Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fall Gardening

Time for another garden update!

Our tomato plants developed a fungus, so on Sunday we picked all the tomatoes from the vines, set the green ones to ripen in the kitchen window and on the counter tops, and cleared out that part of the bed. With that, everything we planted in the spring is gone now. As of Sunday evening, we'd grown 199 pounds of food this season, all from just 120 square feet of garden space.

But we're not done yet. In August we did second plantings of leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, Swiss chard, spinach and radishes. We also planted a few cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants as well as some parsnips and beets.

Most of the salad greens are doing well. The spinach is struggling, as it did in the spring. I don't think our soil is sandy enough for spinach to thrive.


I love our little cabbage patch...


...and one of the broccoli plants is doing well.


The other broccoli plants and the cauliflower are living, but not growing very quickly. I didn't take pictures of the bed where the radishes, beets and parsnips are planted, since it's not very pretty. The radishes are doing well, but the beets are struggling and the parsnips are off to a very slow start.

What about these marigolds?


These are the flowers Kat planted in cups at school last spring. By the time we finally got them in the ground, they were scrawny, spindly little things that we though for sure would die. Instead, they've turned out to be the tallest, biggest marigolds I've seen. We had planted them at the end of the tomato bed and they had sprawled everywhere. We finally staked them up when we cleared out the dying tomato plants. They are at least 3 feet tall and some of the flowers are 3-4 inches across. I'm not sure how/why they got so large, but you can bet I'm saving the seeds from these! Our other marigolds in the front yard pale in comparison.

And of course, we're good at growing cats around here. Here are four that sprouted up overnight.


I apologize for the bad photo quality. It was taken through the screen of the only window that looks out on the garden.

5 comments:

Kim @ Kim and Mikey said...

I am amazed at the success of your garden. I am hoping to convince the hubby to try our hand at gardening next year.

Annie Jones said...

No one could be more amazed than we are! We didn't know what we were doing in the spring, and really don't know much more now. I keep telling myself I'm going to do some reading and research on gardening when I have some spare time. Spare time...ha!

Unknown said...

It really does all look fantastic, I'm so sorry now I didn't just dig everything over and give it anyother go after the firs load washed away!!! And to add insult to injury I can't even get any of the veggie box people to deliver to my area:(

Annie Jones said...

Thanks, Leanne. I had to drive 25 miles each way last year to pick up our veggie boxes. That's why we decided to do it ourselves this year.

Frances said...

I am so jealous of your garden! That is the only think I don't like about apartment living. LOL!

Of course, Hubby does have "gardens" on our balconies, but we can't eat any of it.

Yeah for getting so much food from your garden!