Cleaning up the garden is always bittersweet for me. After our recent day of snow, sleet and rain, I thought I should find out what was left and what I could harvest.
I have hopes of a few more peppers from this hardy plant.
It turned out there were lots of peppers and tomatoes, a few green beans, which I ate tonight, and some peas. After I harvested, except for one hardy pepper plant, I cleaned the beds out. Since the remaining basil had turned black, I took that out as well.
I have arugula and some mixed lettuces yet. In addition, there are carrots coming on and I’m very pleased with the progress of the garlic.
Garlic and lettuces growing in the same bed. Arugula lower left.
I only planted twelve this fall, so it’s important that they all come up and survive. The chard is much happier than it was in August and I harvested some of it for eating this week.
Happy chard.
Once we’re into fall, there are fewer flowers for cutting. I now have rose blossoms and rose hips within inches of each other on the same plant.
Lower right, you can glimpse the neighboring garden's rhubarb, too...
The cosmos are thriving and the calendula actually like cold weather, so I may have them for a while. Still, the flowers are pretty thin, but adding Artemisia silver king, and rosemary clippings gives me a reasonable bouquet.
Staving off paying for flowers...
I’ll have to pull weeds and lay some more mulch before too long so the garden can rest and rejuvenate in the winter. Maybe I can get to that by Thanksgiving. Then there will only be a couple months of garden withdrawal before I can start planning for the next one…
