boo!

This isn't my garden, but its a nice one.

skippy

Just another dog-in-the-garden picture today. This picture is from yesterday. Today is wet. A driving rain and lots of wind. Dark. It seems like the sun never came up. But nice and warm - in the 60's.

more pictures of skip

marigolds: what's not to like

Tagetes erecta (African marigold) and Tagetes patula (French marigold) - they may be one of my favorite flowers (one of about 8,000). I just love the smell of them. To me it is very strong. A bitter, pungent, distinctive smell. It goes great with the smell of tomato plants. The only thing I dislike is too many of them in one place.

still growing

No frost last night. We went down to 35 degree F.

vegetable garden view

I took this picture at dusk after I'd covered everything for a cold night.

aerial views of my home vegetable garden

still more pole beans

I went to take down these pole beans yesterday and found many beans still on the vine. New small ones coming along too. I picked enough for a good meal and we ate them last night. So I left the vines up. It seems like a very late season to me. I don't have any gardening records, so I can't really compare. But I hear about snow and cold weather elsewhere in the US. It seems late for Boston to be still growing beans with no frost yet. Our forecast is for cold tonight and the next several days. So our frost is probably just around the corner. I'll cover-up the lettuce tonight.

Fabaceae

planting garlic

I've never planted garlic before, but noticed others with on-line garden journals were doing this now. I found a site with real simple instructions. All I had was my cooking garlic, so I will see how this works. I picked out about 30 big cloves. Maybe the variety will not be right for my area. I put it where my squash was and where I planted lettuce seeds a few weeks ago - only one or two lettuce seedlings came up.

Allium sativum

soil sample and winter rye

I mailed out a soil sample from my vegetable garden today for pH, nutrient, heavy metal and organic matter testing. I'm really interested to see how far off the nutrients are. Too much phoshate and low pH, I'm guessing. I also have a photo here of my winter rye sprouts. They're coming up fast.

topic: soil test

belmont victory gardens

I was surprised to find this community garden today. Some still growing their last crops of the year. Some with dried old tomato stalks and rotted fruit on the ground. Some with freshly tilled soil ready for next year. Some with weeds and debris. Many birds were gathering seeds: chickadees, bluejays, blackbirds, a phoebe. It's amazing what people use for edging and plant supports. Skippy and I enjoyed wandering through the maze of paths.

communitygardening
Belmont Victory Garden

october lettuce

My lettuce is happy. I have little patches of it here and there in the garden. We had some rain yesterday and the droplets looked pretty on the leaves. I have been planting lettuce seeds every few weeks all summer. The mid-summer seedings did nothing - not even any sprouts. Now it is growing. I guess it likes the cool weather. So far we haven't even had a frost in my yard. When we do, I'll do my best to cover the lettuce and see if it will last a while yet.

Lactuca sativa

the green tomatoes are ripening

It seems like the tomatoes are ripening really fast. I brought them upstairs today to take out the red ones. Lots of them. The green ones are going back to the basement.

tucked in for a frost

I found some gardening fabric in my garage from some previous project, so I went ahead and covered all of my plants last night. I pulled apart some thin wire edging fences and used them as hoops. Scattered frost was predicted for the Boston area, but as it turned out, my garden did not frost. The lowest I saw on my thermometer (7 am) was 37 degrees F.

the end of tomato season

We have a frost warning in our area for tonight, so I harvested all of the tomatoes and pulled up the vines. I picked all of the tomatoes: green, pinkish and red. There were quite a lot of them hidden under the leaves out there. Its a chilly day here, in the 50s, with no breeze. The cold air that left the midwest under a lot of snow is moving our way. No snow for us, thank goodness! The Boston area may or may not frost tonight, but the tomatoes aren't growing any more anyway, so I'm taking them down today. I'll put the tomatoes in the basement to ripen. I'll put them in smaller containers, so they don't squish each other as they ripen. And I'll put a paper bag over them. Then I have to remember to check them regularly as I in past years I have forgotten them and ended up with a mess. I expect about half will eventually ripen - all of the ones with a tiny bit of pink showing. The rest I will probably compost.

Solanum lycopersicum

happy squirrel

This squirrel thought it was really nice of me to scatter winter rye seed for him. He digs little holes all through the garden to get at the big juicy seeds. He doesn't seem to mind that big metal thing there either. "Scarecrow? I'm not a crow!" When he's done the sparrows take over the feast. This happens every year. Usually I get a good winter rye cover crop to come up even with all the critters.

Late autumn garden

I've started picking things up in preparation of winter. I pulled up the cucumber vines and put away their trellis. I pulled up the basil roots and removed the old bean plants and old lettuce. Not much is left. Mostly just the tomatoes and pole beans to remove when we get a frost warning. In the bed that is empty, I scattered winter rye as a cover crop for the winter. This will add nutrients and will look nice over the winter. I also put up my rusty old metal scarecrow. The little gnome is still out there. I moved him into a patch of red and yellow chard and young lettuce that I planted in early September, in hopes it will keep growing for a while yet.