October Harvest

Long time no post! That’s what happens when you go on vacation and then go back to work full-time while also taking night classes. Had a FANTASTIC vacation in Maine with my mom and younger sister. It was a trip to celebrate my mom’s retirement and birthday. Good times, good memories. Then it was quickly back to the grind. I did visit a amazing garden in Maine called the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens and hope to post about it sometime soon. I also owe a post on how my garden was doing in SEPTEMBER! Oh, time, where do you go?

In the meantime, here is a quick post about the vegetable garden and what I am still harvesting. The tomatoes are FINALLY ripening!!!! Crazy, but true. And let me just say, they are absolutely delicious. The best tomatoes I have eaten all season. It’s Brandy Boy from Burpee. I also harvested a few miniature sweet peppers (I forget the variety), a few Super Sweet 100 Tomatoes (the grape-sized tomatoes), and a nice little bunch of lima beans.

Veggies from the garden in early October.

I forgot to include these in my picture, but I am also harvesting LOTS or Mariachi Hot Peppers. I have been adding hot peppers to just about everything lately!

I Have a Moss Garden

What do you do when something happens by accident? You pretend you planned it that way! This is my Moss Garden. Yep, I planned it that way. Well, not really. Ok, so it’s really what I refer to as my Secret Garden, but it is so shady and has been so damp this year that it has grown a really lovely carpet of moss.

Moss growing in the Secret Garden.

I had often wanted to try to get moss to grow in this area and now it’s happening naturally. I’m liking it. It has spread to the Fairy Garden area by the back yard gate.

Moss growing near the little Fairy Garden.

I have thought about putting some slate stones in these area and that would look nice with the moss growing around them. Maybe someday I’ll get around to doing that....

Light in the Garden

I love the way the sun casts light and shadows over the garden at different times of the day. This morning the Morning Glory looked like it was about to ignite from the sunlight beaming behind it.

Morning Glory in the morning light.

A few weeks ago I caught the late afternoon sun casting shadows on a Hydrangea and the Beautyberry Bush.

Late afternoon sun on a Hydrangea.

Late afternoon sun on the Beautyberry.

The weather has been gorgeous the past few days – sunny, not too hot, and low humidity. Why can’t every day be like that?!

My First Limas

This is my first year trying lima beans. I counted exactly three this morning. There are several flowers on the vine, though, so I’m hoping for more. These were planted from seed: Burpee’s Best Pole Lima Beans.

Burpee’s Best Pole Lima Beans.

Burpee’s Best Pole Lima Beans.

A Different Perspective

I took some shots of the garden while I was up on the roof pruning the wisteria today. I thought it was interesting to get this different perspective. Too bad not as much is blooming in the flower garden right now. I should redo these shots in May and July when my garden is usually at its best. You can’t see the kitchen garden too well in these pictures because of a butterfly bush and hydrangea that are so big they are blocking most of it.

View of the garden from the roof.

View of the garden from the roof.

FINALLY!!!! Time to break out the champagne!

I am still in a state of shock and disbelief. After waiting four years for the neighbor to finish the fence, it is FINALLY DONE!!!!! When I came home from work on Friday, I was standing on the back porch looking out over the garden. I saw a glimmer of white through the garden where I usually see the neighbor’s broken down boat. I exclaimed, “Oh my God, it’s done!” and went running through the yard to take a closer look. I was practically jumping up and down with joy. I know I was talking out loud to myself because my neighbor on the other side caught me. I told her I couldn’t help myself, that after four years of waiting the other neighbor finally finished the fence!

Here’s some shots of the FINISHED fence. Not perfect, but I’ll still take it.

Below is the section that hadn’t been finished for the past year or two. Yeh, there’s about a two foot gap there on the right and I’m not so thrilled about that, but my Crape Myrtle that is in front of it will eventually get big enough to cover that area.

I haven’t gotten that bottle of champagne yet that I had promised myself I would get when the fence was finally finished, but you better believe I will. And it is worth splurging for REAL French champagne! WAHOOOOOO!!!!!

Time to Prune the Wisteria

I usually like to prune the wisteria twice a year, however, this year I hadn’t had time to get to it yet. It is always pretty much an all-day chore. I start with the ladder and work my way pruning around the greenhouse and shed, then I clean up the mess, then I get on the roof and tackle it from above, then clean up that mess. This is what the wisteria looked like before I pruned it today:

Wisteria.

This is what it looked like from the roof – I promise you there is a greenhouse under there somewhere:

Wisteria.

Ah-ha! There’s the greenhouse:

Wisteria after some pruning.

It is amazing how much more light I get in the greenhouse now. Also, so much more light in the area around the greenhouse and in the corner that I call my “secret garden.”

Let there be light – The Secret Garden area after the wisteria was pruned.

Speaking of wisteria, my tree wisteria has a couple of blooms on it right now. How strange. Not that I’m complaining.

Tree wisteria.