“Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
Robert Browning
I’m guessing that we’re all tired of the word unprecedented. But this year’s growing season was unprecedented with its consistent (until recently) rainfall and lack of early frost.
On the first day of October I picked a bunch of colourful zinnias. The cosmos beside them are still glorious as are the morning glories.
My new this year morning glory, Star of Yelta, finally appeared in late summer and has been blooming for more than a month. This would have been the year to grow the best of all the morning glories, Heavenly Blue. Who hasn’t tried to grow this one only to have frost take it after it’s only been out for a week? I have seen this flower into November closer to Lake Ontario but we are not usually so lucky.
My giant African marigolds have also been blooming for more than a month. I started these from seed much too late so I’m grateful to the weather gods for the extra frost free month. Unfortunately these aren’t good for cut flowers because of their strong smell but they look wonderful in the garden.
Rocket snapdragons are good cut flowers and I got several of these as young plants. They’re often short lived perennials so it’s worth buying them as plants. I have been watering them in this dry fall and hoping that some of them will overwinter.
In the bed beside the house late season Calendula are putting on a good show. These have had to be watered but it has been worth the effort. They will take some frost so will continue flowering for awhile yet. California poppies have seeded themselves together with the Calendula. Their silvery foliage makes a nice contrast with the dark green Calendula. And like Rocket snapdragons, California poppies sometimes overwinter. If I’m lucky.
I remember when I first started making the bed beside the house. There were some naysayers who said that nothing would grow on the west side because of the extremes in temperature.
It turned out that roses definitely wouldn’t grow there. But a lot of other plants seem to be quite happy. Among them Lilies both Asiatic and Oriental, Coneflowers, Columbine, Foxgloves and many spring bulbs.
The moral of the story is to not listen to the naysayers and to keep trying new plants until you find the ones that work.
I am not a person who can resist all those bulbs in the grocery store. I have just bought a package of Red Impression tulips for the side of the house. I marked the spots back in the spring with little bamboo skewers. Once it’s cooler I will just pop them in. What could be easier than that?
I learned a long time ago that it’s easier to mark the spots to plant new bulbs rather than try to mark where the old ones already are.
In the vegetable garden, I have for the first time that I can remember, cleaned up tomato plants that were not frosted. Same goes for cucumber and zucchini vines. Down here in the frost hollow valley I’m usually the one to get frost when no one else does. I’m grateful this year for not having had to do that dance of covering and uncovering that gardeners usually do in September. Sometimes you win one.
Recently in a fit of optimism I made another batch of lemonade for the upcoming warm week. I started making lemonade from scratch during the great craziness. You know what I’m talking about. I won’t say the word. I learned that the secret to good lemonade is making the sugar syrup first. I used the proportions from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything. And I added the mint as he suggested. The mint makes a difference. The old Joy of Cooking helpfully tells me the necessary proportions if one is making lemonade for a hundred people. I can’t imagine really but maybe someday I will need that information….
I had thought, wrongly as it turns out, that lemonade from scratch was too much trouble. It’s a revelation in taste and doesn’t take very long at all to put together. Another lesson learned.
A sure sign of fall is the unfortunate return of the cluster flies and their buddies the swarming ladybugs. Just a few days ago I looked outside only to see my front porch completely covered in ladybugs. This doesn’t happen every year but it’s clearly a ladybug year this year.
Trying not to dwell on the ladybug invasion, I’m looking forward to garlic planting and buying lots more bulbs in anticipation of spring. It’s heartening to see when moving older bulbs around that they already have new growth showing for the spring.
Happy fall everyone.
By Jill Williams
