Late Season Garden

Fall arrived on my doorstep on Sunday.  The signs were already there - long shadows, the angle of the son, the shortening daylight, the early trees starting to turn.

 Apples, pears, and concord grapes line the shelves of farm stores, as we begin our farewells to sweet corn and juicy watermelons and cantelopes.  Soon, the scent memory of apple crisp will beckon me to the apple stand, and then the kitchen and oven.

I may even break down and eat an apple cider donut. 

But, in our community garden, it is still summer.  We haven't had any frosts yet and there are (knock wood) none in our immediate forecast.  The second crop of cucumbers are blooming.

Cherry tomatoes.

Soon, it will be time for cabbage.

After three or so years of having our beans eaten by deer, we are having a bumper crop with no sign of deer damage.

I am so happy.

Our second crop of beans is flowering vigorously.  Deer, please stay away.  Frost, ditto.

Asian greens.

In another week, our area's annual scarecrow contest will begin.  

Many here think fall is the best time of year.  That's true in many ways, although I'm always thinking of what comes next.

Enjoy it while we can.

A Gardening Milestone

We reached a gardening decision today which is a kind of milestone, but maybe not a totally happy one.

My spouse has gardened in a community garden for many years.  For most of this time, he has rented two in ground beds. Perhaps three years ago, I was able to get a raised bed for myself, because of my back issues.  

Raised Bed 6-17-21

At about the same time, spouse downsized to one inground bed.

Inground plot

Spouse took over my raised bed two years ago.  Last year, he was able to get two raised beds.  He has garlic in one of them, busy slumbering under a mulch.

But now, we are both in our 70's and have to face the fact that our bodies aren't what they used to be.

Due to a fall several years ago, spouse has damage (not fixable by surgery) in both shoulders, and this year he came to the reluctant conclusion that he can no longer manage the one remaining inground bed.

So spouse has made a reluctant decision.

No more inground beds.

Sunflower, 2018

I'm going to miss our sunflowers.  (we did grow dwarf sunflowers last year, but the varieties are limited).  We also grew potatoes.

Zucchini flower

 

I'll miss our zucchini.  It isn't that we can't grow it, it's that our space is going to be way reduced.  We are limited to two raised beds so everyone who needs one can get one.  That's understandable.

What we won't miss are the rocks, which we always have a bumper crop of.

There are two types of raised beds.  Our original bed was a "tall" bed, four feet by twelve feet, 30 inches high.  We also have one "short" bed, four feet by 10 feet, 16 inches high; the one we obtained last summer.

But with change comes new opportunities.  We do limited gardening at our home, where the only sunny area is in the front yard (and where all my flowers reside).  Last year we grew some potatoes in a bag and some kale (we still have some, in fact-it's survived the winter!) in a large barrel type planter.  The year before, we tried peppers (not too successful, for some reason) and chard (sucessful).

I know we'll make it work.

It is a kind of milestone, though, and a little sad.

Late November Harvest

On the last day of November, we started the day at 26F (-3.33C), so why not blog about gardening?

My spouse has two community garden raised bed plots this year in our zone 5b area of New York State.  In the spring of 2023, my spouse planted onion plants in one of them.   He harvested them in August.

He decided to try to grow fall crops in there:  a Chinese green, carrots, broccoli, and a sunflower developed for container culture.

Successes:

The sunflowers in October.

This was taken October 13, right before harvest.  Sadly, around October 6, we had discovered some larvae got hold of many of the leaves and ate them.  One day I might blog about that because I would love to know what those larvae were.  But the flowers, already budding out, opened. It's hard to see the damage in this picture.

These are carrots, harvested November 27, along with what was left of the Asian greens, and the rest of our Swiss Chard (aka silverbeet in some parts of the world).

Failures:  the broccoli, which never flowered.  No sign of any bud activity.

We also have some kale plants at home in a large container, and have been eating off it (soup) now that we've had some freezes.  Before frost, it is too bitter for me.

