On October 30, my Monkshood suddenly decided to bloom. It was pretty cold, I had decided it was too chilly to bike to work, but we had not yet had a frost, so I suppose it was fair game. I am hoping this is not going to be its usual pattern because it is pretty risky waiting until the end of fall to bloom in Montreal. It is still in good company, one of my giant dahlias has a bud on it still, and the sedums and black-eyed susans nearby in the front yard are still going along with the last stragglers of the cosmos. My dusty millers which I thought were annuals last year came back and are doing better than ever as the days get colder. The centauras started to bloom again. My annuals, the lobelias and begonias and nasturtiums, pansies and sage are still in bloom but nothing is looking at its peak except the lobelias which keep on smiling.
I have continued to harvest lettuce, tomatoes, raspberries, green onions and mint, as well as the odd strawberry and hot pepper. I decided not to bring the peppers indoors, after the first one I brought in promptly shed all its leaves and died despite being directly under my grow light. I gave up. They are still slowly producing peppers outside.
The forecast for last night was -5 so we decided today would be the day to finish the harvest, clean up the garden and plant the garlic. I had put aside all the big heads of garlic for planting. Although this means that we will be running out of home grown garlic within the next few weeks, this is the first year that we are planting garlic grown in our own garden. We planted 240 cloves, and some of them were really huge. Some of the heads had only two giant cloves (I had not expected that). Following Jas and Gu's recommendation, we put a heaping spoon of bone meal in each hole with the garlic. I updated my garden map with the areas we planted the garlic written in . A big thank you to my friend Lorena who decided to help us out and planted garlic for her first time ever. We will be sure she gets to enjoy it next summer.
We have run into some difficulties with finding hay. Our friend Jack has supplied us for the past few years, but his source, a neighbour whose barn burned down, is not able to provide us anymore. Most farmers are no longer making small square bales, and the big round rolls are difficult to transport long distances unless one has a very large open truck. So far, no hay. We have enough hay from the bales we just dismantled today, the ones in which we grew tomatoes, for use in our composter for the winter and to cover the newly planted garlic, but come spring we will need a new source, or a big truck.
I can't believe our raspberries are still going. I forgot to pick them today, so if it does freeze overnight I have decided to pick them tomorrow frozen and pop them directly in the freezer.
Josh and I picked what was left of the tomatoes. We found a few that were orange that I had missed on Friday, and salvaged the nicer looking green ones that looked like they might be close to turning. The rest, those that were immature, very green or spotted from bacteria went into a big bucket and are staying outside overwinter.
We then took down the cages and dismantled and cleaned and stacked them for the winter. We left a large pile of dismembered tomatoes plants in the middle of the yard to break into smaller pieces and compost. I then opened up the two compost bins which have been sitting waiting to be ready. One was full of the end-of-season detritus from last year's garden, mostly tomato plants, which I had left for a full year. The bin was one-quarter full of soft, fluffy, fine earth which I raked over one patch of the newly planted garlic. The other bin was the one which we left to decompose last spring, which held our kitchen scraps from November to May. This one was about half full, and not fully composted. It doesn't smell much, but is still goopy and a bit harder to rake out. We spread that compost over the other patch of garlic.
Taking apart the hay bale, Josh found the wasp nest (all empty, no problem) as well as a bunch of potatoes which I missed on my first careful fumblings through the bales which at the time held a lot of live wasps. I suspected I may have missed some.
Our lack of hay may upset our plans to plant on bales next year again. We will keep you posted as to our developments. If you know a supply of hay and a means to transport it to Montreal for a reasonable cost, please let us know.
This is what I harvested on October 31. I have never had such variety so late in the season!
Josh planting garlic
The broccoli is still producing small flowerettes so we are letting it continue on a small patch of hay.
My calendulas don't seem to mind the cold weather and keep on blooming.
Josh trimmed the lilacs and we now have to get rid of branches, as well as compost that big pile of tomato plants. I also have to dig up the dahlias and canna roots for next year. My cannas never flowered this year, nor did my small dahlias, but the giant ones did beautifully. We still have some work to do before we shut down for the winter.
Just after my last post, we had a light frost which would have killed the tomatoes. My heartier plants, like the broccoli, monk's hood, dahlias, and nasturtiums kept on putting out new buds, as did my last remaining sunflower. The periwinkles woke up and started to bloom too. We had weather hovering around zero since then, with some light snow that did not last on the ground. Last night the temperature plunged and today we woke up with the lawn covered in snow, and the cannas looking worse for the wear. The monk's hood is still in bloom. Who knew it was so hearty?
I popped the last of the broccoli plants into the compost, not expecting the tiny florets to grow much more without cold frames.
We are still looking for a supplier of hay. I have sent messages to all my country-living friends within a short range of Montreal asking to look out for neighbours who have supplies and are willing to deliver.
Gardening season draws to a close. Its been a good one despite the erratic weather.
