What have you done today in the Garden?

2 more days of extreme heat ahead ... hoping this will trigger a (non violent) thunderstorm. Heading out to water the veggies shortly, and will probably need to pick beans and tomatoes again. I think the cucs and zucchini are done as the vines are dying back - I may have been hit by the vine borers. Canned tomato sauce and green beans again yesterday ... my family thinks I have gone crazy with all this canning.

 

Netty, you must get rain when Michigan does, right?
This is what I do to protect against vine borers.
I dig back about an inch to half an inch of soil at the base of the plant,
wrap the stem with foil and put soil back. The foil will be about half
to an inch below and about two inches above soil level. I can't say
it always works, but we haven't been bothered with them since I began
foiling the stems.

 

I did nothing in the garden today.
Thursday evening, I scattered either straw or hay over a newly layered section.
If it's hay, the seeds will grow and give me fits in 2016, but it's good mulch.
We had another good rain yesterday

Toni, too bad the Cosmos had to go. Finch really thrive on the seeds.

 

Not much doing in the garden today. We're slowly phasing the 2015 garden out.
Today I took out the runner beans and one small patch of beets. Our garden is
laid out in small sections. So far we have done three sections, harvested, weeded
and layered with cardboard or heavy paper bags and green manure, such as vines
from tomatoes, leaves from Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, beans, some dirt.
Mostly covered with either straw or grass clippings. A work in progress and I hope
to finish before temps drop into the 30's.

 

Nothing but the gardner mowed the lawn.

My late sister (died August) was called Pauline and unusually I went into a local store yesterday and found as soon as I got there an Iris called Pauline...

 

Clearing a bed for Violas, got six planted just now. In between so small Daffs Tete - A - Tetes.

The Violas wll die off for the winter then re-emerge next Spring if I am lucky with a mild winter.

K

 

Kate, that is a sweet way to remember your sis. I am glad for you.

Today...
Picked apples, peppers, tomatoes, green beans, baked bread for the market tomorrow... HOOOOOO RAAAAYYYYYYY! my last Saturday one for the season at my market... kevin has a few more he can go to or until we don't have anything left to take or the frost hits, but we have lots to keep picking yet. I have to confess though, I am waaaay past tired of the markets now. I have baked bread 2 to 3 times a week since May. I have gone through 300+ pounds of flour. Picked off of at least 250 tomato plants all Summer, 100 peppers, green beans... right now I still have 7 new rows awaiting to get mature enough to pick. We picked more cantaloupes than ever. And a lot more. I am tired.

 

Carolyn, do you rest in winter?

 

Kate, that's wonderful. I hope it grows and multiplies.

 

Ummm, normally I am a slug. I hate the cold weather and the cloudiness of our region, but my husband picked up a snowplowing contract that has 80 sidewalks... um I get the honors of shoveling snow this Winter.* oh joy*

 

I don't always get rain when my friend a few blocks away gets rain! I seem to live in some kind of strange time warp here ... up on the top of a hill where storms seem to blow around me. It seems to rain everywhere BUT here sometimes!
I'll keep your stem foil idea for next year Growingpains, its worth a try! Those darn borers seem to hit me every year!

 

Carolyn, No doubt you will stay fit and have great cardiac health with all that shoveling.
Just be sure to not overdo.

Netty, I hope you have rain by now.

Today I picked a few tomatoes, after making juice from yesterday's ripe ones.
Also pulled out some fading Borage which will be used as "Green manure", A
trick learned from Sjoerd.

 

Today has been almost cold. Near enough for me to begin taking out tomato plants. I'm leaving one section until frost threatens. Then, out they come, ripe or not. These have the largest tomatoes we have for 2015.
I leave Oct 3rd for a week in South Carolina and Tennessee. I hope frost holds off until I'm back because I still have garlic to plant.