Fall arrives

Lovely late season harvest

The hot summer temps and high humidity have finally gone and  it's just lovely outside! Fall is my favorite season, the skies are bright blue, the sunshine warm and the air is cool. The plants still blooming, crank out one last productive shot before winter amidst the Fall blooming asters & chrysanthemums.The Fall garden harvest is slower, but each fruit or vegetable is a bit more precious.

 My first ever carrots are simply gorgeous & tasty. I purchased Nantes carrot seed online from SeedSavers at http://www.seedsavers.org/ and it did well, despite my inept planting. The last of the sweet Carmen red peppers are brilliant amidst their yellowing foliage and taste delicious in my new favorite recipe, Orzo with roasted vegetables. My abundance of zinnias and marigolds (my go to garden gap fillers) are at their peak of cheery Fall color and a valuable nectar source for the Buckeye butterfly.

The yellow rose I transplanted this spring is finally blooming profusely! Unfortunately, I am unable to give an accurate name to this terrific plant, because the tag said it should be a "coral pink Camelot rose"... and that's not what I have, although the "very fragrant" part of the description is definitely true. So my lovely, anonymous yellow rose has successfully acclimated to it's new garden home, surrounded by Thai Basil and a Husky cherry tomato. I think it has a columnar growth habit, so after an early prune next year, I am planning to add some central support.

A few of the "forgotten" radishes have morphed into Halloween veg with grotesque bulbous lumps and distortions. I'll probably pull the last of them for a spooky table centerpiece closer to Halloween. All in all, everything I planted in the new raised beds grew and produced. In the next couple of weekends, I'm planning to empty the beds of soil to extend the free-form gardens. I'll  lay down a few layers of burlap beneath the frames to prevent the pesky Bermuda grass growing up through a foot of dirt from my most imperfect lawn base. Then, I'll refill the raised bed frames with new composted soil for next Spring's planting. Every year I have a new challenge and thus a new learning experience...

I enjoyed an al fresco breakfast this morning on the back patio. No, I did not bake the croissants! I did grow the organic apples you see and they are delicious. They're a cross between the two trees in the yard, one of which was supposed to be a crab apple but now produces these tart and juicy beauties.  An apple crisp is in my plan for dinner tonight along with the first soup pot of the season. I can hardly wait!

There are a bunch of Fall garden projects I should get done before winter. Hopefully, I'll get the bulk of them completed and documented here. Life is unpredictable though, so we'll see. Peacefully yours.