I have great guilt over my garden this year. In some ways, it was the best garden yet. But then, I suspect that every gardening year is a little better than the last. In other ways though, it was my worst garden.
I say this because while it produced more and had a variety of things to offer, most of them were store bought.
I worked long hours this year and didn’t have the time I had the year before to give to my garden. So instead of nurturing along seedlings, I bought a lot of my vegetable plants and put them in the ground. There is nothing wrong with this method. In fact, I got a number of green peppers and a whole lot of habaneras using this method. The only thing wrong with this method was that I really didn’t care about my store bought plants. I should have. I spent more money on them, therefore I literally had a vested interest in weather they lived or died. But I didn’t. At least, not as much as I did for my volunteer cherry tomato plants. So a lesson learned. I prefer to grow my veggies from seed.
I’m specifying veggies here, because when it comes to flowers, I want instant gratification. There were a few flowers I grew from seed though. One was my Cosmos. I had great success with those. The other were my Larkspur. Or possibly my Snapdragons. I can’t remember what I planted!! In August I decided to plant some carrots for a fall harvest and while I was at it, I threw one of those seed packets into the planter next to the carrots. I have carrots that still aren’t quite the size they should be (should have done my fall planting in July), growing quite happily despite a number of freezing nights and one snowfall, as well as this flower. It bloomed late and still has a few beautiful little blooms on it. I was one of the few people in town who had something other than mums blooming at Halloween!
I would definitely recommend doing a fall planting. Instead of getting depressed that everything is winding down for the year, you still have something to look forward to come Thanksgiving. Or even Christmas! If you can get them out of the frozen ground.
Today temps were quite warm and the containers actually thawed. This was wonderful for me because I was able to redeem myself with my tulip bulbs. They’ve been sitting in dry dirt in my unheated front porch waiting to be planted.
I have good reason for waiting so long. First, I didn’t want to give the squirrels another gourmet meal of tulip. Second, the weather can’t make up its mind. It would start to get cool, so I’d start to plan on planting the tulips. Then it would get warm. Then when it finally stayed cool, the ground was frozen. Well, all’s well that ends well. The tulips are planted, the pots are finally put away, and the iris’ are transplanted to in-the-ground by the clematis. Also, I’m proud to say, one of my little birdie friends has come back to my feeder. I hope to seem again and again throughout the winter, even though the protection of the morning glory vine is gone.
( Taken today)
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