These pumpkins are not from my garden. I purchased them from a local farm and they are now sitting in my classroom, waiting to be turned into jack-o-lanterns by my students later this month. I’m including them because they are such gorgeous pumpkins and I wanted to have some on this blog, even if my own vines were quite dismal this year. If you’re curious about what’s happening in my garden, here are six things now!
1. I have started cleaning up the unruly stand of weeds and baby plum trees that has been plaguing the view from my kitchen window for years. Before I expanded the vegetable garden, it was just a slight eyesore. With the new row in place, it also became a potential source of weeds and blocked a pathway, so cleanup time it was. As usual, I forgot to take a “before” picture for before/after comparisons until I was well into the task. So to the left, you have a “one-quarter into the process” picture instead. On the right, is the current situation. I will finish pruning the trees in late spring since I didn’t want to make any major cuts to the trees we’re keeping, lest they get fungal infections.
2. I have been ogling this Fiskars ergonomic bulb planter all year. My bulb order arrived this past week and I finally had a reason to purchase it! After destroying two flimsy hand-held bulb planters, I was ready to upgrade. Walking out of the store, I felt like I was carrying a medieval weapon — this thing is a meter long and made of heavy steel. It has enough heft to bludgeon any unsuspecting muggers that might come along…. while you’re planting daffodils in the cutting garden at your house in the countryside. As you do.
3. Whilst pulling weeds and planting bulbs, I found a hiding anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum), winter sown back in January of 2022. I hadn’t seen any sign of them since, so thought that they had all died out. While two little plants aren’t a very impressive survival rate, I’m happy that they’re there and hope that they come back stronger next year.
4. In perhaps an even more dismal showing than the agastache, here is the single nicotiana that actually survived to maturity from an entire packet sown this spring. It’s having a second flush of flowers, probably because of the increased rain. While I appreciate its efforts, I’m not sure if I’ll be planting these again.
5. The corn has finally been producing ears, though I’m not sure how they will fare with the falling temperatures. Then again, the weather has been anything but predictable this year, so I’m letting them carry on until the bitter end. If nothing else, some of them will be small enough to stir fry as baby corn.
6. An experimental bed of fall-sown baby lettuce mix, to see just how late I can keep it going. I’ve got a plastic cover for this bed when it gets cold enough, but suspect the main stumbling block will be when our sunlight dwindles to only a few usable hours per day. Still worth a try, though!
Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!
Little Blue and White House 
I love all the plants that you try out. I like experimenting too.
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Thanks! Yes, that’s part of the fun of gardening, isn’t it? 😀
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Your bulb planter looks as though it will cope with planting in anything, looks very sturdy! I like your optimism with your lettuce seedlings, hope you are successful and get some before the sun gets too low in the sky.
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It really is exceptionally sturdy, which pleases me to no end. I was digging up clods of wet clay soil with it this morning and usually that’s absolute murder on tools. My son said it looked like a Roman spear when I came out of the store with it 😀
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Astonishing the change brought about by “limbing” surrounding tree limbs. There is so much more light.
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Indeed, and that was mostly just from clearing away the smallest branches and dead wood. I’ll be giving the tops a good pruning in the spring and removing probably half of those trees still standing, which will make upkeep much less of a headache. I wish we had known what we were getting into when we let the seeds grow in the first place!
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Well done on the tidy up. That bulb planter looks very nice indeed.
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Thank you! I’m definitely happy I got it. This past weekend, all the rain, rocks, and the clay soil already made it worth the price. I’d have easily broken any of my former planters after one session.
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The agastache could come back next year, don’t hesitate to cut them down once the flowers have faded and place the seedheads in the same place. Otherwise, I didn’t know you were a teacher, but it’s true that pumpkins are perfect for students at this season
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Oui, j’enseigne l’anglais et l’espagnol à des enfants français en Finlande. Before I have coffee, sometimes I don’t know what words are coming out of my mouth 😂 Good to know about the agastache, I hope they will return. I was hoping to grow enough to dry for tea and that will not happen this year!
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Agastache tea, one of my favourite for winter evenings
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Oh, please try the nicotiana again, they do have such a great scent on a summer evening.
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I suppose it could have just been a bad batch… I shall have to source from a better supplier next year, but shall give it another try. Mostly because of you, but also because we saw some beautiful plants yesterday at a historical garden that were absolutely huge and gorgeous. Nothing like my little scrappy survivor. Fingers crossed!
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I’ll cross my fingers too!
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