Garden Blogger Bloom Day

Here goes GBBD for September. Although summer is still here for a few more days it is really starting to look like fall in the garden. Many things are starting to look a little worse for wear and the nights are getting quite cool. Lets start with the now fall planters shall we:

Here is the fall plantings in the front urns. They are a mix of purple asters, purple icicle pansies and yellow cornflowers. Just planted these a few days ago, you know fall is almost here when the mums and asters are at the garden center. You may also notice the freshly painted deck & railing in the background.

Here is the fall plantings in the window box. It is just planted out with four purplish mums.

This is a cement planter in the back shade garden. I planted it with impatiens this past spring and they are still doing very well.

Oxalis 'Iron Cross'

Persicaria affinis

Sedum

Marigold, seed from Skeeter

Vinca, seed also from Skeeter

Ligularia dentata

Salvia

Pee Gee Hydrangea, waning

Japanese Anemone, also waning

Dwarf white Buddleia

Monday's Harvest Post

You may have noticed my blog have not been getting much attention lately and this is because I am still painting. I am almost finished all my projects and have completed the posts & railings, door painting and almost finished painting the deck. All that is left is to prime and paint the concrete landing at the front of the house. I hope to be finished by the end of the week so I can devote more attention to the garden and the blog.

I have still been keeping up with harvesting although harvests seem to be few and far between lately. Blight has done in almost all the tomatoes which is what mainly would have been harvested at this time of year. still need to update on the blight..... Here are photos of most things that have been harvested over the last two week's. I missed last weeks Monday's Harvest post that Daphne host so I thought I would group them together on this post.

Here is a mix of tomatoes that I rescued from blight. Most rotted from blight anyways.

Here we have the one and only hillbilly potato loaf (yellow/red one), two cherokee purple and a few velvet red tomatoes. In the back is the first red kuri squash of the season, small but will be great in a squash bread or muffin recipe.

Here is my potato bin harvest that was already blogged about on my last post.

Finally here is today's harvest. Two zucchini that will be grated and frozen for later baking as well as a pink berkley tie dye and four velvet red tomatoes. This tomato harvest may be the last of them by the looks of it. The rest are all rotten.

Potato Bin Harvest

Over the last couple days I harvested my potato bin in stages. The potatoes grew alright this season but did end up dieing from late blight. Once I noticed the blight I removed all the plant material and placed it in the garbage.

Here is a photo of the few potatoes that developed at the top of the bin. It was said that late season varieties will produce potatoes along their stem and they did. With that said the tubers near the surface were rather small and there was not a whole lot of them.

Here is my final harvest, a messily 6lb 10oz. I think I may have used more food energy harvesting these potatoes then the potatoes produced! Will I bin again, definitely not. It takes an enormous amount of soil and work to fill. Then once you harvest the bin the soil can not be used for the bin again because of disease problems. My bin will not go to waste though, it will be recycled into a much needed composter.

Up coming post will be an update on my blight problem and an update on my fall crops.

still painting....

Here is a photo that was taken part way through my long weekend that was spent painting. Late last week I applied all the primer to change from oil based stain to water based paint. This photo does not show the colour very well but it is a light green and the balusters are white. I just finished the railings this evening and I am glade to be done. Now all that is left to do is sand, prime and paint the deck which will be changing to a taupe/beige colour that matches our window trim. The forecast is not looking good for deck painting so it will have to wait until I have at least three days without any rain.

Other painting that needs to be done is three exterior doors & some window painting. We are having the remaining old windows replaced some time in October and I need to paint a bit of brick to match the aluminum cladding that they will install. Not sure when I will get to this, some time this month I hope.

Being that I have been painting from sun up to sun down I have not even been in the veggie patch. I will do a post on the garden either Tues or Wed and it will probaly be about the blight that keeps spreading.

Hope everyone had a good long weekend!

Tomato Seed Saving Time

Now that we are into the later developed tomatoes it is perfect timing to start saving tomato seeds. I have posted about this topic before and have done a how to which can be found the following link. I am not saving a lot of tomato seed this year because I still have lots left but I do need to replenish a few and what's better then replenishing for free. First I am saving Porkchop, Velvet Red & Purple Calabash because I received them in trades and only have a few seeds left. I am also out of Cherokee Purple seeds so I am saving lots of them, future trades anyone? The only tomato I need to save seed from now is Pink Berkley Tie Dye, I hope some fruit ripens before the blight takes over.

Well on the blight topic, the weather is forcasted to be rather dry for the next couple weeks. This should presumably slow down the blight and I hope I can harvest most to the remain tom's. This is the first year I have had blight in the six years I have grown tomatoes. Our summers are usually fairly warm and dry so I have never had this problem. I guess there is a first for everything.

I am also taking advantage of the dry weather to paint the porch. It was painted three years ago and has started to peel in a few places so I need to get on top of it before it goes to crap. I have about 50' of railing & posts to paint. I am painting the railing & posts light green to match the siding and the balusters, all 150ish of them, will be painted white to match the soffits. Should be excruciating.