Fruit and Vegetable – The Salem Garden

What’s Happening In the Garden– September 30

Hey everyone! It looks like I’m a one post a week blogger at the moment. It’s fall and I’m all over the place…I know I keep saying that life is busy, but, really, it is. To add to it Halloween in Salem starts on Thursday night with our Halloween parade. I love the localness of that event. It’s really “our” Halloween as a city. From that point on we give the rest of the celebration over to the visitors. That’s fine with me, it makes money and people have a blast! Let me know if your going to be in town in October, I’d love to meet you!

Okay, so, here’s the Salem Garden this morning.

It’s beautiful out there today. The summer garden is winding down but the fall garden has it’s own special character and charm.

I think I said this a few weeks ago— I love these Romano beans.

The swiss chard is doing okay. I should spend some time weeding and trimming so the center leaves can produce. See my little asian cucumber hiding in the back?

Here it is up close, we’ve eaten some and there are several growing. Not bad for an early August afterthought. I think there will be more of these next year.

Broccoli and lettuce are perking along too. I really believe that the broccoli is all about the chicken manure… that’s it. If you don’t have some available it’s very easy to purchase. Just read the labels at your favorite garden supply store and you’ll find it easily.

A broccoli flower that actually looks like broccoli! Will there be more? Time will tell…

These need to be picked and cooked or frozen today. I wish I was a canner…

We have five or six happy Brussel sprout plants. My Uncle Ossie says that they sweeten up when the frost hits them.
What do you think about this bit of browning on the bottom of the stalk? Anyone? Miss Betsey, you may have a thought here. I’m hoping it’s okay.

Tomatillos… hundreds of them… salsa verde here we come!

And the leaves on the trees are just starting to turn. It’s going to be a pretty few weeks here in Salem. I hope I can share some of that with you.

So there we are. Thanks for hanging in with me and for stopping by. Let me know how your garden is growing, I love, love, love your comments!

Enjoy everything!

Michele

What’s Happening In the Garden– September 10

I am hanging on to summer, that’s what’s happening here. With fall on our doorstep people keep saying that fall is their favorite season. I’m sorry, I just can’t join them, I’m a summer girl, that’s all there is to it. That said, the mums are getting ready to pop, which does help a little with the transition.
The oregano is still beautiful. I gave this a good cut back a couple of weeks ago. I’d like to dry some to enjoy this winter.
We still have plenty of green tomatoes. I’m hoping that the sun that’s forecast for today and the heat of tomorrow will help these along.
The romano beans took off and are climbing. Next year I think I may start some of these earlier in the season. This cute little gourd just peeked out and surprised me. I need to scrounge around and see if there are more hiding along the fences. We still have zinnias! And here’s the asian cucumber that I planted from seed in late July. It kind of took off. I don’t see much fruit but there were several bees flying around it pollinating the other day. It may still happen. The morning glories reseeded from last year and are happy in the herb garden. We have several banana peppers to enjoy. I may try drying a few of them. Broom corn, so pretty! Next year we’ll plant a nice strong row of it and make some serious brooms. Lettuce, with broccoli next to it. I’m kind of surprised by this broccoli. I wonder if it’s one of the few plants that likes being close to the chicken coop. I’ve been reading about broccoli and learning that it responds well to the high nitrogen content of chicken compost. The trick seems to be growing nice leafy plants before the flowers form. I think we may be on our way here. I’m growing these at work too but I believe that the heat on the rooftop caused flowers to form before the plants really matured. We deadheaded those, then composted and fertilized them heavily with poultry manure a week or so ago, so I’m watching and hoping that they’ll take off.We have lots of tomatillos, another nice surprise. I froze several over the weekend. It’s as easy as taking off the outer skin and putting them into a freezer bag. This week I’m planning to make some salsa verde, and I’ll likely freeze a nice gallon bag or two of them for the winter.
The foxglove is back in all it’s glory! I love this plant. It will probably reseed all over the place!
This is tucked into the front border on the outside of garden… is it ragweed or goldenrod? Pat at Commonweeder (one of my favorite garden blogs), just talked about this yesterday. I’m not sure, but I think it’s goldenrod.
And I’m already missing the black eyed-susan. It’s hard to see them go.

How’s your late summer garden doing? What were your biggest surprises this year?

Tell me about your garden, I love to hear from you!

