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The Well Watered Garden

I’m thinking about bringing in the potatoes. There are only a few plants out there and the two that I’ve already pulled had truly huge tubers. The ongoing problem is storage but we will consume them ‘tout de suite’. Nothing like new potatoes. 


The carrots, Bolero, are once again excelling. But they will need to be pulled sooner rather than later. The weather needs to cool off so our innovative storage solution can be implemented (please read that with your tongue firmly in your cheek).


I don’t like to move plants around in the fall, I think they need more time to settle in so that task is usually carried out in the spring. But here we are ~ moving dwarf red twigged dogwoods that appeared in the perennial garden from roots that were left over from the last time we moved the original plants. There’s always something. We added them to the established three nestled in below the larch, the more the merrier. 


This will be the year that more bulbs are planted under the shrubs. As mentioned here earlier I have been scattering bulb seeds here and there for years and was met with a single bloom this spring ~ heartening, now I need to get serious and buy some actual bulbs and get them in the ground before it all freezes and there goes that.


Have you got garlic to plant? One pound of Inchelium Red has arrived at the doorstep. This is the cue for me to get next years planting diagram on paper. It really helps so much to get this done now. In a small vegetable garden it’s a tad difficult to rotate crops but I continue to try. The bulk of the food grown in this plot are in the brassica family and the ‘rule’ is to not plant in the same bed as the year before. That really doesn’t work all that well for me but we certainly do get a nice crop of what we need. 


The lettuce is still lovely, granted I’m harvesting just the center, tossing the outer slug-tainted leaves in the compost, but there is enough out there to tuck into a sandwich for a few more weeks. 


The greenhouse is really winding down. The beans are done and gone, same with tomatoes of which we had excellent success again this year. I’m actually tired of cucumbers but there they are we have enough ‘grands’ coming and going to help us with surplus anything and everything. 


The perennial beds are not so bad. Astrantia is blooming a second time and the filipendula ‘Kehome’ is blooming like it should, offering late season color. The cosmos are still going, looking a little beat up, but hey, there they are. 


I’m conflicted about peonies. There are five of them out there, they bloom for fifteen minutes and then there they are, just standing around like a bride left at the altar. 


Keep gardening, be thankful for the rain although its getting to be a bit much.

 

Debi Poore's lovely fall bouquet

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