Can you believe summer has already come and gone? I can't. It's been a whirlwind year here with things at work picking up, house updates being done and the garden kicking into high gear. I've stewed, roasted, baked, chopped, steamed, cooked, made bread out of, pickled, and frozen most of my harvests, and even donated some to a local charity. It's been so fun to have huge harvests. My patio garden provided small harvests, but nothing on the scale I've experienced this summer. I've been having a great time with it all.
One of my favorite harvests this year were my Cherokee Purple tomatoes. Not only are they a beautiful color on the outside, but they're gorgeous and meaty on the inside. The flavor is insane, and everyone I fed them to said they were one of the best tomatoes they've ever had. I'll definitely be growing beefsteaks from now on. They take forever but they're so fun to eat!
Almost immediately upon the calendar showing it was now autumn, the temperatures dropped from 90°F during the day to the 70's. Nightime lows went from 65 to 49. I've had to throw an extra blanket on my side of the bed because we wake up in the morning to a 60 degree bedroom temperature. And, it seems like out of nowhere the sun has begun setting just after 7pm, when I swear it was just June and last light didn't occur until almost 10pm.
Currently, the garden is shifting into it's slow-down. The tomatoes are producing but I'm not sure it's warm enough anymore for them to ripen. The beans are about done, and the zucchini, after producing a decent crop, is so covered in powdery mildew, I'm going to have to rip it out. The kale is absolutely massive. The stalks are a few inches thick, and I've been passing it off to anyone that will take it. I won't be planting it again. We don't like it enough to grow it.
The peppers have begun to slow down as well, although the sweet and hot bananas are still producing decently. The hot banana peppers have been the most prolific thing in my garden next to the roma tomatoes and the green beans. We can't eat them, pickle them, or freeze them fast enough. There are SO many. I recommend growing them. They are almost a no fail. They were always the one that worked on my sweltering patio, as well.
We're still getting a fair amount of cucumbers, and a few slooooooow growing golden beets, carrots, and the melons have just started to come in. There are quite a few on the vines that aren't ready yet, so hopefully it stays warm long enough to get them to ripen!
I've planted some lettuce and radish seeds for fall, in hopes of getting a small harvest. The lettuces seem to be working but are still just little sprouts with a few leaves. The radishes don't appear to be ready to show up yet.
The berry patch produced almost all of it's fall flush in late August and September, and is just about done now. Our neighbor's concord grapes that hang on our side are ripe now, and in the evenings when I walk out my kitchen door it smells like grape juice. I wish I liked them enough to eat them. I've tried them plain and they're just too sweet for me. Definitely not a table grape. One of these years, I'll probably try to make some juice.
My flowers are all starting to show signs that they're ready to go to sleep soon, and I've been deadheading the perennial garden to get it ready for winter. Once the garden goes to sleep, we'll be chopping back the flowering quince, and giving it a good dose of a killing chemical so we can keep our basement windows open to light, and as a fire escape. We cut them back last year but didn't put any plant killer on them, and they've come back full force this year.
I've planted some allium bulbs in all the flower beds, along with the huge load of irises I was gifted by my dad, and I'm hoping spring is a giant flush of color everywhere I look.
The only thing really still in bloom right now are my mums. They're just starting to bloom, and I'm hopeful they go wild.
I learned this year that the ground is ready and willing to give our gardens a chance if we will just take the time to plant them. That being said, I also learned that sandy soil will let things grow, but they'll struggle a lot. My garden would've been more prolific in producing veggies if I had brought in a lot of compost.
By early September, my tomatoes were ripening yellow because the plant was starving for nutrients. I didn't do anything but dig up the grass and plant, because I was excited. I'm hopeful that next year, after bringing in garden soil and making it really nutritious for plants, I'll have an insanely successful crop!
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