Sleep tight, garden

Put the garden to bed today by spreading straw over the planting areas. Still have some brave stragglers: the brussel sprouts are going strong (yay?) and the strawberries still have berries on them, silly things. Harvested the squash and the last of the salad greens, but there are parsnips still in the ground. The upright greenery in the back is marionberries which will continue to attempt taking over the garden despite the dropping temps, vicious monsters that they are. The lawn got mowed for the last time. Still have a little more cleanup to do, but for the most part, garden work 2015 is done.

Maybe someday we’ll do a cold frame or a greenhouse… Until then, we’re dreaming of spring to come.

September in the garden

Oh, harvest time. How I love you and mourn you. The end of summer but so much yumminess. Photos include:

• Pantone tomato ripeness scale
• Sunflower eating the sky
• All the grapes: Interlaken are not super productive but each grape is the season distilled to perfection: high summer sweetness enrobed in the crisp bite of fall
• Marigolds doing their golden thing, all season long
• Beans going strong but their leaves are turning yellow
• Huckleberries — what do I do with them? I need a bear!
• Winter squash to remind me that this season won’t last either…

Thus is begins…

Getting our first run of strawberries and blueberries. So far, just enough for fresh eating, but soon, soon there will be desserts and freezing for winter. (Gah, no thinking of winter yet!) Happy, yummy Friday!

Spring greens & little garden friends

Here are some of my little garden friends. I know some people don’t like spiders, but these are garden spiders. They are very good about (mostly) staying outside and eating flies. The ladybugs eats aphids. Thank you, ladybug. I’m eating the radishes — which are already much bigger than these because I took the photos a week ago. Radishes are the best for instant (okay, two weeks) gratification. And I planted waaaaaaay too many of my little poppy seed friends, which reseeded at a 120% germination rate, apparently. Not sure how that happened. Whatever, it’s a welcoming garden.

Today’s bouquet

My lily of the valley are just coming into full bloom and their perfume is one of the sweetest in the garden. I added some hybrid bluebells, a dogwood blossom, and some random strawflowery thing to celebrate the coming weekend. Happy Friday, everybody!

ETA I just noticed the ant on the dogwood. Gotta share the beauty, I guess.