curious to see whether the cardoon comes back up- it’s a relative of the artichoke, and supposed to be perennial in zones south of me, but maybe not in this one. We’ll see.
It’s been a weird season, weatherwise. We usually have rain until June, then it stops raining and is hot and muggy until September. Sometimes we’ll get a bit of rain in the late fall, but by then, it’s usually snow. This year, the temperatures were fairly normal, maybe a little cooler than average, and the rain kept coming until August. I’ve only had to water the garden for a few stretches, instead of doing it all summer. Very strange, and I think the trees are confused, because here we are in the second week of October, and the leaves haven’t even started to change color. I don’t mind; my mom passed her love of summer to me, and it’s kind of nice to look out the window and see green trees in October.
Winter is definitely on its way, just taking its time. My horse is getting fuzzy, the corn is drying and ready to harvest, and there’s a decided nip in the air in the mornings. Soon it’ll be time to turn the heat on.
How does your garden grow? What are your plans for fall?- autumn, I mean, not the fall of civilization. That’s another discussion entirely.
Mad Genius Club 
9 responses to “The Garden Still Grows”
Fingers crossed for your veggies 🙂
Plans for fall? Finish catching up on work after being out last week. Publish next book. Write its sequel, and a short story that ties in with them. Figure out what I’m making for family Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and holiday luncheon at work.
Finally had time to check on Ferocious Attack Rose, which has a bunch of tiny, bright pink buds and some full-blows flowers in lighter pink going on.
Having survived weeks of 100* plus temps, it’s hard to say if the tomatoes will produce again. In any case, it’s time to weed, and think about a fall garden. Or maybe just bring in piles of stuff to compost and dig in next spring
Set the sprinkler system to run in the back yard nightly. The tree has leaves on two of its main branches, but looks like a bunch of the limbs are dead. Partial victory. We shall see.
And need to get foundation work done which may mean it ends up having to come up anyways. So, again we shall see.
I’m planting plugs of native flowers for the bees and caterpillars. I’ve figured out that the deer don’t eat native iris, so I’ve got 50 plugs of iris cristata for the unfenced front yard. (Pollinators like their flowers massed together, don’t you know. Also, massing heightens the repellent effect on deer.) Half of the iris are in. Half to go.
I’m going to move the blue woodland phlox that the deer munch down every spring to the fenced back yard. I like to plant and transplant in the fall so I can do less watering. If I get really energetic, I’m going to move some ostrich fern around to strengthen a buffer between my yard and one of the neighbors, who has a lot of invasive Japanese pachysandra that keeps trying to come my way. I already have 75 plugs of hayscented fern guarding that border, but more is more.
TL, DR: I’m continuing to work on habitat that can be transplanted intact for terraforming another planet when someone gets around to pursuing that particular activity.
Now if only you could guarantee the terraforming plans *didn’t* include deer.
I have colonists still pissed that the terraforming included mosquitoes.
We just needs wolves. And maybe mountain lions. It’s not so much that the predators kill and consume some percentage of the deer (although that helps, of course) as that the predators keep the deer moving so they don’t overgraze everything.
I’ve been thrilled to find that although the deer browse the calico aster all summer, they a) make it look more tidy, and b) it blooms in fall! Bees love it.
I just moved, so I’m unpacking boxes. My first storage pod arrived today and the movers are coming tomorrow, for the furniture. That’s basically it, for my fall plans.