We had something unheard of last week. Mid-September we had our first frost warning, a full month earlier than I remember ever having. Fortunately in my back yard, it got cold but it did not freeze. I did, however, scramble around after work to get sleeping bags and blankets on the tomato plants, and brought in all the pepper and basil plants which are in pots.
Just before the sudden, untimely plunge in temperature, we had been having an exceptionally hot September. Back to school meant piling into sweltering classrooms (air conditioning is not a basic commodity in our climate, especially buildings not usually in use July and August), and a sudden belated ripening of tomatoes. For two glorious weeks, I was picking a basket of ripe tomatoes daily. Despite Josh's boasts in past years, I have never had that many ripening simultaneously, and usually pick every 2-3 days. We managed to get our first batch of pasta sauce made, and I have been busy pureeing and freezing at a frenzied pace. Then suddenly our late but glorious harvest was slowed to a trickle with plunging temperatures. I am now picking anything moderately orange to ripen indoors. I moved the pots back outside, all but one plant which I missed, a monkeyface pepper. After 4 days indoors, all the leaves started falling off, so I picked the green peppers to ripen off the plant. I still have not figured out why that happens to my peppers.The raspberry plants seem unconcerned with the radical weather shifts and are productive beyond belief right now. The berries are big and sweet and very popular. I hid yesterday's crop so I can share them at our Rosh Hashana family gathering.
I harvested the potatoes. The ones I put in the hay bales did not do as well as the ones that were on the ground directly covered in hay. I think the humidity was too high in the bales, and the potatoes I planted rotted too quickly. My yield was not too impressive but I did get some new red potatoes for the holidays. I harvested carrots yesterday, some nice Nantes ones, which are being served with dinner tomorrow night at my mother's. Isaac helped me pick the highest beans which no one else could reach.
I separated the beans from their pods and they are drying out now for soups and seed stock for next year.
The nasturtiums are doing phenomenal. They have climbed up the sunflowers and spread widely. They are in my most fertile area, right in the middle of the garden, and have huge leaves and flowers everywhere. So much for the advice to put them in crappy soil. .
The tall sunflowers are in bloom now, small heads but many blossoms per stalk like the shorter ones so they make a nice, cheery contrast to the general look of entropy in the garden. The cosmos are still going strong, and the hibiscus looks like it is ready to bloom, if it survives another cold night and frost warning tonight (with a high of 21 and sunny tomorrow, then going up to 27 by the weekend!). My gentians just bloomed (I always forget about them!) and have spread a bit despite tough competition from goosenecked loosestrife and periwinkle.
There are hundreds of green tomatoes which, barring frost, should be ripe by the weekend with more sun and heat coming. And my spring lettuce mix, which I have been selectively harvesting since June, is still going.
I have started thinking about next year. I have decided that we will be starting a new garden patch in the centre of the yard, where we get the most sun. The kids are not doing much playing in the yard at their ages, and we really have not been entertaining heavily. The new patch we started this year was not very productive, even by this year's particular standards.
Gardening in haybales was a mixed experience. For small items like broccoli and basil, it worked fantastic. The tomatoes were amazing but supporting them was a big challenge. We are looking at using very long stakes to make cages that start in the ground below the bales so they remain solid even if the bales don't. Also, I am thinking of using half'-bales so the structure has a lower profile. I also need to give items growing in bales more space because they really do get quite a bit bigger that the same plant in the earth.
Next year, the potatoes are going back into the ground. In fact, some of them, and more than half of the onions, are staying in the ground for another run next year.We managed to get rid of most of the potato bacteria with hydrogen peroxide. Claude said that the same solution will kill off the mildew that covered half of the bee balm (one patch, not the other), as well as the phlox and the peas. I haven't tried, we had a lot of rain recently so I decided it was a losing battle at this point in the season, but I know for next year.
Vanier college started a little gardening project this summer, and small patches of mixed herbs, flowers and vegetables appeared in raised boxes and small beds. I noticed them this summer when my daughters went there for day camp. In the weekly staff newsletter, there was an article about the gardens and a call for donations. What great timing! I was beginning to be concerned about overruns of bee balm, gooseneck loosestrife and dozens of baby columbines cropping up. So last week, I did a bit of culling, and added in some small samples of periwinkle, creeping thyme and bits and pieces of other ground creepers and spreaders, and delivered them to Vanier, as well as gave some care packages to friends starting gardens. I am sure by the spring I will have more to donate, if anyone is interested.
The coyote pee was doing a fine job repelling hungry local mamals until the sunflowers started to go to seed. Despite refreshing the pee containers (not sure refreshing is the right word), the scent of sunflowers must have overpowered all else, and I ended up with a feeding frenzy of squirrels. It turns out the none of the varieties I planted this year had large enough seeds for people to enjoy. I know this from the few quasi ripe heads I managed to rescue, as well as the seeds scattered everywhere on the ground by squirrels. Now I have tons of birds dropping in to snack on the remnants, so maybe I won't have a jungle of sunflowers growing everywhere next spring. 
I also seemed to have gotten a handle on the aphids on the apple and crab apple trees. Not eliminated completely due to my lack of consistency in spraying, but definitely controlled by the soap and baking soda solution. The pepper plants seem unaffected, which is important given I will probably be hauling them all inside again tonight.
We are coming up on the Jewish holidays, and I may be even less available to blog in the coming weeks, not like I have been prolific in writing this year. I thank all of my readers for their patience and devotion to following my rambling thoughts and observations and sharing my joy and wonder as I am starting to feel less like a complete beginner.To all my Jewish readers, I would like to wish you all a very happy, healthy, prosperous and peaceful new year. To all my gardening readers, may you be spared early frost and have a bountiful harvest.
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| From Chloe's garden, a mini-fruit bowl |
