Pumpkin pie for Christmas

Made a pumpkin pie for Christmas from the last pumpkin from the garden.  (Grew 7.  Used 5 at Thanksgiving luncheon and dinner.  A mouse got one in the garage---ate a hole in the back and gobbled up all the seeds!)
So that's the last of the fresh produce from the garden. But there's still frozen veggies and even some fruit, dry beans and herbs, canned pickles, and preserved jam and jelly!  And there's always memories!

Nov 11: Saying goodbye to the garden, just before the snow!

Went over to the garden.  Picked some lettuce, chard, and spinach from the coldframe, and strolled along the path, remembering and appreciating what abundance had come from this ground throughout the growing season.  But that's about done for this year.  Snow is predicted later today.   

That evening!

Postscript.....Since I'm writing this on December 30 anyway, want to add a note, even tho no picutres, to say that I was still picking greens from the cold frame Thanksgiving week. 
And a resolutin:  next year to write on this blog every time I visit the garden!

Nov 3: Packing up the garden for the season

Took down the trellises from the peapod/polebean bed and the cucumber bed today.  What a tangled mess these new nylon trellises are when you untie them from the supports!  but I finally managed to get them laid out flat and then wound them onto boards for storage in the Ritz, along with all the tools, pots, etc.

Oct 21: Red beets!

Picked the fall red beet crop today.  Cooked and froze most of them.  Ate some...yum!

Oct. 20: More herbs, veggies, and the last of the raspberries and tomatoes.



Basil---very sensitive to frost--always the first to be nipped!

Planted chives under the apple trees because I read it was a good companion plant for apples.  The chives are loving it, or at least loving the space and rich soil of the apple bed.  Hopefully the benefit will be mutual!





still some peppers coming...small, but welcome!



swiss chard, loving the cool weather!

The last of the tomatoes, already not as flavorful as summer tomatoes.   As the photo shows, I hzd to add t-posts for support after some late summer/early fall storms.  Hope I can find will for trellises again next year.  The tomato cages are not large enough for the abundant growth in this rich sunny garden.

The worst looking part of the garden!  The old strawberry bed that never got dug up this year.  Totally out of control with weeds.  It's at the top of the to do list for 2014!

the last of the raspberries!

The strawberry plants love this cool weather.  Lots of great folliage, hopefully building strong roots for a great crop in 2014.  Even a few white flowers and tiny green berries this fall, but we'd need another month of warm weather to actually get red berries.

The cold frame has done a great job of protecting and warming the chard, lettuvce, and spinach.

The asparagus patch looks a bit wild, but I love seeing all that growth, knowing that those "leaves" are storing food in the roots, so we can have an early spring asparagus crop...can't wait!

Oct 20: More herbs!

salad burnett

thyme

lemon thyme

rosemary

nasturtiums!

pineapple sage

sorrell (sour!)



beautiful calendulas!



Oct 20: Garlic, beans, cabbage, parsley and wonderful dill!

A wonderful day of garlic planting.  Two rows, both soft and hard neck varieties. 

The cold fram is on the new spinach, lettuce, and chard, but I've been leaving it open much of the time so it doesn't overheat.   

Shelled the dry beans today----a nice harvest of soup beans for winter!

I feel we're getting near the end of the harvest season.  The fall crops such as beans and cabbage  are growing wonderfully but are at risk of freezing before producing much. 

pole beans with lots of calendula volunteering in the foregroundon trellis

red cabbage

But the most of the herbs are loving the cool weather, most especially the late planting of parsley and the volunteer planting of the self-seeding dill.

parsley



Volunteer dillweed



oct 18: Sweet Potatoes

October 18

Grew sweet potatoes for the first time this year----from the end of one of the giant Amish potatoes Pat _gave me last year.  I see why you need to start very early.  They must need a really long growing season. 

October 14: Soup Beans, Peanuts, and Carrots

Harvested the last of the carrot patch.  Some had black tunnels in them..sad!

Pulled up the bean plants and found lots of dry beans that got too big and old to pick during August vacation, so I’d left them to dry on the plants…

Also pulled up the peanuts and hung the beans and peanuts on the ladder in my garage to dry.