End of September 2014

End of September

September just flew by! I guess part of the reason was that I was away in Manitoba for 10 days. We had a wicked frost for 5 nights in a row while I was gone!

Cleaned up the greenhouse cucumber vines that were mostly dried up. Took the last 2 cucumbers into the house.  Looks like the vines had a fungus again this year, but it appeared only towards the end of the growing season this time, thankfully. We got a couple of dozen English cucumbers off the vines and they were delicious! We ended up giving quite a number away to family, friends and neighbours. 

Tomatoes and cucumbers

Tomato News

I composted the 3 smaller potted tomato plants from the deck. We got a bit of fruit off them, but they did not do really well. I think the trees surrounding the deck are so tall now that they block a lot of the sun that we used to get there.  

The big tumbler was amazing, though! It had tiny tomatoes on it continuously for over 3 months! It was great to pick a few to pop into my mouth each time I walked by! :)

We had lots of the huge pale red New Zealand tomatoes ripening on the vines. Once we brought them into the house they ripened very quickly though and they go bad fast. 

The heirloom Purple Russian tomato plants were tall and leggy, but had quite a lot of tomatoes on them once they got going. Many of them were splitting, though. I think that is due to either too much water (not likely!) or not enough. Maybe we are not watering the big pots deeply enough. Something to note for next year*

Our Early Girls did the best and the tomatoes are always delicious. 

The Star of the tomato Season was the Patio Tomato plant that I got at Tail Creek Greenhouse! The plant has a nice compact way of growing and the red tomatoes are delicious. 

I saved tomato seeds from The Early Girls this year, as well as the Patios, a few from the Lemon Boy, some New Zealand seeds and a few Purple Russian seeds.  

Purple Russian heirloom tomato and giant acorn squash

We were impressed with the squash plants, too. We had 3 of our own spaghetti squashes grow and gave 2 more away. We also had 5 or 6 acorn squashes produced on the vies as well. 

The two Zucchini plants (store bought) did well; not an excessive amount of fruit which is good.  Made some muffins and two quiches, and gave a few zucchinis to friends.

We truly feel blessed by all this abundance and are very thankful for all that we have, not only now at Thanksgiving, but also during the rest of the year.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Blue campanula end of season

Fall 2014 Peony Transplanting/ Dahlia digging

Calendulas still blooming

September 23rd- I transplanted my little red Memorial Day peony which has never bloomed in the 5 years since I planted it.  I think I have been patient enough, so now it was time for a drastic change!

I dug it out of my 'wild bed' where it was just existing, not thriving at all. Too little sunshine there now that the surrounding trees have grown so tall. Maybe too deeply planted as well???  (Who knows!?)

I made a fresh little flower bed for it at the east side of the deck stairs next to my big tub.  Diligent Husband helped me to dig up patch of lawn there (in spite of his sore back. Thanks, Sweetie!)
Next I dug out a bunch of overgrown bearded irises, long in need of attention, as well as a huge nest of quack grass (which seemed never ending…). I added some good humus and peat plus a little of the original clayish soil. I tried to set the peony into the ground so the little white eye was about 1 to 1 1/2 inches below the surface. That is supposedly the optimum growing depth of a peony.  Now it's up to Mother Nature to help it grow leaves and hopefully blossoms as well.

I added a few of the original irises back in (not too close to the peony) and planted 3 or 4 in the old peony hole in my 'wild bed' at the end of the yard.

I also dug my red Thompson dahlia tubers out of my Angel bed. It is still sitting on the deck drying off  (I have been away for a few days), but it's time now to put it in a bag with peat and bring it inside.  Two down and one more to go! There's still a lot of dahlia tubers in one of my yard tubs that need to be rescued as well as 3 tuberous begonia tubers.

Black eyed Susand display their fall colours

The little 2 tone pink dahlia that I bought new this year is still alive in its pot on the deck (only because I brought it inside the house for a week during our ugly frost week earlier in September- 9th - 12th) ) and it still has a few flowers.  The poor bees are finding less and less flowers to collect nectar from. I wonder what the bees do in October when ALL the flowers are gone?  Hopefully they have a big stockpile in their hives then…

The tumbler tomato plant on the deck still has fruit ripening daily, although the plant itself is pretty much dried up.

Nahla- garden helper

Time to get outside and do some more flower bed clean up.