End Of Summer Garden Update

Seems like it went by so quick- garden season, that is. Then again, we started late, at least by my standards.

Here's the fava beans I started a few months ago. You can't tell by the picture but those fava beans are probably 5 feet tall. No beans on them yet but they have flowers. Down below them on the right are the the broccoli plants that were given to Connie. I planted them more at her request as I thought it was too late in the summer to get decent heads from them.




I was wrong. They did pretty well and we still have some side shoots, as you can see, although some are starting to flower. My past experience, and the reason I was leery of planing broccoli in August, was they seemed to go to seed as soon as the heads developed. Maybe it was cooler this year? I'll have to try a later crop again next year.






Back behind the favas and broccoli was where I had 3 tomato plants. One was given to me and two (Early Girl) I bought from Rite- Aid. I just wanted green ones to make pickled green tomatoes.

As soon as I thought there were enough to make a quart, I went out to pick them and noticed blight all over the plants. I'd been looking for that but not close enough. It was all over the inside of the plants so I picked about a quart of tomatoes that didn't look infected and pulled the plants up. Don't know if the tomatoes will taste bitter from the blight if they don't have visible signs on them. I know they taste bad if they do.

This 6x6 bed is what I'd referred to earlier as my "deadbed" as I'd planted some stuff in it randomly earlier on but gave up on it and just let the plants fend for themselves. I dug it up yesterday hoping it was really a 4x6 bed. I thought stepping stones might be buried under the dirt on the left side as it wasn't supposed to be any wider than the bed just past it.

Nope. No stepping stones. Connie says she thinks we pulled the stones up to place them elsewhere. That must be what happened but I don't recall doing it.


On the far side of the bed I pulled up a couple stepping stones to remove the morning glory runners beneath them. They go under the stones then pop up in the bed and spread. I think I got all the runners but I'm going to have to pull all the stones up, eventually, as they all have either morning glory or blackberry roots running beneath them. Not something I look forward to.

On the left of the above picture you can see part of the bed we planted beans in. The ones in the back look worse than the picture shows. They're turning yellow, coming to the end of their life. We picked a fair amount of beans from them. The row in the front that I planted later is just getting ready for picking.

Here's the five new beds I cleared over the last few weeks. The wood borders around the front one are almost functional. The borders around the other ones are either rotten or close to it.

I'm thinking of just leaving them as they are over the winter and early spring to see if any morning glory or berries pop up. I've already had to go back and dig up numerous suckers I missed in the original clearing.

The bed on the right, though, I decided to plant some more fava beans in. You can see the dark lines where I watered the rows. They just started popping through the soil a couple days ago.

Here's our zucchini plant on its way out. Seemed to me it started looking fallish a bit earlier than I remember my zucchini of past years. We haven't gotten too much in the way of fruit from it but we started late and the plant wasn't of the best quality.

Still I pulled 3 medium sized ones from it yesterday and there's some smaller ones just forming. From the looks of the plant I'd be surprised if it bears fruit more than a week or two longer.

You can see all the morning glory and other weeds underneath it. There's actually some berry bush sprouts inside it, too, that can make for painful picking of the fruit. Quite a mess, but the plant still did ok. It'll take some work digging that bed up when it's done.


Lastly, there's the so- called hedge along the back fence that I had to cut about 5 feet back. I mentioned earlier the Strubs stopped speaking to us after that as they enjoyed the privacy it provided. Once they noticed it was growing back, they at least least grudgingly wave every now and then should they see us.



That banksea rose that makes up most of the hedge can be a pain in the neck. Already it's growing back over our garden space. It will have to be cut back often to make sure it stays back where it won't shade the vegetable beds but we'll let the top grow up high if only so we don't have to look out at the Strubs, or they at us, every time we step out our back door.

The only other planting plans I have right now is to maybe plant some brussel sprouts in the newly cleared beds. If I can't find some plants somewhere soon I may give up on that and just let the garden sit until next spring. Come December I'll have to start planning what I'll plant, and where, next year.