Fall is near

Golden Rod in bloom

Cooler nights, autumn skies, apple picking and pumpkin pies!  Autumn is my absolute favourite time of year.  Though I do not have any fall beds planted or any of the delightful fall goodies such as butternut or acorn squash in my gardens I look forward to buying them from local farmers!  

My tomatoes suffered the most but they started out poorly as I planted them close to a black walnut seedling.  PSA – black walnut trees are toxic to tomato plants among others such as peppers and apple trees!  I planted 23 tomato plants in hopes I wouldn’t have to buy any tomatoes for canning but that just didn’t work out this year.  Out of the surviving plants I have received maybe ½ a bushel which is not a lot in terms of saucing.  Luckily there are many wonderful farms that did much better with their plants and I could buy from the best!

A small tomato harvest

Peppers have shone this year for a change.  Aphids were ramped initially and I almost lost all 30 pepper plants but in the end I took the advice from a lovely farmer friend and kept all but the obviously deceased in the ground.  Currently ring of fire peppers are ripening to a beautiful red, gypsy peppers are still pushing out new fruit and any day the scotch bonnets will start changing colour!

Summer's bounty

Beans lined my front beds for the better part of July.  Green were very productive while the yellow and purple had a harder time.

Cucumber wasn’t a win here this year.  We had maybe 6 out of 6 plants!  With each hot day they suffered greatly, it was evident with their midday wilted leaves.  No amount of water could help them this season but the few we received were wonderful!

Zucchini was accidentally planted and until recently wasn’t showing signs of fruit.  There are a few on the plants now though and we look forward to picking them when they are ready!

Potatoes were a surprise crop that I didn’t intend to plant but I was offered a gift of seed potatoes and couldn’t resist.  Earlier in the season I harvested them all as new potatoes as the plants seemed to be dying back faster than they should have.  Home grown potatoes – there is nothing like them.

Flowers and cukes

I also planted herbs and some kale – lots and lots of basil that is only now starting to turn, rosemary, sage and dill which did reasonably well for me considering the conditions.

Sunflowers, bachelor buttons, zinnias, marigolds, calendula, cosmos and nasturtium were also planted for some floral colour all of which my children loved to pick and display in their hand painted jars. 

As my gardens come to an end and I start to put them to rest until spring I remain thankful.  Despite the harsh weather we have had this summer they still provided us with a decent amount of healthy hearty produce and lots of learning opportunity for my future gardens.

My efforts were so small compared to those of farmers,  This season has been hard on everyone.  So if you are a farmer or grower - THANK YOU!