Our first frost arrived this past Thursday! Maybe a little earlier than expected, but still within the normal range. All the tender plants and bulbs are either (1) sitting on a house windowsill, (2) safely tucked away in the barn to dry out a bit, or (3) already slumbering away in the root cellar. All the spring bulbs have (finally!) been planted. Vegetable and flower beds are steadily getting covered or mulched depending on what is left in them. Just about the only tasks left are to plant a few remaining shrubs and do post-frost cleanup. This is the first winter I’ve been this organized, so pardon if I sound overly excited. I might finally be getting the hang of this gardening thing.

1. Aronia mitschurii ‘Viking’ lines part of our driveway and always provides lovely color in the cold season. It is usually laden with berries until after December, but it looks like the birds got to them early this year. One of these days, I might get around to picking some for the juice, but we are usually so overrun with berries by this late in the season that I can’t muster the energy to do another round.

2. Rodgersia aesculifolia’s big leaves look like they’ve been sprinkled with powdered sugar.

3. In the cutting garden, Rudbeckia hirta ‘Prairie Sun’ and Antirrhinum braun-blanquetii are some of the last few still standing.

4. Summer crops beds, harvested and tucked in for the winter. I’m not the only one who insists on saving all the cardboard pizza boxes for this purpose, am I? The new row of beds to the left is being filled with assorted garden waste to break down in place over the winter. These covered beds will get a fresh topping of compost in the spring before new plants go in.

5. I got this set of wire towers on a whim. They’re cute but on the short side. Not sure what I’m going to use them for (sweet peas maybe?), but they’ll be nice for winter interest when everything else is covered in snow.

6. Shredded newspaper mulch! I started doing this a few years ago and it worked out so well that I’ve gone larger scale with it this year. The parts of the flower bed that I planted with spring bulbs, as well as the vegetable beds housing perennials, are covered in hand-shredded newspaper. The paper gets wet and freezes in position, leaving gaps for air under it. Then the snow covers everything, providing a nice insulating layer. The worms munch away on their paper buffet all winter, cozy and protected. The majority is broken down by the time spring rolls around, when a fresh layer of compost covers the rest!

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!

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!

The great thing about doing garden work once autumn fully sets in is knowing that places you tidy up will stay relatively tidy for a while. When you’re out there pulling up all the dead plant material and come across some weeds, you can just tell them “Y’know, can we just… not?” and they’ll usually be very agreeable to your suggestion. The mornings are getting chillier and they’re just about as ready to wrap things up as I am.

1. The second aisle of the vegetable garden has been covered in bark mulch, making everything much neater-looking. It might be hard to see in the back of the picture, but there are metal rose arches over the end of each pathway, anchored into the beds. Those will be covered in runner beans next summer, though I’ll probably be adding more supports to prepare for all the beans we want. Also new are two wooden whisky half barrels to replace the big green plastic tub that my mints are currently growing in. Given how much I clipped for tea this year, it seemed a good idea to double the amount and grow a lot of cuttings indoors over the winter.

2. The mixed packet of Callistephus chinensis I randomly flung into the cutting garden didn’t die after all! I seeded them in the middle of the June dry spell, so I didn’t hold out much hope for them. Then last week I was surprised to find them while doing some long overdue weeding, already in bud. So I have asters this autumn! The very first plant I ever grew as a child was an aster. The last time I grew these was for my bridesmaids’ bouquets nearly twelve years ago. Wow, that makes me feel old.

3. Japanese ginger (Zingiber mioga) is looking very healthy. Apparently, it is quite hardy, so it’ll be moved to a vegetable garden bed when I start pulling sunken pots for overwintering in a few weeks. Perhaps with a bit of extra mulch, just to be safe. The shoots and flowers are edible, so we should be able to harvest a few next spring.

4. This is not the Phlox paniculata I expected when I planted it, but it is the color that I got. At least it’s not more of the bright pink we already have in the raspberry bed. In keeping with the developing theme of “unexpected things in the garden”, it earned its spot today.

5. I did not plant this clematis. I had been considering getting a clematis next spring, however, and that was apparently enough to make this appear. Upon consulting my list of legacy plants, this could possibly be Clematis ‘Blue Angel’. In which case, it’s been hiding from me for over a decade. I’m going to guess it’ll survive until next year when I can dig it out of that mess of weeds and find it a better place to climb.

