The End?

The last 3 days were in the 60's & 70's. A front moved in bringing rain as I type. Temps are suppose to drop 25 degrees and tomorrow is predicted to be in the 40's with the possibility of a killing frost Monday night. The tomatoes were done. I picked the few large green ones I had missed, tore down the tomato frames and canvassed the garden for last harvests. Looks like the last Maple leaves are coming down with the pelting rain.

I prepped the last Mustard Habanero for winter culture. I postponed it a week as a Garden Spider, which we rarely have, had taken up residence in it.

Step 1: Pull up the plant. Have a suitable pot and compost handy.

Step 2: Trim the plant WAY back. 

Step 3: Label and water. I use paint stirrers for labels.

Step 4: Harvest any fruit from the cut stems and place the pot in the basement under shop lights for the winter.

beautiful, albeit unripe, Mustard Habs

I bought 3 Peruvian Daffodil bulbs this spring. I hadn't grown them before. They made a nice, white, aromatic flower. The foliage didn't do much but sag the rest of the summer, but it was incredibly tolerant of my lack of attention to it whilst making it through the miserable summer of heat and drought. I'm bringing it in. The plan is to treat it much like an Amaryllis and ignore it for the winter. 

Peruvian Daffodil

I found that my sedum had produced clones at the nodes of the stem. I snipped the stems off and cut it in segments, separating 2 or 3 nodes. I placed each segment on top of soil and sprinkled some sand around it. Most of them had small roots already emerging. I'm hoping to have a lot more sedum from this technique next year. I placed them in the cold frame on the back porch.

New sedum propagation method

Who knows how this winter will go, but if it is anything like last year the cannas should make it. I'm taking a risk by protecting them in pots outdoors this year. Experimentation. The chickens promptly found my little tent of plants alluring and Rosa laid an egg in one of the pots.

Overwintering Cannas in pots under plastic outdoors. 

Experiment.

Last of the scallop squash.

Casserole fixings from the garden: chard, dill, onions, peach habaneros, scallop squash

Protecting tender Black & Blue Salvia

Protecting Salvia leucantha- Mexican Bush Sage. 

Not sure if this is going to work

Last of the Eggplant

Last of the maters

about 12lbs

Pickled 6 1/2 Quarts of Peach Habaneros

from my brother's garden

The chard is doing very well.

le jardin in November

Pears, hazelnuts & lettuce from the garden

Rest well Garden 2012.

Fall Bulb Planting

The bulbs were tucked in a couple of weeks ago, but I'm just now getting to documenting. This year's order was motivated by the intent to raise the driveway/parking area bed another tier. The landscaping blocks are around 4 inches high, which meant I wouldn't have to "plant" the bulbs, but rather lay them on top of the previous soil and just dump soil on top of them to raise the soil level to the needed 4 plus inches of the new height.

This is my bulb order from Van Engelen Inc:
100 Chionodoxa gigantea (about 1/2 were planted in the driveway bed)
250 Crocus- Grand Collection
10 Muscari Ambrosiacum
10 Muscari macrocarpum Golden Fragrance
100 Muscari Magical Mix (whites & blues)
50 Hyacinthoides non-scripta (English Bluebells- planted in the Woodland Garden)

First thing I did was rest the Muscari (grape hyacinth) in an undulating pattern on top of the pre-existing soil. Previously I had covered the old bed with bone meal. Next I sprinkled a layer of compost over these bulbs so I could see where my pattern was in order to lay the next bulbs (crocus & chionodoxa) around this pattern. 

The compost was pretty hot. I hope it didn't harm the bulbs.

Compost from St Louis Composting.

Here you can see the crocus bulbs planted right on top of last year's mulch. I planted everything pretty thick. I'm hoping for a nice spring display.

Topped with compost. 

This was by far the easiest bulb "planting" I have ever done. Now this just needs a topping of mulch and the final layer of landscaping blocks. 

Looking forward to the results in Spring 2013!