Gardening, flowers and veggies: 2014

[flamingfingers]

I've got a whack of green tomatoes sitting under lots of foliage in a protected area. On or about the 23rd, it is predicted to get down to -1 or -2 so I am tempted to just throw a tarp over them overnight and keep them for another week to ripen out in the garden. On the other hand, I have lots of room on my deck to spread them out and cover them at night to ripen for canning. Decisions, decisions!!!

[Bpeep]

Another nice late season dinner outta the garden.
Potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, radish, cucumber, green and jalapeño peppers and onion.
Ya gotta love it.

[ok-kel]

Making borscht in the next few days with the bounty from the garden....
I make mine with chicken bouillon, mashed potatoes, baby potatoes, cabbage, carrots, celery, beets and their leaves,
peppers, tomatoes, dill, pepper and peas. Heat it up. Add sour cream. Nice fresh buttered bread served alongside.
Yum. Yum.

[Bpeep]

I picked my last 3 doz or so cucumbers today and pulled the plants.
I planted a couple mums at the low end of the berm.
I'm still picking peppers. I have about 40 or 50 of them left and hundreds of tomatoes left on the vine.
Looks like I can leave them on for another week.
The water hyacinth in the pond is starting to die back.
The fish probably don't like it but I removed about half of the hyacinth.
I pulled all the root masses and plants in the spillways.
I got the pond to the point where I can winterize it quickly.

[flamingfingers]

Pulled a daikon out of the garden that measured 19 inches long and almost 3 inches in diameter.... Pickle time!!

[Bpeep]

I'm still pickin strawberries.
Love it.
Big leek harvest coming up.

[Queen K]

Nice. We dug our potatoes.

But big question. It's Oct. 26th, not getting any warmer, at what point does one pull the flowers?

They're still blooming and it seems rather cold hearted to pull them.

[Lady tehMa]

I'm letting mine go until frost kill - that's when I'll do my yard cleanup.

[Queen K]

I did that one year but it was awfully cold getting stuff cleaned up.

[Lady tehMa]

I really haven't had the time :/ And this way, I'll work really hard to keep warm ;)

[flamingfingers]

Dug up the last potato plant that grew all by its lonesome in one of the compost boxes this summer. Got at least 20 lb of HUGE spuds. We are cooking ONE of them for din-din tonite.

[pbear]

Picked the very last few grape tomatoes. What a fabulous plant it was. We could only keep up by loading up everyone who visited with a baggie of tomatoes.

I've started to cut down some so the perennials with my trusty hedge trimmers. Still have some lavender plants to shape though cause they are still blooming and look so pretty. What an amazing fall it has been. I love the colours of the trees and am amazed at how long the annuals have lasted. It will give me great memories through the long, dark, grey days ahead. I'm so not a winter person :(

[flamingfingers]

I love the colours of the trees

Gotta agree with you there!! I will hate to see all those lovely colors disappear!

[pbear]

Gorgeous!

[Lady tehMa]

There is actually frost on my lawn this morning . . .