I spent a couple hours down at the garden this afternoon, adding some more peas and spring greens to my plot and clearing away some more of the mulch from the cold season.

While my peas have yet to emerge, I do have some other plants already growing:

Mini daffodils

Bronze fennel

Kale and sorrel

Pansies

Mint

Lemon balm

And, most exciting of all, because I planted them two weeks ago:

Rainbow chard!

Are things starting to grow in your gardens or are you still in the dreaming phase?

I spent a pleasant period of time in the garden this afternoon. Despite all the leaves on the ground, I still have lots growing. I’d been worried that the frost in other areas of the District earlier this week would bode poorly for my garden, which I’d left to battle the cold on its own. My garden is tucked alongside woods, which lead down to a creek, so it’s a little more insulated against the cold than other places.

As you can see, the garden held its own. The herbs my mother sent down last month to winter in warmer climes all survived, including the lavenders that were still in pots (I put the smaller one into the ground today) and the basil, which would have been the first to shrivel had winter’s tendrils wended its way into my plot.

There are still tomatoes and cayenne peppers on the vine, as well as one or two of the tiny second crop of tomatillos that grew started appearing in September.

I’ve also got some ground crops — kale and lettuce and sorrel, as well as my three-season rainbow chard.

And while many of my flowers are past, the pansies have rallied in amongst the strawberry plants to keep some color on that side of the garden, while the lantana has had at least three rounds of blooms since I planted it this summer.

It’s been a good year in the garden, and I’m hopeful I’ll get another few weeks out of it yet.

Category: garden. There is/are Comments Off on notes from the garden: november 2021.

This weekend, I saw at least three types of pollinators in my garden while I was there. Because the onion flowers are blooming, they’re really happy to spend time in my plot.

I missed a shot of the bumblebee, but did catch the honeybees:

I also saw a couple of blue-winged wasps:

Pretty cool, right?

Today was one of the biggest harvest days I’ve had in a while: a cucumber, a bunch of large tomatoes, several cherry tomatoes, a handful of chili peppers, about three tomatillos, basil and sage, a sharp stalk of lemongrass, and two yardlong beans.

You can see from that shot that the bunching onions are abloom, bringing all sorts of pollinators to my garden.

But although most prolific, those aren’t the only flowers I have at the moment:

Vinca

Double petunia

Million Bells

Dahlia

Unphotographed: a snapdragon and candy cane-striped impatiens and my small white dahlias.

I also have veggies growing, including chard, other peppers, sorrel, a couple kale plants, and some zucchini that the squash bugs have infiltrated (as well as the cucumbers and one tomato plant).

What’s growing in your garden or yard these days?

My peas are drying up and the lettuces have reached their teenage years — tall and gangly. We’ve reached the summer gardening season just in time for the July heat to kick in.

Other people have the ability to have space in between their plants and to separate, weed, and clear things out with ruthless efficiency. I like my violets too much, so I tug their leaves when they get too tall, which just means they send up new ones the following month. Things grow, and because I don’t know for sure if they’re weeds or cultivated plants, I just leave them. All this is to say that my garden inevitably looks highly messy, but it’s just jammed full of goodness.

I mean, look at all these greens!

The cucumbers, peppers, and squash are growing (Mum, the cucumber is the one I bought before I came north, not the ones we split).

My next round of flowers are getting ready to blossom:

I’m harvesting the celery I planted back in the spring, and I brought home two of the everbearing strawberries for Rudi. (I ate the other one — so sweet!) The lemon balm has gotten out of control. Anyone have any recommendations for things to do with it?

And my bronze fennel will be attracting lots of pollinators:

It’s good to be a gardener!

Someone planted a jungle in my garden while I was away:

We harvested peas and strawberries and two bags of greens.