The State of My Garden - Fall 2008

My big project.

A girlfriend of mine was putting new windows into her antique home, so I asked her if I could have her old storm windows to make cold frames -- inspired by Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest.

Frost will be coming soon here in New England so I need to get busy.

In these frames I should be able to grow cold loving vegetables -- especially greens like arugula, spinach, bok choy, parsley -- No doubt this fall / winter will be a learning year, but I'm looking forward to it!

The one remaining loaf from Karen's Homemade Bread Recipe. The problem with fabulous homemade bread ... two huge loaves disappear in 72 hours.

My yard clippings compost bin. As you can see, this three sectioned bin is made with pallets that I was able to get for free. I will put yard clippings, leaves and grass. The leaves and grass should break down so that eventually I can use it as a "leaf mold" in place of peat moss. Helpful when planting seeds. We (as you can see) have a lot of woods in the back of our property -- so excess clippings etc will go in the woods and I can transport them over for "quick" composting that I can easily turn and rotate. I have another enclosed compost bin for kitchen scraps.

Here you can see my leeks are coming along (although more slowly than I would like) and the peas that Ripley helped me to plant in late August are almost ready for picking. Are you taking advantage of second and third plantings? Growing isn't over for your garden once the tomatoes and zucchini are done ... there is so much more that you can get from your garden!

Here are my cold loving greens coming along - two kinds of romaine, bok choy, arugula, spinach and some random peas that were late comers from an earlier planting. I planted some in late August, some in Early September. A lot of the little seedlings were destroyed when we had the left over hurricanes plow through, so I had to replant.

Here are my strawberries. I planted the root crowns this spring, clipped off the blossoms and helped the daughter plants take root when they sprung from the "mother" plant. Now we can't wait for spring! Our asparagus are also looking great and are ready to go next spring. Contrary to what "they" used to say, asparagus actually do better if harvested only ONE year after planting as opposed to three years -- however the first year you can harvest every 2-3 days for 4 weeks. The following year you can harvest for a longer period of time. What an amazing plant.