Yesterday, when I cleaned out the basement, I found my shoe box with dahlia tubers from last fall that I had completely forgotten about. I had not watered them once during the past seven months. Surprisingly, two of the four plants were still alive and showed new, albeit anemic, growth. I planted them in the plot. Yay for more flowers in my garden!
I spent three hours in the garden today. What a beautiful spring day! I pulled some weeds, cleaned my rock & brick collection that I keep at the fence, and weeded out my stakes and supports. I thinned the spinach and the radishes and trellised the peas. I also planted: fingerling potatoes (finally!), more peas, more carrots, more Swiss Chard. I transplanted the cauliflower, parsley and lettuce I bought earlier this week. Towards the fence, I planted dahlias (Star Elite and Rip City), sunflowers, zinnias and cosmos.
I made a second backyard wreath about a week ago for a friend. This time I used thuja, yew and clematis seed heads to decorate the grapevine, plus a tiny brass ornament (the closure of a Christmas cracker). I am having fun with these.
Mums and parsley
Temperatures tonight are supposed to reach 31 degrees. I harvested most of the rest of my tender vegetables tonight: chard, last (green) tomatoes, two last cucumbers, hot peppers, two small eggplants. Still growing: carrots, radishes, leeks, fall greens, arugula, kale, chard, butternut squash.
The last dahlias of the season (perhaps).
I still need to plant garlic, dig up my dahlia tubers and clean my plot to get it ready for the winter. Hopefully I will get to it this weekend or next week.
Dahlias and Virginia Creeper.
I also harvested milkweed seeds today, from three pods total that I found close to the Sam Adams Brewery. I plan to plant them in the neighborhood in the next few weeks.
Milkweed seeds.
Today’s harvest: Swiss Chard, Kentucky Wonder pole beans, tomato, eggplant, dahlias.
The cucumber vine has started to wither. There is a couple more cucumbers still but I am not sure if they will make it. Well, we had a good run for sure. Still growing: tomatoes (winding down), pole beans, eggplant, chard, kale, carrots, leeks, hot peppers, greens, radish, arugula. The last three were just sown a couple of weeks ago, so they are not ready for harvest just yet. I also still have my directly sowed butternut squash. It looks great and has plenty of flowers, but I believe it is too late in the season for it to bear fruit. Alas.
I ordered seed garlic this past weekend: softneck Transsylvania from Burpee. I decided to save a few of my biggest Red Russian heads for planting. This will not happen until late October/early November. I also ordered a ton of bulbs and perennials for fall planting for our front yard (tulips, crocuses, black-eyed Susan).