Not bad, considering it's been as low as 21F (-6.1 C) where we live so far this fall.

Now that the seed catalogs are coming in, it's time for what I call the hot stove league of gardening, where hope springs eternal and all things are possible.

Wasabi or Not

 Here are some pictures from our community garden plots on the last day of summer where I live in the Southern Tier of New York State.  Gardening is mostly done but here are some survivors in our two raised beds.

Rhubarb chard.

Carrots.

Broccoli and lettuce.  There are a couple of short sunflowers in back of the broccoli that are getting ready to bloom.  Hopefully, first frost doesn't come this week (it isn't supposed to).

Last of the Asian greens.

Tomatoes are dead but here are some still ripening cherry tomatoes.

And then there is the wasabi.

Or is it? (the pink flowers are the plant in question; the larger plants in the picture are zinnias).

Some explanation.

Wasabi is a member of the brassica family, which includes cauliflower, broccoli, kale, mustard, and horseradish.

It is also known as Japanese horseradish, and you should know that most of the wasabi served in the United States is not true wasabi.  True wasabi is hard to grow and it is expensive.

So when we saw "wasabi" plants for sale in an end of season clearance in a New York State nursery about an hour from us, we decided to buy a plant.  We put it into a raised bed near our zinnias.  This bed is in full sun.

Mid-summer the plant started to bloom.  We did some research (should we cut off the flower buds?) and from what we read, this may not be a wasabi plant.

The plant is still flowering and the seed pods growing (next to last photo above)  look like those of radishes.  I have only seen horseradish (common horseradish) leaves a couple of times and I'm not sure this is even horseradish.  Naturally I didn't take a picture of the leaves, but horseradish is supposed to have white flowers, not purple.

I have no idea what to do with this plant, which is thriving in the raised bed.I've not going to eat any of this plant unless I get a good ID, somehow.

Oh well-each gardening season has to have its mystery.

Our Raised Beds at the Community Garden

Here's a little peek at our raised beds at our zone 5b Southern Tier of New York community garden.  We have gardened in one for many years because we don't have much sunny ground at our house.  

We are hoping we are past frost advisories - we had two this week (but no frost where we live.  Others would have had frost in higher elevations.)

This year, spouse (the gardener) rented two raised beds this year as it is becoming increasingly difficult to garden in the ground, although we did keep one in ground plot.

 Chive blossoms.   We are permitted to grow perennials in raised beds but not in in ground.

Garlic (in back of the chives) that was fall planted.

Purple tat soi and, behind it, "yellow squash".  I put the yellow squash in quotes because we have no idea what these plants are.  The organization that runs the community garden, VINES, occasionally provides veggie starts to the people renting community garden plots, but sometimes the starts are a bit of a gamble.  Strangely, the leaves were yellow when we got the plants but there is some new growth on them.   I'm thinking these are a yellow summer squash.  We'll see.

Pak choy.

Peppers, eggplant, and a couple of tomato plants went in this week.  Under row covers on the left are edible podded peas. These are subject to deer attacks and we haven't found a good repellent yet.

Sadly, there is also theft on occasion and these friendly signs were posted last year.  This sign has the same message in various languages.

Part of why we garden in a community garden.

Our zinnias aren't up yet.  I started several from seed (provided in a "take and make" project from the local library) which we transplanted a couple of days ago.    I'm the flower gardener.

Last but not least, onions.  We buy these mail order as plants from a company in Texas we've done business with for many years - Dixondale Farms. Dixondale is winding down their season right now - I highly recommend them for quality and their customer service.  Otherwise, we've greatly cut down mail order - it's just too expensive now in these times.

Have you ever gardened or used a community garden?

The Small Beginnings of a 2023 Garden

We (meaning mainly my spouse) are gardening for another year.

In our zone 5b area, it's too early to start most planting, but we are behind on even doing a seed inventory to see what we have on hand.

In the meantime, we traveled to our new raised bed we were able to rent this year from our local community garden.

