Burnt Sienna

Fall color week on Elsie Marley. Pretty sure there's some Burnt Sienna in all the reddish-brownish-orangey goodness of this flower.

Odd Fall Blooms

Not what I usually see in the garden in mid-September:

A single orange rose. I bought this vine in May and didn't expect any blooms this year. And the package said pink. However, orange is my favorite color (okay, tied with green) so I love it. Except it's in the "cool" garden with purples, blues and pinks. I do love contrast, though ...

Unknown purple flowers growing in the lawn. I think they're wild geraniums. Pleasant surprise because I usually only see flowers in the lawn in spring (other than dandelions, of course)

Pincushions, usually only seen in spring.

Forget-me-nots, planted in the vegetable garden two years ago, keep popping up.

Jalapeño plant appears to want to provide one more harvest - let's hope the frost stays away long enough!

Could it be ... sunflowers!?! In mid-September? Oh, I hope, I hope they bloom before it gets too cold!!

Late Summer Garden

And, I'm back! I hope to come back to this space a couple times a week now that I have my other blog moving along nicely.

Late summer harvest from the garden - gazillions of tomatoes this year (yay!!), tomatillos (which grow like weeds in my yard and garden) and jalapeños. Will be making salsa shortly. And bruschetta (with store-bought basil, as both garden shops I went to were sold out by the time I planted last spring).

Ladybug found in garden and put in an unenclosed "kid-made" habitat. Ladybug has since moved on to other habitats :)

Growing pumpkin.

White pumpkin! Still growing. We picked a white pumpkin from a pumpkin farm and saved the seeds. We planted the seeds in spring and here we have our first home-grown white pumpkin! Didn't work with the blue Belgian pumpkin, but there's always next year!

The Fall Garden

Fall is not the vegetable garden's most beautiful hour. I'd bet many gardeners wouldn't dare post photos of the messiness of the end of the season. But I love it in all its over-grown, jumbled craziness. I actually leave my garden standing throughout winter and clean it all up in spring, when I'm itching to start it all over again. I love the winter interest of the garden covered in snow. The sunflower is very important to the winter birds. I see Goldfinches on it year 'round!

Fall is also when gardeners reflect on what they did wrong and what they did right. So here are my "Lessons Learned"
1. Don't grow it if you won't eat it (unless it's really pretty). For our family that means turnips, cucumbers and cabbage. The space would have been better used for spinach, lettuce, peas and beans.
2. Our family can't have enough of: peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, lettuce. Grow more!
3. Plant outside earlier. I always like to start seeds indoors, but honestly they never do well once transplanted. This year I planted everything from seed directly into the garden and I had great success. I could have been more successful had I planted earlier (I'm still harvesting my first ripe tomatoes - it's October in Wisconsin! way too late...) I have raised beds so next year I will experiment with plastic sheets of some sort pulled across the top of the beds.
6. Thin your seedlings! Ugh, no more itsy-bitsy carrots and radishes!
7. Reseed the lettuce and spinach after harvesting.
8. Harvest the broccoli before it flowers! (although the flowers are really pretty)

And my "I'm so proud of you" list:
1. Gourds - really hard to grow and I have a bumper crop!
2. Tomatillos - but they grow like weeds in my yard, so nothing to be proud of except that I was able to reign them in a bit
3. Corn - I managed to harvest 2 ears, but they look so dramatic in the garden!
4. Square Foot Gardening - it's not a gimmick, it really works, although next year I will plan better.

I can't wait for next year!

Tomatillos (and some tomatoes and a pumpkin)

For those wondering what a "ripe" tomatillo looks like, look no further. My first post on this blog featured the delicate-looking "lanterns" of the first tomatillos and here they are ready to be picked. Below is a bowl of picked tomatillos ready to be cooked and made into salsa (also a few more tomatoes from my paltry harvest this year).

Below, my pumpkin is finally turning orange. I really thought I was going to have to make do with a green pumpkin this year, but I just needed some patience!