Happy still summer! Enjoy Everything!

Michele

What’s Happening In the Garden- August 7

Let’s see, where to start…After lots of rain early on the weather has been beautiful for the past couple of days. We’ve had a few perfect garden days. I love, love, love those days!

Here’s one of our very recent freecycle finds! I’m pretty excited about this. We’re hoping to collect rain from the roof of the chicken coop to water with. That should save some time and money!

The tomatoes are coming along slowly. I’m hearing a lot about “lots of foliage but no tomatoes” from friends and family. I think the heavy rain we had early in the summer is to blame. In spite of my efforts I have a good amount of blight out there and I think it’s largely caused by the rain bouncing the fungus right up on to the plants from the ground. Does that make sense?

Tomatillos… they are just so darned cute! Now I have figure out how to eat them.

Cosmos above the Brussel sprouts…a nice pop of color but their out of control!

A few peppers… we’ll see. Their kind of a late August crop.

The cabbage is coming along too. It’s slightly shaded by the cosmos so I keep moving them (the cosmos) to other areas. This cabbage has been munched on a little bit. I probably need to put some slug traps out there.

I planted a little bit of swiss chard over the weekend. It’s so pretty! I hope it settles in and takes off.

Here we have asian cucumber, with chard to the right, a sad little zucchini plant tucked in and cauliflower right behind it.I haven’t had luck with zucchini here or at work this year. The squash borers were hard at work everywhere.

Dill in the foreground (the dill volunteers all over the yard) with relocated cosmos and some romano beans coming up in front of the fence. The beets in the bacdground may become beets after all. I wasn’t sure a few weeks ago but their looking okay.

Shallots are curing… I need to store them in a cool dry place. Their a bit smaller than I expected but after researching it I think that may just be the variety.

Eggplant… well… I don’t know… I think it needed more sun. To be honest we don’t really like it so it’s not a huge loss. I think the garden knoll is enjoying it though.

I’ve been pretty distracted this summer so I feel some loss about the garden. Part of the problem is my tendency to sit on this deck and enjoy the view 😉

I’m okay with that.

Enjoy everything!

Michele

This Week In My Garden : : August 1 (beautythatmoves.typepad.com)
swiss Chard benefits – 6 healthy benefits (amiretkhadra.wordpress.com)

What’s Happening in the Garden-June 30

Good Morning! Happy Sunday! The sun is out and I’m ready to rock and roll out in the garden this morning! We’ve had pretty crazy weather here in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s often been sunny out, but then it rains. Then it rains torrentially, then the sun comes out. Then we have a thunderstorm. Then it’s sunny. It’s been pretty weird.

Since we’ve had so much rain we have lots of fungi scattered everywhere. This grass was freshly cut yesterday afternoon and by this morning this guy (and several of his friends) had appeared.

Down in the garden, the staked tomatoes are staked. I’m going to do a bit more pruning today. I’m taking away the bottom branches in hopes of keeping the diseases off of the plants. I wish I’d done a ground cover. If I find salt marsh hay in my travels today I may still add some in around these plants.

Good morning girls!

Tomatillo, that I started from seed. They were spindly, sad seedlings and I thought that they were a lost cause but I plunked them in anyway and here we are. I think I’ll spread them out a bit and see what we get.

We have tomatoes! This is “mortgage lifter.” Their said to reach three pounds and taste wonderful. I’m very excited about these! Notice the little velcro ties? I’ve never seen these before so I thought I’d give them a try. So far so good.

The brussel sprouts look happy…

as do the shallots.

And another sweetie tomato seedling that I’d given up for lost. Plants are more resilient than we think sometimes!

Cabbage, with cosmos for color…. Someone thought the cosmos were a weed yesterday, lol. He put them back.

More fungi… at first glance I thought that this was one of my long, skinny friends with a stripe on it’s back. I was pretty happy when I realized that it wasn’t.

Cauliflower is flowering. I’ve never grown cauliflower before and we love to eat it! Bush beans are coming along nicely. The snapdragons self seeded to help light up the chicken coop steps. The peas did their thing… they climbed in spite of the wind and rain! Horseradish…Banana Pepper..
Bee Balm ready to flower… and a greeting by the shyest cat in the world when I came back inside. See, family and friends, Mittens does exist… just a few of us ever see her.