6. Rose ‘Gertrude Jekyll’ has big plans for next year. This four-foot watershoot popped up just this past week and I think one of the other roses is following suit. Hopefully, it won’t get too damaged this winter.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!

Autumn activities are in full swing this week! We had a cold snap two nights ago, hitting a low of 2°C, so there was a lot of mad scrambling to get all the houseplants back inside that evening. Next week, we will officially start dipping below 10°C most evenings, so it is time to start clearing out the summer veggies that I know will not manage to ripen any further (I’m looking at you, underwhelming tomatoes). It’ll be nice to clean up, scale down, and rest for a bit, after the wild fluctuations this year in the garden. We’re not completely done yet, of course — I will be trying autumn/winter crops this year, so that will be an interesting challenge.

1. The potted cyclamens on our front porch and terrace are enjoying the cool damp weather. They will be transplanted to a bed under the front pines when they’re done doing their thing.

2. Harvesting continues at a good pace! I tried my hand at braiding onions for the first time and am inordinately pleased with the results. These ‘Sturon’ yellow onions will only last a couple of months at most, but I can easily use them up by then. I’d like to fill a couple of beds with longer-storing varieties next year and try to grow our year’s worth so I never have to rush to the store again. They also provide the bonus crop of onion greens in the summer, which I froze a good amount of for use in soups.

3. During a brief window of dry weather, I dug up the last two beds of Mozart potatoes and brought them into the barn to cure. This wasn’t our best year for potatoes and I know the drought affected the other two varieties we grew since they produced only small to medium-sized tubers. Mozart seemed to fare better, giving us a good amount of medium-sized tubers and several chunky ones too. It also hasn’t been affected in the least by scab or hungry bugs, which seemed to plague our Annabelles. All in all, we fell far short of the winter’s supply of potatoes I was aiming for, but have at least a month’s worth, which isn’t bad. I will be growing half my crop in potato bags next year, in the hope that it will help to combat some of those problems.

4. ‘Moonwalker’ sunflowers are giving the trees some competition! The shortest ones are about 8 feet. I had to crane my head up and photograph from several feet back to get that picture. Very pleased with the result and am going to try growing an entire row of similar-height sunflowers across the back of the cutting garden as a living screen next year.

5. I was sure that this mophead hydrangea (which came with the house, so no name) had died a few years back, but it made a surprise reappearance this autumn through the middle of some overgrown cypress branches sporting not one but four big flower heads. I’ll give it a few weeks, then move it over to the cutting garden with the other hydrangeas, where it won’t be strangled by nearby trees.

6. This wild pear popped up from the rootstock of a dead grafted tree and we’ve been letting it grow out of curiosity. It flowered the last few years, but this is the first year it has managed to set fruit too. I’m curious to try some of it in jam, especially since our domestic pear tree didn’t produce much this year.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!

I originally meant to share pictures from the flower garden, but those will have to wait because this theme presented itself and I can’t pass up a good theme! It’s autumn berry season, so here’s some that are popping up around our garden!

1. Lingonberries (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) grow in the forest surrounding our house. Some of them moved into the dry patch under the pines in front of the house, where nothing else really grows. They are very well-behaved little plants and currently offering us berries to make holiday dinner condiments with, so I see no reason to evict them.

2. Aronia melanocarpa ‘Viking’ lines the driveway and is getting a bit out of hand. We really should get around to pruning them back, but they are always dripping with berries this time of year and I hate to take away food that feeds wildlife over the winter. They’re also good for making really healthy juice, but you have to mix it with apple or something else to cut the strong astringent taste. There’s a reason they’re called chokeberries.

3. Guelder rose (Viburnum opulus) is also sporting very pretty red berries, but I won’t be trying to make jam out of those any time soon. I might cut some for a future bouquet, though.

4. ‘Zilga’ grape in our greenhouse always gives us lots of fruit, which I will probably make into grape jelly this year. They’re a cold-hardy Latvian variety that survives well outside of the greenhouse as well (this one has a sister vine growing on a trellis next to the sauna building) but the sheltered vine is much more reliable about producing a crop in time.