Right now, it doesn't look like much, but don't be fooled.  A month will make a big difference.

Last year, this new raised bed had been planted and then never harvested.  I remember there being a lot of unharvested yellow pear tomatoes, the remains of which were lying on top of the soil.  Last year's renter even left some nylon (?) fencing, which we may or may not reuse.  These raised beds are prone to deer attacks.  Last year was a bad year for that - we lost all our peas.  Theft, sometimes, too - someone dug up a couple of white eggplant plants with eggplants growing on them.

It's discouraging but my spouse soldiers on because growing things is in his genes.

It will be interesting to see what will come up once we add some soil additives and put in our seeds and plants.  A lot of the new bed will be the home of onion plants that will be coming (mail order) in May.  Spouse uses a lot of onions in his cooking.

Meanwhile, back in the raised bed we've had for several years, plants are coming to life.

The green you see is garlic planted in the fall coming up.

This is a chive plant we rescued (with permission) from a walkway in the raised bed area (apparently someone's chives had seeded the walkway, which was full of chive plants last year) and that is sprouting, too.

Yesterday and today, it's been raining.  It probably won't get into the 40's F today, and as soon as the rain stops, it will get quite windy.  No planting today.

But it won't be long.

Hopefully.

Gardening Still Another Year

With aging comes changing.  That even rhymes!

My spouse and I (my spouse doing about 90% of the work) have community gardened in Binghamton, New York since the late 1980's except for a couple of years when there was no community garden.

As certain musicians said once "it's been a long, strange trip." 

We've tried some gardening on our small back yard, but it's too shady.  Our front yard - well, it's my flower garden and more sunny.  But we've only had limited success, partially thanks to groundhogs and the fact that our front yard isn't fenced.   So we've been community gardening all this time.

We started out with two inground plots.  Several years ago, he downsized to one plot. Then I qualified for a raised bed, in which we grow tomatoes, peppers, and some other crops.  Last year, deer did a number on our raised bed (more than the inground, for some reason we don't know.)  It was so discouraging, and my spouse came close to quitting.

Last year we faced a decision, with physical issues both of us have:  stop gardening, or go all raised beds.

The decision was made, and our application was accepted just yesterday.  This year we will have one inground plot AND two raised beds.

Our current community garden was taken over in 2020 by an organization called VINES (Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments).   

Their mission is worthwhile.  The organization itself, I have nothing but the utmost respect for.  Without them, we might not have a community garden at all.

VINES has put in more raised beds and they try to reserve them for those with physical disabilities or limitations that need them.  It's a bit humbling to realize that my spouse now can't do all the things he did 40 years ago.  The two raised beds will help, but we are behind on preparing for the season, because we didn't know if we would get the raised beds and ingrown plot spouse wanted.

We've already ordered onion plants, one of the main crops we grow (we buy plants from a grower in Texas, Dixondale Farms, we've done business with for years.  They specialize in onions and do them well.  Their customer service is first rate.  Onions grow well for us.

For seeds, we are using a combination of locally bought seeds and some seeds we may mail order. We haven't bought any, though, and now that we know we are going to have the plots this year, we have to get our seed act together.

Incidentally, if you garden, you may ask your local library if they have a seed "library". And no, you don't have to return the seeds at the end of three weeks.   Our local library offers this service (limit of six packets per person).  Seeds are getting so expensive.

So, another year, another garden.  We hope to do this as long as we can.

We aren't giving up yet.

The Sporty Flower

Tuesday, spouse brought home some zinnia flowers he had cut in our community garden so I would have flowers for our table.

If you look at the top flower carefully, it is some kind of mutation or sport (sorry, I am not a botany expert).  It's part red and part white with specs.

We are growing several types of zinnias.  One is an all red zinnia.  We also have "Candy Stick" zinnias.

