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.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's okay, I'm behind too. :) We'll catch up eventually, or else we won't and will just make more plans for next spring!
- Karen
http://greenwalks.wordpress.com

Jill of All Trades said...

Glad to have you back.

Stacy said...

Do the radishes actually work in discouraging the cucumber pests?

Elizabeth said...

Karen, I'm already thinking about Spring! :)

Jill, it's good to be back.

Stacy, they seemed to discourage them. I saw a total of one cucumber bug on the cucumber plants this year, and saw very few squash bugs in the garden. So either the radishes helped or my cucumbers were lucky.

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