fall garden

In what might be termed a last gasp of futility, I fertilized the red peppers and tomatoes last weekend. With a kind of Pollyannish determination, I am trying to will my plants to produce one more harvest before the frost comes. The last batch was quite good, and so I was fairly convinced that an early November harvest might be possible.

This would be harmless except that it kept two large double rows occupied. Meanwhile, the arugula and radishes have sprung up. I am already enjoying a daily harvest of arugula which, combined with the last of my cherry tomatoes, are producing lunch-time salads. Delightful salads. With two more rows available, I could have another variety of chard, perhaps some more greens, carrots and radishes, and a welter of lettuces. And fennel. I'm sitting on a bag of fennel seeds that I really want to get into the ground.

And now we've had two unseasonably cold nights, dipping below freezing. I may be Pollyanna when it comes to my garden, but I'm not the village idiot. They are going to be mealy, and there is no real point in keeping them.

So they have another two days. On Saturday I will perform the massacre of red hill. I will leave the volunteer tomatoes in (they take up no real room, but will pull all the big plants. Then I'll prepare the beds and lay seed.

In my newly planted rows the chard is slow to rise. Coming much faster are several volunteer squash plants. Hopefully the vine borers are all dead from the cold.

Fertilizing the garden

Fertilized the garden. Yesterday. It has been tough to get to this because it has been so wet. Everything is coming along fine, although I lost a branch on a pepper plant. Too heavy, I s'pose. The squash borer is slowly threatening my summer squash plant, although I have now gotten at least six squash from it and more are coming. We've made one casserole and grilled up the rest. So I can't really complain.

You can kind of see one pepper that is ripening here

The tomatoes continue to sit, and the fruit is not ripening. This is the coldest, wettest summer I've seen since I moved to Atlanta. Whoever thought I would complain about rain! The upside is that I haven't turned a hose on in weeks.

The sunflower my daughter grew. It stands ten feet tall now

Lettuce

The Whoppers Are coming in

Fertilized the garden today. 2 gallons of fertilizer went on the blueberries and the tomato plants. Also fertilized the begonias and the summer squash.

The summer squash is beginning to come in. The plant looks healthy. My lettuce is producing beautifully. Enjoy it while it lasts--my best is that two weeks more is about as much lettuce as I will get.

Tomato report. The transplants all did quite well. Only the Juliette cherries did not survive. I'm not sure what happened, except that the stalk broke at its base. Given that the plant was not top heavy, I have no idea what precipitated this. I staked the plant immediately, but it is worth pointing out that none of the other plants required staking at this point. The leaves have all since wilted, but the stalk still appears to be alive. I'm monitoring it daily.

The Black Cherries were the first to fruit. That planter has always produced beautiful tomato plants, with thick, Jack-and-the-beanstalk-style trunks and multiple vines that I train up the light pole (and whatever plant grows around it).

The Whoppers and the Beefy Big Boy plants are beginning to bear fruit. They are quite pretty, and my guess is that we are three weeks from potential harvest here.

Planting dilemma. The lettuce will doubtlessly bolt sometime in June. I have to decide whether to let the space remain fallow until the winter garden is planted, or try and bring up something else in the meantime.

Finishing the Rows

Today I laid out the rest of Maia's plot.

Juliet Tomatoes and Max's Wild Cherries.

Chives (still flowering from last year); Matilda butter lettuce and red arrowhead lettuce; gentry summer squash

Diva -- Jade -- Diva cucumbers -- Matilda butter lettuce -- red arrowhead lettuce -- tomatillo.

I mixed black cow and my homemade compost into the rows and topped them with Miracle Grow Garden Soil. The soil quality doesn't look perfect, so we will see. I added some blood meal along the top, fertilized it all right off the bat and mulched the whole thing. Now I will let benign neglect bring the fruits in.