Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 20.37 September Garden Update and Some Neighborhood Gardens

Good morning Saturday Morning Gardening friends! We’re glad you’re here We hope this gives you a lift of spirit.  This cheerful long-running tradition appears every Saturday morning at 9am Eastern. And we hang around and get silly after 5pm (okay, the silliness sometimes starts a bit earlier). Sunday is usually pretty chatty. Some of us check in during the week. A core crew of us reads every comment.  If you have gardening questions/problems, please let us know. We’re happy to help.  And, of course, we LOVE PHOTOS.  Your garden, neighbor’s garden, public gardens. Drop ‘em here in a comment!

Writing this Friday morning. I had the new COVID vax and am still feeling a bit tired from that. We’ve had temperatures in the 80’s all week here in upper Central NYS and what a blessing for outdoor chores. In spite of feeling a bit “blah”, I (slowly) moved about about a cord of wood from the outdoor wood storage into the carport for Mr. CNY to chop some and toss it all through a hatch into the basement storage. Three new loads of wood filled up the outdoor storage so that’s one chore over for the year. The flower garden continuing improvments will have to wait until next spring.  You can see a bit of that garden in the top photo. It’s really just major weeding. I already thinned the brown-eyed susans that were taking over.

Soooo…..what’s been happening in the vegetable garden?  Back in July, I nearly gave up on it. Even had thoughts to pull it all up, mulch, and wait until next season to start over. We had some early in the season 90 degree temperatures and that slowed and even stopped some plant growth. BUT!  Then we got loads of rain. That seemed to push the growth “gas pedal” down and the garden had a rather miraculouis comeback. Most things didn’t get to full size but they are real veggie troopers!  Here are photos from 3 angles that I took this (Friday) morning. 

Lower left is a Sun Sugar cherry tomato. They’re ripening but I had picked off the most ripened. Pretty orange color. On the right, are 2 large tomato cages that I planted with High Mowing Seeds National Pickling and Minime Cucumbers. They are so much fun!  About 5 inches long so a nice size for a small garden plot.

Past that beige pot of beet greens is a mini sweet pepper plant I picked up on sale at Lowe’s. Those are getting their red color. The pink flowers on the upper left are from a tall sedum. I moved it to the veggie garden because it kept getting eaten by deer. I have a plan to move it back to the flower garden next year. Mesh netting works! Collars, kale, bush beans between the tomato plant and pink sedum. 

Cucumbers again in the middle. Left and right side vining plants are High Mowing Seeds Rattlesnake Pole Beans. Green with red mottling. They’ll produce right up to frost. Small ones are very sweet and tasty raw. And, boy, do they “hide” among the leaves!  I have to poke around to make sure I find them before they get really big. And a good rainstorm will speed grow them. 

Took this from the other end of the garden. On the right, lacinto, red Russian (strawbale seeds), and Meadowlark kale. Lacinto and Meadowlark from High Mowing Seeds. Some collards also from seeds left from last year. Green bush beans to the right of those. The bush beans are about done. Left shows swiss chard. Beet greens in the pot. There’s some lettuce on the other side of the chard. Also some dill and parsley in there among the kale. The Meadowlark kale should be 2 to 3 feet tall but didn’t happen with the high temperatures. I’m going to let it grow through fall to see how it does. It’s the ruffly looking kale to the right of the beige pot of beet greens. The bigger ruffled kale is the red Russian.

Here’s some of what I picked.  Not the big harvests I’ve had in past years but I appreciate anything nature sends my way.

Both kinds of cukes, bush and pole beans. Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes, two larger No Name Compost tomatoes. Those grew from my homemade compost. Look to me like those tomatoes on the vine from the grocery store.

More bush beans!  Chives, some early lettuce on upper left and arugula on the right.

Swiss chard on the left and beet greens on the right from the first round of beets in a grow bag. No beets but the greens were great! I picked them because the slugs had no mercy….

Close up of the No Name Compost tomatoes  about 3 weeks ago. 

I cut some long dried tree branches for the rattlesnake pole beans. And up the vines climbed. They would be a lot of fun for kids interested in gardening. Hey, even us grown ups get a kick out them. The pink flowers are gorgeous.

Went out to the garden yesterday to check for cukes and also found more Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes. Plus a handful of green beans!  The bumpy cuke is the National Pickling from High Mowing Seeds. The smooth skinned Minime is very tasty with tender seeds. I highly recommend that one just for snacking and especially hummus dipping!

A few flowers in gardens around my neighborhood….

My Green neighbor grows beautiful dahlias, zinnias, and sunflowers in a garden right at the edge of the street.  The red dahlias were especially long lasting this year.

Little bumble bee in a Japanese Pink Anemone!  I had to stand still and sneak up on the flowers with bees.

Small bee lower part of the flower center.

One of the two Sunflower Tunnels in my neighborhood!

From one of my favorite gardens. One of these days, I’ll get a photo of the funny chocolate lab who lives here!  He will play fetch with anyone.

More from one of the Sunflower Tunnels…..

 In the fall/winter, I’ll do diaries on the NY State Fair visit and the 100 year anniversary of the Mills Memorial Rose Garden here in Syracuse, NY. That was a fun party!

I think I’ve caught you all up on what’s going on up my way. I’ll be out when this diary posts at 9am but should be back late morning.