September Garden Update for the SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge
The beauty of the Fall colors was one of the biggest things this time of year in the garden.
The Engleman Ivy put on a spectacular display in a few different spots in the garden.
####Engleman Ivy in the Courtyard
Engleman Ivy Creeping Up the Sunroom
Engleman Ivy Climbing the Lilac and Saskatoon Bushes
The Autumn weather had touched the lilac seeds too!
Red Fall Color in the Lilac Seed Head
The crab-apples and apple-crabs got picked before the frost hit and I made juice with the little Dolgo crab-apples and cut and cored the apple-crabs to put into the freezer with some left in the fridge to nibble on. We got a nice harvest on both of them.
Crab-apples Ready to Pick
Bringing the Apple-crabs in Before the Frost
In the greenhouse the tomatoes were finally starting to ripen. I had pruned off most of the leaves and the growing tips on the tomato plants trying to get them to put all their energy into the fruit. We got a pretty good harvest but most of them I had to be pick green to ripen indoors for the temperature really dropped and we got some frost (actually we got a touch of snow the last day of September!) The cucumbers had stopped producing when the cold weather hit so I just pulled them out.
Sunflower Growing Among the Tomatoes in the Greenhouse
I pulled in the couple of big cabbages but the others were small so I covered them with row cover hoping to get a bit more growth off them.
I've been picking kale and making them into kale chips and dehydrating some for kale powder.
Bowls of Kale Prepped to Make Kale Chips
I make my kale chips by massaging melted coconut oil into the leaves (stems removed) and sprinkling with sea salt then dehydrating them until crisp. M-m-m! Delicious and nutritious!
On the deck the Lemon Verbena reached over sideways which was a good thing for it then put out side branching - Love the fresh lemon scent of the lemon verbena and it makes excellent tea or in rice dishes.
Lemon Verbena with Oxallis and Variegated Geranium in Bloom Behind It
I finally got some blooms on my geraniums I got from the University with the double flower one just starting to open.
They are indoors now, for we have had a killing frost and I want to keep these samples of the different varieties my daughter-in-law got for me from the university Hort department.
Blooms Just Starting on the Geranium
JJ likes to hang out on the deck and here he wanted to put his two bits in...
JJ Putting in His Two bits
The weather had turned cold again as we got closer to Fall and there was frost warnings so I took plants into the sunroom to keep them for the winter and to start my indoor gardening - See the indoor garden project I started last year here This is the last one with links to the 12 other "Indoor Garden Project" posts.
Herbs Bought Inside for the Winter
Lettuce, Rosemary, Mint, Oxalis, Geraniums and More Bought Indoors - the Start for the Indoor Garden
One last picture of the sunrise over the Engleman Ivy and spruce trees
Pop on over to @simplymike to check out her
SteemIt Community Garden Journal Challenge here
All pictures taken with my Canon PowerShot
Discord About
)
Visit my store - Porters Place at https://homesteaderscoop.com/store/porters-place/
Grateful for the curation and support of @tribesteemup
Celebrating and encouraging Freedom, Truth, Happiness, Life and Love with @freedomtribe
Garden is amazing. You have so many things growing. I grew kale for the first time this year. I liked it a lot, but just made salads. Chips seem neat.
Posted using Partiko Android
The kale chips are delicious and fairly easy to make too!
Living in sub-tropical climate one does not think of early frost hitting the garden.
Your garden needs wheels, I joke not, depending on the door size to winter indoor room area, making use of trolley wheels, design pallets to size required.
Smaller sized pallet with draw cords adapted to pull them in and out not straining the back during labour intensive times arrive.
Really need to plan an inland visit to see autumn fall again, always magic to watch change happening in nature. Congratulations on the harvest you managed to get all fresh and lovely.
Good idea! Thanks for sharing that!
We're on the garden wave, it seems. Of course, we expected yours :)
I like the name Saskatoon. Is it native?
Yes Saskatoon is a native shrub which gives delicious berries!
I've been harvesting my lemon verbena off and on for the last couple weeks. Put a batch in the dehydrator yesterday.
I'd never noticed my lilac tips turning red like yours did... I'll have to look this year.
Oh you must work year round for your plants! It's all beautiful. Fall colors are the best colors.
Around here, we are encouraged to pull down any climbing vines because they are taking over, but they do this in the fall! Besides being quite beautiful all year round. So I leave them. I'm sure I will hear about it one of these days. The porcelain berries, which are especially beautiful, are especially reviled.
Where is it you are from where vines are taking over? So happy you are enjoying the beauty of these vines and I hope you will be left alone to continue enjoying them for many more years to come!
Upstate New York. "Invasive" vines are smothering trees and shrubs along parkways and roads. The only way to stop them of course is to poison them, but that kills everything else along with them. There have been initiatives to get armies of folks out there pulling them up, which of course spreads them by the bits that get left behind - these initiatives to my knowledge have never worked. Maybe the vines are trying to tell us something about parkways and roads. Maybe they are giving a protective coating to the trees and shrubs already there, a kind of seed saving enterprise so that long after the roads are gone, the stuff that used to grow there happily can come back. Vines are interesting though, so robust, grow so quickly. They are here for a reason.
I like to see how plants would just regreen the earth once we are gone. I often look at the footprint I have left on the land and know that it would soon return to forest with all that really stuck out would be the metal roofs we put on our house.
Wow, @porters. That Engleman Ivy looks amazing.
I should really start taking things indoor too... Need to clean the room first, though.
Yes, bring some in! It made quite a difference to me to have my garden growing all year long even though I had to supplement with lights (good for helping with SAD syndrome with me too) and to have fresh food - m-m-m!
Oh my, I love your garden! kale chips would be super nice!
The Engleman Ivy, hope it's not poison! Haha
Ahhhh... the colours of autumn (I have no idea about this weird fall season that you are talking about!) are really quite beautiful.... until the leaves actually fall and make such a mess of gutters and the ground! .... but those reds and yellows, are really amazing... and something that I really never knew in Australia were more of the trees and plants are evergreen.
You are lucky to have space for a greenhouse! I wish we could have one... probably could fit a little one... if we squeezed it a bit!
Yes, I do love the splendor of the fall colors! And I feel fortunate to have a greenhouse, especially now with some extreme weather it is great to have more of a controlled environment to grow in!
The crab apples look lovely - what do you do with them?
Can't for the life of me IMAGINE it being so cold that the herbs need to be brought inside. Brrrr....!! And no thanks. LOL. But looks like you have it sorted.
Leading the curation trail for both @ecotrain & @eco-alex.
Together We’re Making This World A Better Place.
Click Here To Join the manually curated trail "@artemislives" to support quality eco-green content.
I made juice with the crabapples but I have made jellies and canned them whole. We do live in a wonderful place but the winters are very long and cold so I am happy to have my indoor garden!
Hello, @porters! We heartily appreciate the time and effort you put towards your DIY/How-to article. It is, for this reason, we built a frontend/condenser known as Build-it, where your efforts are fairly rewarded. At Build-it we welcome all sorts of DIY, How-to, and Lifehack articles.
Build-it is a tribe on the steem that sharpens your #diy and #how-to skills, in an attempt to save more money for yourself.
The recommended tags required when creating a DIY article are #diy, #build-it. #how-to, or #doityourself. You'll get rewarded with BUILD tokens from our @build-it.curator account upon every valid post/project which can also be exchanged for steem on steem-engine when you use any of the recommended tags as well as posting via our website.
Need help? Live technical support on Discord or Telegram
This project is run and supported by our witness @gulfwaves.net. If you think we're adding value to the steem platform, your witness vote will be appreciated! Click here to vote for us