Saturday, September 20, 2008

Fall Gardening Update

The garden already has lettuce, radish, and sugar snap pea seedlings (plus the transplanted broccoli seedlings from indoors). Tiny things, but they're there!

The yellow pansies we added to the front porch are a welcome splash of color, and the mild weather is allowing our fuchsia plant to make a comeback with lovely, delicate new growth.

On Monday, I will plant two pots of lettuce and two pots of spinach on the front porch.  The Monday after that, I'll plant one or two of each in hanging pots that we can easily keep indoors in the winter (and I guess we'll just keep snipping them until they quit).  I'm getting better about doing successive plantings.  I used to get so excited that I'd just seed everything in one day.

My account was charged for my garlic yesterday, so I'm hoping that means it has shipped.  I will most certainly share photos!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Fall Gardening. Long Time, No Post!

It's been a while since I updated, because I've been preoccupied with other aspects of my life and thinking less about gardening. But today has been quite a gardening day for me.

You see, I'm far overdue for fall gardening. The only thing I really did on time was start broccoli seedlings indoors. But finally spotting tomatoes on one of my brandywine plants yesterday told me I needed to get busy for fall while I still can!

First, I attempted to get the overgrown brandywine on the side of the house to stand up. Very little success, here. I got a few tomato-bearing vines off the ground before the sun started beating down on me and will try to get a few more tomorrow morning. I also trimmed it up a bit, cutting back vines with no fruit or flowers. I probably should have done away with more, but I can't stand to sacrifice any flowers... though I did accidentally break off a vine with two green tomatoes. One is big enough for frying, so that's what I'll do tonight.

Next, I tackled the Square Foot Garden. First order of things was basic clean-up. I pulled weeds, the dead cucumber plants, and the radishes that were there for the sole purpose of fending off cucumber bugs. Then I started hacking away dead tomato limbs and shortening any too-long vines without green tomatoes or promising looking flowers. Both the cherry tomato plant and Genovese are still doing well, but neither brandywine in the garden has produced a single tomato. I am very disappointed. If I don't see any soon, I'll cut them out to let a little more light shine down onto the fall vegetables.

Then I transplanted my broccoli seedlings and covered them with soda pop cloches, and I put in the radish, sugar snap, Swiss chard, and lettuce seeds. I'll do a bit more once shade falls on the garden again, and finish in the morning.

I know I'm rather behind on a couple plants. Mainly, I should have seeded my carrots well before now. I might decide to replace those with something a little faster-growing.

Here is my current fall garden plan:

FallPlans

I have big plans for my pots, as well. I'll have two hanging Red Robins (one is already almost ready to start making tomatoes & the other has been seeded), both of which can be placed in a sunny window once the weather is too cold. There are also several pots, hanging and sitting, in which I'm going to seed lettuce and spinach. They'll be brought inside for a post-freeze harvest.

My garlic bulbs should arrive in the next couple of weeks. Again, a bit behind-schedule... but this is because the grower had a cool growing season rather than because I'm behind... for a change.