a new compost bin

Today I built a second compost bin out of scrap wood I had pulled up when repairing my deck.  The wood isn't in the best shape, but I'm assuming it'll decompose, and then I'll find more scrap in a few years.

chives anyone?

Clearing the leaves from my yard, I noticed I had some chives blooming! Also reblooming are a number of yarrow, May Night  sage, coreopsis and gaillardia.   Among the annuals, I still have petunias, nicotiana, verbena, and callibrachoa (spell?) still blooming.  Bizarre.

I mulched up a lot of my oak leaves and spread them around my butterfly bushes.  I'll probably do the same for some of my other shrubs and perennials, but I have to read up on which ones need protection.

Frost, finally

Is this the latest frost date on record?  Last night the cold finally killed off my cosmos.

Still no frost; garden clean-up

Still no hard frost here, which is bizarre.  Last night was the first close call, but my cosmos, snapdragons and nicotiana are still producing buds.  I now have a 7-foot cosmos blooming in the middle of my peach tree, which makes it look like the peach tree is blooming.  My mums are doing great, and I still have some Russian sage and black-eyed susans in bloom.  

Today was a clean-up day:  I sucked up two bags of leaves (mostly oak) in my electric leaf blower and composted them, one straight into the bin, the other I turned over into my raised bed to let it break down over time.  I also pulled all the leaves of my irises and day-lilies, and cut down my asters and (dis-)obedient plants, which I should have done sooner since they've gone to seed.

Fall Hygiene

October 21 and my Fall garden is still going strong.  As you can see from the photos below, I have lots of purples and reds in my garden, both from flowers and foliage.  

I did quite a bit of cleanup today, pulling a lot of the annuals that have stopped flowering, especially the verbena, cosmos, zinnias and petunias, though quite a few of them are still have lots of buds on them and haven't suffered from frost damage yet.  My compost bins are now filled to the brim, and I still have so much more green material to pull out of the ground before the season is over, so I don't know what I'll do.

I also decided to do a little more moving of plants today, taking my perennial grasses out of their pots and putting them into the ground, and moving a bunch of (dis-)obedient plant to the parking strip, where I don't care how aggressive it it.  (Let it try to compete with the yarrow!)

bed preparation

Today I continued preparing the (unframed) raised bed that I'm putting in in my front garden, shelling out for two bags of Coast of Maine Bar Harbor Blend (a great mix of soil, compost, seaweed extract and peat).  Before I did that, I threw 100 chiondoxa bulbs underneath it, and tamped them down with my feet, so that they are now buried about 2-3 inches.  Together with the alliums there, they should make a nice Spring display before I put in my vegetables.

On one side of the raised bed, I put in five reblooming daylilies (75% off at Lowe's) as a margin, and on the other side, freshened up my pathway with two more bags of pea gravel.

All this was done in this afternoon's rain, so I didn't need to water anything in. 

Here's to Spring planning!  I love the anticipation that comes with putting in lots of bulbs, then waiting for the blooms in Spring.  Too bad it's such a long wait.

still no frost; moving and planting

I'm amazed that I have yet to get a killing frost here.  The historical first-frost date is September 31, so this is quite extraordinary.  Given that our last-frost date has been pushed back by two weeks, it means we get an extra month of gardening.  (Not that this doesn't mean troubling things for our planet.)

I pulled the last of my tomatoes, peppers and parsley a few days ago, and moved my lettuce underneath my little cold frame to try to get a few more weeks out of them.  

Today was a big moving and planting day:  I'm planning on a new raised bed in my front yard (since it gets more sun), so I had to move a bunch of plants, including phlox (david), boltonia, ox-eye daisies, joe-pye weed, a veronica spicata, one bee balm, and a hydrangea.  I turned everything over (including the hundreds of annoying ox-eye daisies starting out), threw a hundred alliums (cowanii) and about ten garlic cloves around the area, then put down some soil and compost over it all, and watered it in.  I also watered all the plants I moved.

I also had time (though the days are getting short!) to plant more spring bulbs, putting in some squill, tete-a-tete daffodils, and allium bulgaricum around where I had planted them last year.  I still have to plant my chiondoxa and anemones, but I imagine I'll have more time to do that.

bulbous bulbs

Planted my first Spring bulbs yesterday afternoon, good-sized Woodstock hyacinths from Scheeper's.  I loved using my bulb augur, though it's a bit wide for little bulbs.

Fall chores

Buckets of rain have come down today, which is fine by me, since my fall garden needs it before the first hard frost.  But I had planned on planting Spring bulbs today and don't want to tramp over soggy soil tomorrow (even if it clears), so I may have to wait for another weekend.

