End of Summer Gardening

Where did the time go?

This summer has flown by and I can hardly believe it’s gone. Do you ever wonder where the time actually went? When I do, I look at my iphoto files and feel grateful that I take lots of pictures because I have a wonderful visual diary to help jog my memory, but also to remind me how many stories I didn’t get around to telling in this blog. There are simply too many. Still, I’d like to share a few with you about the last couple of months.

In spite of weeds, the garden produced lots of vegetables.

The garden was very successful – more than I thought it would be. Planting seeds or plants is a major leap of faith because there is so much that can go wrong. You can plant too soon and give the seed a ‘cold’ start, you can get too much rain, or not enough. You can come out to the garden to discover huge chunks of bean plants chewed down by wild animals in the night, as I did on several occasions.

Beans, zucchini, brocolli and yellow zucchini.

But the sweetest part of growing vegetables is the resulting steady supply of fresh produce. The home gardener can enjoy a greater variety of texture and flavor because of the broad diversity of seed that you can buy.

The perennials that I planted  just this spring, grew exceptionally well too. I was very lucky to start with large healthy root divisions from the gardens of neighbours.

Joe Pye Weed grows tall.

What I learned from this is that plants that grow well in a nearby garden will also do well in my garden. After all, the plant has already had years to adapt to the soil and weather conditions here and has literally evolved into one that can be successful in this microclimate. It also usually helps to have full sun everywhere!

Tansy kept coming all summer long.

I had trouble finding enough sun for nasturtium in my former shady city garden. These ones seeded themselves from flowers the former house owner grew and they have bloomed like crazy all summer. Yesterday I put some in a pitcher that came with this house and I loved how the afternoon sun lit up the red/orange bloom like a fire! I walk past them everyday outside and thank her for leaving this pretty gift behind. I’ve dispersed some of the seeds to other places in the garden for next year.

Nasturtium.

Larry spent time outdoors this summer stacking an enormous amount of wood for this winter and hopefully for the next one too! It’s a good idea to dry wood for at least a year before it’s burned. This makes the wood burn faster and hotter and reduces the creosote buildup in the chimney.  I think we’ll have some left over firewood for next winter too!

Larry covers the wood pile each time the weather threatens rain.

We’ve got stacked wood and we’ve got lots of blanched beans and zucchini in the freezer and delicious vegetable soup. We’ve got a winter’s worth of garlic and enough extra to plant some out this October for next year.

Garlic is one of the first plants to appear in the spring.

We’ve picked some apples from our old, heritage apple trees and I’ve baked apple cake and pie and added apples to soup and cooked up some applesauce.

Our trees aren't sprayed so the apples need lots of 'editing' and they are small, but very tasty.

We visited local farms to top up the fruit that we aren’t growing and a couple of weeks ago we visited a peach farm and bought a box of sweet, juicy fruit for about $1 per pound.

Peaches are easily skinned by dropping into boiling water for 25 seconds, then plunging into cold.

Afterwards, you can slice them and freeze them on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. When frozen, pop them into a plastic bag and store them in the freezer until you need a peach fix in the winter.

These are red haven peaches.

It was fun to prowl the backroads of the Annapolis Valley in search of harvest gold.

Peaches were hot sellers this summer.

One farm had a little animal farm beside the playground, but the piggy there kept getting out and mingling with the shoppers.

The nights are getting very cool and the tomatoes are still green on the vine and the brussel sprouts still need fattening. However, next year will be a new opportunity to improve the technique and effort. I’ll start the plants sooner and try growing the tender ones, like eggplant,  in a greenhouse.

In the meantime, I am trying to extend the season a little and I’ve started a fall crop of lettuce and spinach in the cold frame for November harvest. This is an experiment for me and if it works, we’ll have some of our own salad greens to eat in a month from now.

The gravel is the floor of the future greenhouse. The black mound is smelly, rotting manure and the coldframe is the white box.

Greens love and tolerate cold weather and are ideal for a cool weather crop. The cold frame has windows and I have a heating coil from an aquarium tucked into the sand cover in case we get extreme cold. I’m excited to see how successful I can be at extending the season.

After 2 weeks the seedlings have sprouted.

This fall and winter, my photos will be reminders of important details like when to plant and progress of growth. Maybe gardening can be a year round pursuit! It certainly will be fun to see how far I can push it.