A Little Soil Prep

I took advantage of the 55 degrees and sunny weather to do a little soil preparation.

Late this fall, I adopted the neighboring garden plot. The gardeners hadn't been able to come by and it was untended. So I watered and weeded and last week pulled up the frozen tomato plants. Today, I turned over the soil. Like my plot, they have six inches of top soil on top of hard-packed gravel. I didn't bother digging through the gravel though. I've done that in parts of my garden and it's a huge job.

In my garden, I pulled up the (beautiful) swiss chard to make way for garlic. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so it would be ideal to get the garlic in this evening. I made a 3'6" by 3' bed. Depending on how densely we plant the garlic, it can hold from 56-192 heads. I don't think I'll be able to eat 192 heads of garlic, so it may be wise to space them out a bit!

I also planted some Allium flowers around the chives. I hope the Allium gigantum bulb I planted survives. It will be a fun flower.

Garlic bed in the far corner. To the left you can see the freshly tilled neighboring plot.

Colorful kale, mums, and dianthus. I expected the mums to bloom more than they did. They have lots of blossoms, but few flowers.

Note the long shadows. I took this picture at almost exactly noon today.

The Weather Changes

63 degrees and sunny today with a warm breeze.

More Snow

Yesterday, I went out to my garden and removed the dead tomatoes, peppers, and marigolds. The plan was that I was going to go out to the garden today and work the soil for the garlic bed. But then we woke up to a 2" blanket of snow. I probably could work the soil today, but I'd like to be able to see the ground so I don't accidentally dig up any of the onions I've left in the ground to overwinter.

First Frost and Snow October 9

"Welcome To My Garden"

It snowed last night and we got our first frost. I knew last night that it would get cold. But the days are shortner now and I got home right as it got dark. So I decided that what was meant to happen would happen. I slept in this morning and woke up to a blanket of snow. I took these pictures at about 9:30am after a lot of the snow had started to melt.

It's supposed to get down to 26 degrees tonight so I thought it was time to get out into my garden and do a little work.

I did some harvesting: tomatoes, swiss chard, leeks, cucumbers, bell peppers, onions, cabbages, and one carrot that was living under a tomato plant. I removed the tomato cages and cucumber/morning glory trellis. This meant pulling up the tomatoes and cucumber plants.

I'm pretty sure the peppers are done for. But I'm not sure about the leeks, onions, swiss chard, cabbages and kale. I know these plants are more cold-tolerant, but I'm not sure how cold they can get without dying. I'm also not sure what to do to keep them alive. Cover them? Go out and buy those mini-greenhouse hoops?

These are my seedlings: carrots and radishes. I was optimistic putting them in as late as I did and we didn't get the late season warm spell I was hoping for. They're so tiny, but they don't seem bothered by the cold...so far.

Thai peppers are pretty with snow on them.

Tomatoes.

Zinnias.