Given that I'm limited to poking in a bulb here and there, rather than digging a trench and filling it, I bought a bulb augur that you can use as a drill bit.  I'm looking forward to trying it out.

I have garlic greens popping up since planting them a month ago.  I still have lots of cloves to plant, but I'm glad to see that those I planted did so well already.  

I pulled out a few of the tomato plants that are done producing and clipped a few of the tomatoes that are just beginning to ripen. (I'll finish them on a windowsill.)  I still have three tomatoes left on the vine that haven't started ripening yet.

This past week my asters, perennial mums, sweet autumn clematis and Joe Pye weed have all opened, and my annuals haven't bitten the dust yet, so there is still lots of color in my garden. Especially beautiful is the brilliant red foliage on my blueberry bushes.

I just bought a couple of discount blackberry bushes and am considering where to put them. They need full sun, so my choices are limited.  Since they can take over spaces, I don't want to put them in my regular garden.  Perhaps in the parking strip or alongside the back fence will have to do.

no frost

My tomatoes and peppers survived the cold -- it doesn't look like I got a frost here, but it was close.

Frost on the way?

We have a frost warning this evening, so I covered my tomatoes and peppers with my portable cold-frames.  I just harvested my first cucumber today and my first two tomatoes in the past two days, so  I hope I can extend their season a bit.  I only have maybe three more cukes on the vine, and four more tomatoes, but I've waited so long for them I'd hate to lose them now.

Drought; suprise tomatoes

I've been watering regularly this past week, not just the new perennials I've planted this year, but just about everything -- we've gone from a wet early summer to a drought this past month.  I almost lost my new fothergilla (since recovered) and a new hydrangea due to the last of moisture.  I also want to drain my rain barrels before winter, so all the watering hasn't added anything to my water bills.  I still have lots in bloom, both perennials and annuals, and I want them to last as long as possible.

I'm about to pick the first of my tomatoes, as they are starting to ripen.  I also found a cherry tomato plant in my front garden where I did not expect it.  If I recall, I lost track of some of my spring seedlings, and may have planted a tomato plant where I thought I was planting a hollyhock.  It got lost amid the catnip and roses and obedient plant, but this morning, lo and behold, I saw some cherry tomatoes on it.  Free food!

cold frame; moving things around; signs of fall

I finally finished putting together the cold frame I received a while back from Charley's Greenhouse. 

I'll put it over my new planter when the weather gets a little colder.  (In the meantime, I may cover my peppers and/or tomatoes for the next few weeks to get a little more life out of them.)

I also moved some plants around:  I put my chives (which I never harvest, for some reason) in the parking strip, and bookended the parking strip with some mums that I rescued from the compost pile at Skillin's.  They'll only last a few more days, but I'll take 'em.

My mustard has sprouted in my new planter, and the spinach and carrots should be out in the next few days.

Signs of Fall:  my New England asters have opened, the New York ones not yet (or vice versa, I can't remember which are which).  I've seen some of my muscari (grape hyacinth) sprouting, as they tend to do in the fall (though no flowers).  And my perennial mums have formed buds, as has my sweet autumn clematis .

Other than that, I'm just watching my summer garden slowly fade.

new planter

I got to spend most of this beautiful day today building a new planter aside my deck (a companion to the other I built earlier this summer).  This planter gets more sun than the other (it's right next to the raised bed), so I've decided to use it for growing vegetables.  It's a good 30 square feet, so there's room to plant a lot.  After building it and filling it with soil (and composted cow manure), I sowed carrots, spinach, and mustard.  It's a great time to plant those crops, and if it looks like we'll get an early frost, I'll cover them.  Recently I purchased a small greenhouse (3 ft deep by 5 ft wide by 3 ft tall), and it'll fit nicely over the planter, giving me an easy means to cover my crops and grow food until -- well, we'll see:  I'm hoping at least til Thanksgiving.

Cutting things back, starting things anew

I got to spend a good hour this evening in the gardening, doing some general cleaning up, as well as planting some seed starts.

I cut back all my yarrow, whose heads were quite an unsightly brownish-black.  A few have rebloomed, so I kept those, but I cut the rest back to their basal foliage so that it now looks like I have a smooth field of ferns.

The seedlings I started a month or so ago were large enough to put out into the garden, so I planted some echinacea, canterbury bells and columbine into the main garden, and in the parking strip planted scabiosa, asclepius, and jupiter's beard.  Though I prefer watering in the morning, I then watered everything in.  

I love this temperate weather!