One Last Garden Chore

By now all the garden clean-up is done. The leaves are hopefully chopped and put in your compost pile or left on the grass and gardens.  The produce has all been eaten or preserved. Fall always makes me a little sad.  The bright colors of the garden have turned to browns and golds.  I took a walk around the garden yesterday and was surprised that there are still some beautiful sights.

Cheyenne privet is a wonderful shrub.  It grows quickly into a privacy hedge, takes well to shearing, and gets these dark blue berries in fall.

Smokebush is one of my favorite shrubs for color all the time, especially in fall.

The lavender was still blooming last week, and it still smells wonderful.

Snapdragons keep blooming even though we've had frost several times.

Before you say goodbye to your garden, there's one more thing you might want to do.  Remember last winter?  Our gardening business was busy in spring taking out dead Alberta spruce and yews.  We have plenty of both in our yard.  We plan on providing protection this winter. We didn't lose any shrubs, but we have some topiaries that had winter kill in spots and didn't recover.  The deer have also done a lot of damage to our arborvitaes in the past.

This arborvitae was a yummy deer snack.

Last year we wrapped the arborvitaes with plastic mesh and the deer were foiled.  In addition to that, we're going to wrap the Alberta spruce and yews with burlap.  It's a pain, but not even close to the work of digging out dead shrubs, not to mention the expense of buying new ones.  It's also important to give evergreens a good soak before the ground freezes.  They continue to lose moisture through their needles all winter.  The extra effort might be worthwhile when you consider the investment you have in your landscape.

Prolific little pumpkins

I'm not a big fan of fall.  It's always a little depressing to see it get cool and dark earlier each evening. But there are some things I like about fall, and pumpkins are one of them (and pumpkin pie, pumpkin bars, pumpkin bread, etc.).  The mini pumpkins I talked about yesterday were harvested today - 87 from four plants.  One plant, the white Gooligans, produced 41 pumpkins!  Of course, my favorite variety of the three I planted, the orange and white striped Hooligans, produced only six pumpkins. The other two plants were the orange ones, 20 pumpkins per plant.

I'll be planting these again next year for sure, but NOT in the fenced-in vegetable bed. (See yesterday's warning about sprawling garden bullies.) I have a big, sturdy trellis where a clematis died last winter.  I'll try mini pumpkins on it next year.

If you like decorating with gourds and pumpkins, I highly recommend growing them instead of buying.  They require no care beyond planting a seed and watering daily until it sprouts.  For the price of a pack of seeds, you'll have all the gourds or pumpkins you could possibly use and plenty to share with your neighbors.

One last harvest

There isn't much left to harvest from the vegetable garden.  The tomatoes, peppers, and beans are about done.  Carrots and kohlrabis are still going.  But there is one thing I've been waiting for and I think I'll harvest them this week - mini pumpkins!

These are actually edible pumpkins, not the gourds that look like mini pumpkins.  They're about 3"x 2".  

All three of these varieties came in one package called Harvest Blend.  The varieties are Bumpkin (orange), Gooligan (white), and Hooligan (orange & white mottled).  I just got the seed package out and read the back again.  I hadn't read it carefully when I planted, so I missed the line that says that these can sprawl just as far as larger varieties.  Oops!  That explains why they went over the fence, across the path, and into the lawn.  That will teach me to read seed packages more carefully.  I will definitely plant these again next year, but not in the vegetable garden.  They sprawled over the carrots and basil, blocking out the sun.  They were garden bullies and will not be allowed back into the playground next year. They probably don't need to be in the fenced-in area.  The back of the flower garden is a good spot for them.  They can have all the room they want.  I don't think deer or rabbits would be interested in them.  I saw a front yard garden yesterday that included full-sized pumpkins growing among the flowers.  What a great idea!  It was really eye-catching.  In a cottage-style garden they could wander wherever they want to.  I'll be trying that next year.  

It's raining today, so I'll have to wait to harvest them.  When I do, I'll report back on how many pumpkins I got from my four plants. 

Summer's Over

It finally happened.  We got a frost hard enough to do in the annuals.  For me, this is the official end of summer.  This solitary clematis bloom surprised me.  The rest of the flowers look more like this.

