Still Harvesting
On Sunday I headed out and harvesting some spinach, kale, and leeks from the garden. There’s still more out there, but the deer have found the garden and thus the harvests are dwindling rapidly. Nevertheless, I’m happy to still be harvesting vegetables from the garden.
After this harvest, there are only a few things left, mostly lettuce under cover. While I often have grand plans of growing more things for harvest in winter, the reality is that I grow some, and harvest through December, but I can’t seem to get seeds started and transplanted in time for winter harvests. I also have found that I often don’t have space in the garden when things need to go in during July/August. Any little bit will do, and I’m happy that at least some of the vegetables on our table are freshly harvested from the garden.
What are you harvesting right now?
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Finally Back
Sorry for the lack of posts last week. I was actually sick, something I picked up on our way back from Israel. I had big plans of going through all my photos and sharing the beautiful thing we saw, but instead I spent the week on the couch trying to rest up to make sure I got better quickly for the busy holiday season. I was feeling better this weekend, which meant I was able to get out and get a few things finished in the garden, namely wrapping plants to keep them protected from the nibbling deer.
I find using upturned pots over smaller plants works very well. This is an especially effective method of helping plants that are on the edge of their hardiness zone as well. I cover several roses and my acanthus each winter. I also wrap plants in burlap. This year I used various plant supports I had throughout the garden. I put them over small blueberries, roses, and other plants that the deer find especially delicious. Then I wrapped them with burlap and fastened them with twine. This method works quite well and it looks fairly nice as well.
What methods have you developed to protect plants from deer?
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JET LAG
Mr Chiots and I have been in Israel for the past week (if you follow me on Instagram you already know), we arrived home yesterday evening. It was a work trip with a big of sightseeing thrown in. As you can imagine, it was a LONG flight there and back and we are feeling like this today:
Stay tuned, I’ll be sharing photos of our trip and all the things we saw coming up.
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Snug as Bugs
Two weeks ago our weather started to dip down into the 20’s at night. Before the cold snap hit, I covered my fall broccoli and my lettuce with low tunnels and plastic (the lettuce has a layer of agribon on top of the plants as well as the plastic). It has since warmed up a bit again, but I still have them protected under their warm blankets. Yesterday, I headed out to see how things were doing.
The lettuce is looking GREAT, as is the broccoli. I won’t get any large heads of broccoli, but that’s OK. Once we harvest the heads that are there, the chickens will enjoy the leaves. I’ll wait to pull them until the snow flies and the chickens are pining for something green to eat. The lettuce we will harvest here and there as we need it. None of these varieties are particularly cold tolerant, so they will all be eaten before Thanksgiving. Overall, it’s been a decent fall gardening season, especially since I didn’t really plan on doing much at all!
Are you growing any winter vegetables? any favorites to recommend?
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So Long Garden
The 2018 garden season is pretty much officially over. I have to plant garlic and harvest some lettuce and broccoli, but other than that it’s pretty much clearing out the dead plants and seeing how high I can get the compost pile.
There were grand plans of adding hedges around the main garden and perhaps even starting the main walkways as well, but time seems to have slipped away quicker than we realized. As much as I really enjoy the gardening season, I’m ready for a bit of hibernation. I’m ready to get my sewing room moved and to start working on all the sewing projects I’ve been saving and planning over the summer. While the days get shorter, there’s still plenty to do to tidy up the garden. I’m busy pulling in all terra-cotta pots and organizing them into my gardening area under the garage stairs.
The longer evenings are allowing more time for reading, something I don’t have tons of time to do in the summer. In the evenings you will find me warming myself in front of the wood stove reading a book, most likely with a cat sleeping nearby. There’s something lovely about living in a place with very different seasons, it helps us appreciate and enjoy the things each one has to offer.
How’s your garden waning as winter comes along? Do you have any favorite winter activities that you can’t do during the busy gardening season?