I took this picture of a Candy Stick zinnia back in 2017.  I think there's a definite resemblance between this Candy Stick and the top of the red zinnia spouse picked on Tuesday.  But I don't think the red zinnia and the couple of Candy Sticks that sprouted this year fertilized each other.  I'm not quite sure what is happening.

A couple of years ago I had a bicolored cosmos in my flower patch.  I saved the seeds but the resulting plants the following year were all one color.

Gregor Mendel or a plant breeder I am not.  Now that the flower is cut (and I wasn't there) it's too late, anyway.

I think many of us are aware that flowers and fruit (and vegetables) can pop different varieties naturally, and keen eyed farmers may take these and create something new for the market.  There is, for example, the story of the Red Delicious apple.

A new bicolored zinnia would have been nice.  The "AM" Zinnia?

Has an unusual flower or veggie ever happen to you?

Garden Decision

My spouse has made a reluctant decision.

He's been gardening in a community garden in Binghamton, New York since around 1987 (with a gap of perhaps three years when the garden was discontinued - it later started up again in a new location).  For many years he had two plots.  In 2018 or 2019, spouse downsized to one plot. Two plots had become too much.

Then, in 2019, a fall caused injuries to both shoulders.  Despite physical therapy, he has various shoulder issues, although the therapist taught him various workarounds for everyday life.

In 2020, I was able to obtain my own garden plot in a raised bed box section (my back issues made me eligible, at least in my own mind.  I think anyone can get one, but they are intended for people with physical limitations that impact their ability to garden.)

Now, my spouse is going to join me.  He is attempting to rent a raised bed box (apparently there are a couple that were never planted and are going to be reassigned) in the same community garden. Next year, he plans to give up the remaining in ground bed that he's had for so many years.  The raised beds are smaller than the inground plots, but are so much easier to maintain.  The one drawback is that deer seem to zero in on the raised beds, for some reason.

Change is hard but I think he is making the right decision.

For today, I wanted to show you some of the plants in "my" raised bed, which we both are tending since he is retired and I still work part time.

I decided to take these pictures a bit more closeup than I would normally, because I enjoy seeing the textures of these plants.  

Lettuce check these raised bed beauties out.

First, of course, lettuce.  So far, knock on wood, opaque row covers are keeping the deer away.

Zinnias.  Deer don't seem to bother them.  They don't seem to bother tomatoes or peppers, both of which we also have.  Some of the raised bed planters put up temporary fencing.  We may have to, also.

And, also under row covers for now, winter squash.

I'm not sure, if we get the second raised bed box, what we will put in there.  It's almost time to think of fall plantings.  Time is going too quickly!

So are the years, as we recognize the changes in ourselves as we age.  We are still just as capable as ever.   We just have to tackle things a little differently.

Small Beginnings at the Community Garden

Thanks to some delays (such as the park where our garden is located having to be closed for several days due to a paving project) we are a bit behind in our community garden plantings.

So right now we have small beginnings.

A bonus shot first, from a week or so ago - an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail butterfly near our raised bed.

Raised bed (my bed, which spouse has been tending this spring while my infected finger healed) from bottom to top, butternut squash, lettuce, tomato (left) edible podded peas (right) barely visible at top are zinnias.  We lost some of our peas when we couldn't get in to water them.  The butternuts are an experiment - these are supposed to be container suitable.

Raised bed other end, several garlic plants that we planted last fall.

A fellow gardener told us today someone saw a groundhog sunning himself/herself in one of these raised beds.  We haven't fenced our box in (some people have) and we'll have to see.  

We abandoned growing beans in the raised bed this year because we were feeding the deer, not us.  Nothing seemed to help, even spray that is supposed to repel them. 

But we are growing them in ground. Strangely, they seem to be bothered less in the ground, perhaps because the area is less open (it's a large community garden of over 100 plots).

Tomatoes in spouse's in ground plot.  Beans are up but they didn't photograph well.

Finally, onion plants.