5. Hardy kiwi (Actinidia arguta) has fruited very well this year, probably because of the high temperatures and rain. Apparently I’ll have to pick them and let them ripen indoors since they take longer than we probably have before first frost.

6. Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is looking a bit odd and lumpy this year, which I am also going to blame on this year’s weird weather. Another berry that I will not be making into jam, but might very well put in a bouquet because it would be a nice contrast with red ones.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!

Yikes, September! The days are definitely shortening and cooling down, but that doesn’t seem to bother the plants yet. This past week was very damp, which was great for the garden but meant that I wasn’t out there cleaning up as much as usual. This coming week is supposed to be mild and sunny, so hopefully that will all be made up.

1. Politely-sized accidental herb bed sunflowers are a cheerful sight to see from the kitchen window. I’m going to have to plant them on purpose next year. Hopefully, I’ll be able to collect seeds from these two before the birds do it for me.

2. ‘Victoria’ plums are going to be ready to pick in another week, some are ready now. It’s nice to graze as you’re wandering around the garden. Guess I’d better get the steam juicer ready.

3. Unnamed packet of bedding dahlias produces yet another keeper. Has anyone had any luck saving the tubers from these seed-started plants? I’d like to see a couple of these next year. The light purple streaking on this is prettier than some of my big named plants.

4. ‘Golden Currant’ tomatoes have produced many trusses (unlike most of my other varieties this year), but now it’s that anxious period of waiting for them to ripen. I was able to pick a couple this morning (quite tasty) so have high hopes that the rest will soon follow. Some have cracked from the rains but most of them seem to be doing pretty well since it’s been so consistently damp.

5. This is an accidental apple tree. It was a seedling when we moved onto the property and we never bothered to remove it so… now it’s a two-story tree that makes sour apples which I usually use for juice and jelly. It also drops a large load of apples all over one corner of my cutting garden. The mess isn’t pretty to look at, but the wildlife enjoy them and it keeps them distracted from the smaller trees I planted just across the swale.

6. A peek at my latest project, a new row in my veg garden! Because the more varieties I try, the more we want to keep and grow more of. Which is great for the dinner table, but really annoying when I’m trying to figure out where to put all those seedlings. Extra bonus for the husband, since there’s less lawn for him to mow.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!

First week back at work, so I’ve not been able to get out into the garden as much as I would like. As a result, I’ve prioritized harvesting ahead of weeding and am just going to have to let whatever is in pots languish a little longer until I can get them into the ground when the chance arises. The good news is that homegrown vegetables are finally starting to appear on the table in respectable amounts, which is always very satisfying.

1. Some smallish but very tasty carrots, ready to be roasted. Mostly Nantaise 2, with a scattering of some leftovers from a packet of rainbow hybrids. Two full beds of carrots seem a bit excessive, but I’m hoping to make them last in the ground into January this year with mulching and bed covers. Then they can be pulled and stowed away in the root cellar until spring!

2. This is my first year growing any beetroot, let alone golden beets. These are looking a bit small, but they were also more crowded than they should have been. I used some of the greens as kale replacement in a soup a while back, and that worked out nicely. We’re already fans of red beets, so I can’t see how golden ones wouldn’t go over well in a mixed vegetable roast.

3. Purple kohlrabi! It is also my first year growing these. Really, it’s my first year growing any brassicas, and I’m pretty pleased with the results so far. These are purported to taste like broccoli stems, which I like very much. Though it’s nice to grow things we’ll like eating, I admit that just having these around has been great fun. They are just so wacky-looking that everybody stops to do a double-take.

4. Some pretty burgundy Asiatic lilies. They’re this amazing dark chocolate cherry color that really stands out in the garden, and it’s been fascinating to watch the buds turn from green to purple as they mature.

5. Unnamed bedding dahlia from a mixed packet of bronze-leaved plants. The stripe down the center of the petals is so cute!

6. Panicle hydrangea Angel’s Blush is very tiny but doing its best. I hadn’t expected this thing to bloom at all, since it was just a small twig last autumn. Hoping it fills out a bit more next year.

Thanks for visiting and please do check out what the other SoSers are doing over at Jim’s page!