Time to get out there! There’s weeding to do!

Enjoy everything!

Love, Michele

What’s Happening In the Garden-May 31

We’re rolling right along out there! The impending heat today was a great incentive to get things deeply planted and watered yesterday. It finally feels like summer is here in Salem!

The potatoes are coming right along. I’ve been adding soil to these as they grow. This pot is full (I hope) of early red potatoes. I’m a little worried about that Japanese Maple. There are tiny buds but no leaves at all yet. It seems a little late?

These are newly planted (last week) Adirondack Blue potatoes.I’ve been working on pots and containers in preparation for our high school graduation visitors next weekend. Hopefully this will fill in in the next few days.
Tomatoes are in! We went for a large variety this year. I’ll have to do a separate post on that sometime soon.Peppers, cabbage, brussel sprouts and shallots. Please notice the complete lack of perfection here. I just don’t allow myself to get bogged down by that. I would never get anything done.Lettuce, cauliflower and bush beans planted at the end.One lonely zucchini plant can grow into the space currently used by the lettuce. I had such horrible squash bugs last year that I swore “no zucchini”. Of course there is a tiny bit of zucchini.The chicken coop window box is in!
Sweet peas are creeping up beautifully.
And we have iris!!This is a German iris. And of course, siberian.

Maybe there is just a little bit of perfection out there, but not because of me!

Enjoy everything!

Love, Michele

What’s Happening in the Garden–October 10

It really feels like fall out in the garden. I can’t say that I love it, I’m a summer person, but it is beautiful here and the Holidays are right around the corner, then the snow, and then spring will be here.. sorry.. I’m getting off track :).

Okay, out to the garden! Here’s our white pine tree undergoing it’s annual fall browning. It may look a bit sad but this is just part of it’s fall process. You can read more about the conifer life cycle here in this article by Margaret at A Way to Garden, one of my very favorite gardening blogs. The conifers will be just fine, they really will!

We still have a few hints of summer, like mesclun.

and some sage. I need to dry some for the winter.

The tomatoes are hanging on. This tomato plant volunteered from last year and grew all over the asparagus bed.

The peppers like this cool weather.

There’s lots of green tomatoes. My neighbor and I were talking about what to do with them last night.

This morning on the phone my mom said that they can be wrapped in newspaper to slowly ripen. I may try that… will keep you posted!

The cabbage are just about ready.

There’s still some basil hanging on

and zinnias and gladiolas.

I’m wondering if the gladiolas can winter over in the ground, or should I pull them and put them away for the winter?

(I should probably pull them out)

Our trees are still quite green. we should be seeing some good fall color soon, I hope!

There’s so much clean up to do. We’ll get there, one bed at a time.

Happy fall! Enjoy everything!

Michele

Sweet Peas, Veggies and Herbs!

First of all, thank you, thank you for all of your wonderful suggestions yesterday about what to do with the Green Monster! I’m newly energized and I’m working hard on pulling that area together. I was feeling quite overwhelmed before I asked for your help. Hopefully I’ll be able to share a photo of our progress soon. It’s such a shady, private spot. I love to sit there for a minute first thing in the morning or when we take a break during the day. It’s going to be a little oasis in our oasis.

Here’s an update on how things are going out in the garden this week:

The sweet peas are almost ready!

Here’s a beautiful post about sweet peas that AmySue at A Healthy Life for Me wrote last week

http://ahealthylifeforme.com/2012/06/05/peas-peas-everywhere/

Her recipes and photos are wonderful!

The basil and tomatoes are coming along (notice that the bunny food/poop grass is still trying to surface). I decided to try salt marsh hay as mulch this year to retain moisture and keep weeds and wilt away. We’ll see how it goes. I’d better get cages around those tomato plants soon.

I planted few red cabbage plants in this extra space and we’re enjoying the lettuce. Better get it while we can because lettuce is happiest in cool weather, once it gets hot it will bolt and be gone! The zucchini has settled in nicely and I planted a treat just beyond the lettuce… zinnias to cut and enjoy in August

Lemon balm, thyme and lavender…

And here’s our first purple coneflower blossom of the season! There will be many more to come..

It’s very rainy here but it’s supposed to clear up over the next few days. Perfect weather for growing everything!

Thanks for stopping!

Enjoy Everything today!

Michele

Related articles