Bringing in the Bounty

Before I get into the title topic, I thought I'd share this picture, taken about 7 o'clock this morning. I love foggy mornings!

So onto the topic at hand....this is what I pulled out of the garden this morning.

Yes....that colander is as wide as my kitchen sink. There actually are also some jalapenos and bell peppers under all those green beans. Oh, and then there was the turnip that's the size of my hand.

Granted, I have small hands, but that's a pretty big turnip!

So, anyone have some good recipes that use lots of green beans? I've actually already frozen about a half gallon of them so far!

More Fall Plantings

The rest of my fall planting order has arrived! Woo hoo! Here's what I've got:

Moon River Peony
California Hard Neck Garlic
Naturalizing Daffodils
Apricot Beauty Tulips

With that, and the fall season, comes some to-do's:

1. Find spots for and plant my new goodies!
2. Plant bulbs given to me by my voice teacher and his wife (I have a giant tray full of bulbs! Mostly daffodil...they think)
3. Plant more green onions, lettuce and mustard greens
4. Clean out pots. I have some iris and daylilies in containers from the apartment that I have been waiting to plant in the ground. Others are just past their prime and are looking scraggly or need to be brought inside before it gets too cold.
5. Stir compost and add leaves as they fall and are raked up

What does your fall clean-up/to-do list look like?

Fall Plantings

Whew! It's been a busy month! The hubs is getting ready to deploy, so it's been a whirlwind of traveling to see family, hosting family who are visiting us, and various other social events. They haven't left much time for thinking (or sleeping), much less blogging! Hopefully things will quiet down here soon. Oh well....onward.

I mentioned some time ago (back in August) that I had planted my fall crops. Well, some have been more successful than others, but here is the latest update.

My lettuce and green onions got trampled by a visiting dog when they were still seedlings, so they died. Boo. I have plans to put a few more seeds in the ground this week, but wanted to wait until all off the visiting dogs were gone before I did so.

On the flip side, my green beans are doing fantastic. In fact, they have nearly taken up the entire raised bed where the onions and lettuce was, so maybe it's a good thing they died.

And they're also starting to put out beans. Maybe I'll even have enough to can this year!

Also, my turnips seem to be doing quite well. Anyone know how to tell when a turnip is ready to be harvested?? One of them is even showing its white root above ground. I'm looking forward to some tasty turnip greens this fall.

 

The broccoli and cauliflower are coming up nicely.

Broccoli

Cauliflower

 

The peas I'm not so sure about. They got much bigger much faster in the spring. Maybe it's the difference between fall and spring plantings?

So what have you all been up to lately? Anyone do some good fall planting?

Fall Seed Planting

Now that I've got my garden boxes built, it's time for fall plantings! Following the planting calendar for my area (zone 6), I got my fall planting in the ground just a few days ago. Here's my planting list for this go-round:

1. Looseleaf lettuce. This is a cut-and-come-again salad mix, so I should be able to get several rounds of harvest from this. I also held back some seeds so I can do successive plantings. The next one will be in about two weeks.
2. Green beans (Blue Lake 274, Bush Type). These are left over from the ones I planted back in the spring. Only problem in the spring was that I planted them too early, and they froze. Shame on me for not following the directions on the seed packet!
3. Peas. These are the same bush habit Sugar Lace peas I planted in the spring as well. I actually had good luck with these this spring....hopefully I'll get some more delicious sweet peas!
4. Cauliflower. This Cheddar Hybrid is actually orange! Park Seed says it has 25 times the beta carotene of regular cauliflower. This is an experiment, so we'll see how it goes, and whether I will choose to plant it again.
5. Broccoli Packman Hybrid
6. Turnips White Lady Hybrid
7. Onions Parade. These are actually green onions.

I've also got some garlic on order as well as a packet of mustard green seeds I need to dig up. I think they got buried in my seed basket during the move, and over-looked when I started pulling things out for planting.

For flowers, I have a packet of columbine seeds, some tulip and daffodil bulbs, and a peony (which I have not received yet, but should in the next month or so).

Anyone else got big plans for their fall garden?