S-noooooo-w

This is the view from my bedroom window. Snow and cold are unusually early this year. I still have garden work to do, and the leaves have yet to fall. It should warm up next week...at least I hope so. 

Freeze Warning Tonight

It will (!) freeze tonight. I've harvested everything (including these carrots) and brought in the house plants. I'm going to try to cover some flowers, but it might be too cold even for that. It's the official end of the growing season. Trying to find an emoji for "bittersweet"...

Fall is not the end of the garden

I planted these flowers from seed in spring, and they're looking good. It's true that they took all summer to grow, but I'm working on cleaning out the garden beds now, so they add lots of color! The broccolini below is also from seed planted in spring. 

The next three photos are native wildflowers: two asters and one goldenrod. All of these are important sources of food for bees and hummingbirds and butterflies. Nature has this timed pretty well. And she makes them look good, too.

Garden Update

Ah, harvest time. I've got lovely grape tomatoes, Slenderette green beans, and lots of basil (pesto tonight!). Below is my collection of basils. The purple one isn't really basil. It's shiso, used in Japanese cooking. 

Here's a close up. The purple leaves are beautifully glossy. 

And the garden isn't just about eating. Below are State Fair zinnias, Wave petunia, and some kind of marigold. What grew is not what the package said. But that's okay. They're pretty, and my garden is full of color! 

I didn't plan this...

I didn't plan this mushroom sprouting in my geranium, but maybe the garden gnomes did?

Monarch Munching

If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a video worth? This monarch butterfly caterpillar happily munches on milkweed in my garden. 

Joyful Gardening

To pick a sun-warmed pea pod directly from the vine and crunch into it is a delight. What's not so fun is avoiding the clouds of mosquitoes that search for any bit of flesh to bite and the nasty flies that swarm my head. To get this bowl of vegetables, I've had to prepare the soil (sometimes in spring, sometimes in fall), plant the seeds, water the seeds and plants, weed as consistently as I can, and maintain the tricks that keep the critters away. Since I garden organically, I make homemade potions and I compost year round. This is a lot of work for some vegetables. And some pain (I have a fly bite on my hand). I'm not telling you this to discourage you from gardening. Despite all these difficulties, gardening is worth it--being outside, eating fresh veggies, getting my hands in the dirt, and, with nature's help, creating something good. It's joyful gardening.