Friday, October 14, 2011

Compromise

Today was all about compromise

I've been putting the garden tour off
The last time I looked everything was Beautiful!
Really Beautiful.  That late summer was several 
Sept. weeks of warmth and the plants responded.

But now cold nights and wet days and I didn't want to look

BUT I DID

It's normally the time I get the garden ready for
winter and plant the garlic and winter lettuce

BUT there were humming birds and stray bees wanting
to dip into the remaining flowers.
So I Compromised.

I pulled enough plants, off  to the compost,
and planted the Garlic and Shallots
And I left all the plants that were still flowering. 
It will be a lot of work,
taking plants out as they succumb
but some of the pleasure of
having a garden is sharing it.

So here is today's garden mid Oct. 
What an odd year!

 Garlic in the brown areas, sweet peas in back



Very tasty kale 

Can you believe these flowers?

This is one of my hints for odd year success
When I saw how cold it remained during the summer 
I waited and finally in late July I put in as many zucchini 
plants as I could fit in the box.  I got lucky, Aug and Sept
had a lot of warmth and I got tons of squash.  I never do 
but by taking a risk and putting in so many plants I enjoyed 
both yellow and green zucchini!  I picked three more today

The tomatoes have been in the garden all summer 
Early July on. 
Now these cherry tomatoes are nearly the lovely
Gold I hoped for .  Will they make it....I doubt it
There are tons of these. 
Always a mistake for me to
plant tomatoes.

That's a pea bloom and still some peas, they went all summer it was so cool
and on the right are my sun gold beans.  Finally the pole beans get going

As families began to cook their dinners, I could smell it in the breeze
I was out dumping three potato cans.  
A pitiful year.
Half of what I would usually get. 
In the 1990's I had several years without
any potatoes so I shouldn't complain

Really the one easy plant I always get
good harvest from is garlic. 
You must learn how the season of garlic works
and then you will always get plenty!

So on the garden goes...It still is very pretty but fading fast.

yes I took these photos today Oct 13
Click on the photos to enlarge and get a good peek

Saturday, October 1, 2011

it's getting colder

Do you feel it?  
It's getting colder.
Fall is here.
This is when you harvest smaller veggies with the idea
they won't grow much now that it is colder.

Tonight I took a stroll through the garden to collect dinner
The air was chill and there was a breeze, I could feel the excitement
of the seasons to come.
Here is what I collected on my garden walk
pretty red kale, purple carrots, white carrots peas..wow
broccoli, purple, yellow and green green beans, chard with it's 
lovely deep pink stem, two fun onions.

Parsley, three kinds of thyme, oregano, rosemary,

 some perfectly sized yellow and green zucchini


And sweet peas for the table! 



one hour later.....vegetable soup....yummy 
No recipe needed!