I may have been gardening since 1978, but the joy of seeing plants grow never leaves me and I thank my spouse, who does 99% of the veggie gardening work.  I couldn't garden in my New York City apartment growing up except some flowers on a windowsill.  I've been so fortunate all these years since.

Spring is moving so quickly. I have so many flower shots to show you and I'll probably never get to showing them all to you.  

Before we know it, harvest time will be here for these veggies.  But I never forget their humble beginnings.

Do you garden?

Unexpected Mushrooms #WordlessWednesday

Last Friday.  Our community garden plot.  We were doing a little raised bed maintenance on what was going to be a hot day.

And then I saw these growing.

No, these aren't potatoes.

These are mushrooms.  An unexpected crop. I'm happy they were outside our raised bed.

And no, I'm not going to harvest these.

Joining Sandee at Comedy Plus for her #WordlessWednesday.

Letting Go of the 2021 Gardening Season

It's so hard to let go of something you love.

The 2021 gardening season in the Binghamton, New York area is close to closing.  I can't let go yet.

The first frost date approaches.  Last year, it was in September.  It's more commonly sometime in October.  And, if it doesn't come in October, our community garden wants us out by October 31.

We've already picked our (almost) last tomatoes.  No more tomato sandwiches. 

No more zucchini (yes, I'm one of those who love zucchini).

The zinnias are slowing down in their blooms.  We still have peppers and eggplants growing or ripening, but they will die with the frost. Ditto for our basil (sob). Ditto for the last planting of beans - we are finally getting beans, after all of our previous efforts this year being eaten by (we think) deer (despite getting repellent spray).

It's time to make sure of my supply of old sheets and towels, to cover plantings I'd like to continue a few more days.

But it is also time, now, to take cuttings.  Our weather channel has predicted lows in the low 40's for Wednesday and Thursday night.  We are in zone 5b, and have a long winter/early spring ahead of us.

I need to take cuttings of plants I want to try to root now, before the stress of cold weather makes it more difficult for them.  Some other plants, already in pots, we will try to save in their pots.

In the past, I've tried to keep as much as possible going inside the house, but it becomes harder and harder. 

Spouse will definitely take rosemary in.  It's not hardy where we live. 

We also had success with lemon grass, both rooting it in water, and transplanting it into pots, so we will probably do it again.  Vietnamese coriander rooted easily in water last year, and I didn't find it locally this year, so that's a possibility.  Last year's poinsettias? They've been outdoors all summer in a large pot.  I may try to keep them.

Last year, I rooted a Bravo impatien plant and it bloomed in my north window until I could plant it out in spring.

Coleus? I've had varying success rooting them.  I know I can keep them indoors if they do.

Still, it's not the same.

I am dragged into fall each year, kicking and screaming.  Eventually, I like fall, and may even eat an apple cider donut or two. I'll take lots of pictures of leaves turning.  But at the back of my mind is this:

Winter is coming.

And I am not ready. 

Are you?

Snapshots of The Last Week in the Garden

Pictures taken here and there the end of July and beginning of August.

Our sunflowers are now blooming, to the delight of bees.

In our raised bed community garden bed, a bee works eggplant flowers...

 ..and, thanks to them, an eggplant grows.

A Green Envy zinnia unfolds.

A white zinnia hosts an insect.

Orange cherry tomatoes continue to ripen.  This plant in our raised bed is taller than we are. 

We've already (not shown) harvested one green cabbage.  Our zucchini and yellow summer squash plants are nearly done.

Some of our onions (our most reliable crop) cure in the sun and harvesting them makes room in our garden for a fall crop.   

We've been having some deer problems at our community garden, though. We've only gotten a fraction of the beans we should have gotten. The person in the raised bed next to mine has lost some cabbage, with about half of the head eaten, That gardener also lost bean plants.

We are entering another very warm (can't call it "hot" with what other parts of the country have experienced) spell.  But fall is definitely coming.  We see the sun setting earlier each day, the crickets get louder, and the mosquitos more hungry.

Still, I don't want summer (and our garden) to end.

Not yet.