October Garden Clean Up

As it is nearing the end of October, we spent last weekend cleaning up the garden till the next planting season. This garden cleaning afternoon was timely done with a early freeze hitting us this weekend. Normally we don’t see temperatures dip into the low 20’s until mid-winter!

Many of the flowers were pulled and gathering of seeds was done. The Cosmo flowers did beautifully up until about last weekend. They ended up getting so tall that the high wind gust we had causes them to bow over to much many broken and split. I cut lots for bouquets. Those that passed by said they enjoyed seeing them. Many pollinators always covered them. With all that said, I will be growing them again!

The marigolds were going strong so I left them. I’ll check on them again after the frost/freeze happens. They likely won’t be able to take those cold temperatures. After growing them myself, I don’t think I’d want to by starts again. From the seeds they grew so tall and wide and were extremely healthy.

As for our Fall and Winter crops, I am sad to say most didn’t make it. They were planted the week before the huge wind storms and the fires (i.e we weren’t able to water our garden due to various reasons and it was very dry) and they just didn’t make it.

The brussels sprouts are still growing and we should be able to harvest those next week. My herbs are steadily growing and it’s been awesome to be able to harvest from them whenever I need to cook with them. Nothing beats fresh and growing them ourselves is much more affordable to getting them fresh from the grocery store.

The beets are in ground still. We pulled out one to check the size and it was still pretty itty bitty. We are going to give the others a few more weeks before we check again.

Overall, we had a good growing season and we learned a lot. We had hoped for a Fall/Winter garden this year but don’t mind so much that didn’t happen. We are letting the ground rest and getting things cleared out and covered up. I have a feeling we won’t have a mild winter but a much colder one and I am feeling like snow may grace us this year and early next too! Time will tell!