After frost

Before frost

Before frost

After frost

Snapdragons are always there for you!

Before frost/After frost

If you read my summer posts, you know that we were up to our eyeballs in little orange tomatoes.

Even frost can't rid of them!

This is a busy time of year for gardeners.  Time to stop admiring the garden and get out and work in it.  I've learned to split the chores of cutting back perennials and shrubs between fall and spring. I used to save all of it for spring, and them kick myself in April when I was overwhelmed with everything I had to do.

If you need help with your fall garden chores in the Waukesha County area, contact me at:
petalpowergardening@gmail.com or 262-893-7249.

Fall Color

I seemed like summer might just keep going on and on, so it was a rude awakening when the weatherman said that there is a chance of frost tonight.  I went out to enjoy the garden before it changes.  I picked the remaining tomatoes, peppers, and basil.  I found some kohlrabies that were still in the ground and pitched a few before I decided to see if they were still edible.  To my surprise, they were just as good as they were in July! 

There is still so much color in the garden, not all of it from flowers.  Some plants that fade into the background in summer now have their turn to shine.

This highbush cranberry is beautiful all summer, but in early fall it turns yellow and develops dark berries, and then turns this gorgeous red.  The grass above is 8 feet tall and  makes a stunning privacy screen.




 The tiny apples on this crabapple tree were barely visible until the leaves dropped. 

I would never skip planting nasturtiaums.  They're at their height right now when most other annuals are looking ragged.

If you don't plant a few packs of zinnia seeds every year - WHY NOT?  They come in a huge variety of colors and heights.  They've been blooming for over two months now.  They last a week as bouquets in the house and I've never had any kind of critter bother them.

Here's another fall favorite I would never be without.  Asters look a little like a weed during summer when they're not blooming, but just plant something else in front of them and wait until fall.  Then they'll redeem themselves and you'll be glad you put up with the foliage for the past few months.

Snapdragons are another plant I would never be without.  They bloom from mid-summer until frost.  While they are an annual, they reseed so freely that the one flat I bought 15 years ago, continues to grace my garden year after year with the most beautiful colors I've ever seen. 

                                                                                

 Not all the fall beauty is flowers.  This river birch is more striking in fall and winter than it is in summer when the trunks are obscured by leaves. 

Enjoy your fall garden while you can.  It's almost time to clear out perennials you don't want to leave standing and pull up annuals that got zapped by frost.  If you need help with that, call or e-mail me at:  petalpowergardening@gmail.com  or   262-893-7249.

67 Degrees

67 degrees - what a perfect temperature for gardening! The mosquitoes and the Japanese beetles are gone, along with the heat and humidity.  This is good time to plant perennials, trees, and shrubs.  There's still plenty of time for them to put down roots before the ground freezes, and the cooler weather means less transplant shock. 

One of the things I always do in fall is take note of what was successful this year and what wasn't so I can make plans for next year.  A garden is never finished.  It evloves.  That's the fun of gardening.  The orange poppies we planted a few years ago have gotten out of hand.  Out they go!  And now that the summer-blooming perennials are done, there are some gaping holes.  I'll have to add some fall-blooming plants in those spots next spring that can take over when the lilies, phlox, and bee balm are done. I've learned that this stuff needs to be written down.   I tell myself that I'll remember that I want to plant purple asters next to the driveway next spring and swap out the red rose in the front yard for a white one, but by May it's all forgotten and I'll be making the same mental notes next fall.  Now I keep a notebook for jotting down those observations. 

One of the things that I'll be adding to that notebook - don't plant 6 of those little orange tomatoes ever again!  We're drowning in little orange tomatoes.  I've given them to neighbors, friends, relatives, and taken them in to work.  One plant would have been plenty.  The watermelon and cantaloupe were disappointing.  If anyone has had success with them in southern Wisconsin, I'd love to hear about it.

Don't give up on your pots and window boxes in fall.  Many annuals perk up when the weather cools down.  Trailing plants might need a trim, but if you keep up on feeding and watering, your pots might look better now than they did a month ago.