Late September update

How this summer has flown by. I can still remember reading through the square foot gardening book, planning gleefully what to plant. Ms. K and I have learned a lot through this experience. Among our lessons for next year:
  1. Don't plant San Marzano tomatoes in square foot beds. It's a recipe for disappointment.
  2. Four tomato plants in a box is too many. They shade out everything else.
  3. You have to eat a lot of red Russian kale to keep it under control.
  4. Purple potatoes are fun.
  5. An herb garden right outside the back door is ideal.
  6. Shopping for vegetables in your own garden is most enjoyable.
A well-placed herb garden.

We have started to clean out the square foot beds. The zucchini plant is no more, along withthe peas and a few other plants. The season is definitely turning...as much as we hate to see it happen! Here's a late September picture of what's happening back there:


Remember those tiny rhubarb plants we put in back in May (refresher here: Surprises!)? They're looking great and have really taken off in our back garden. Hooray!

Yellow squash planted in July (and almost destroyed by rodents) came back very nicely, though appears to have some kind of mold growing on the leaves. This part of the garden doesn't get a lot of sun.


Despite its stressed condition earlier in the summer, it bounced back nicely. We're still harvesting nice yellow squash at the end of September. This one was part of tonight's dinner:
Yellow squash, pictured with the most invasive creeping Charlie.

...with more squash on the vine.


We have enjoyed having the Lacinato kale this summer and will plan to have more next year. It has bolted a little at the end of the season, but is still doing quite well.

While not garden related, we have been painting a lot on the house. Ms. K and I decided to have a little fun on the north side of the garage. Not everything needs to be Antique White (SW 6119). This lovely color is Parakeet (SW 6711).
Chirp-chirp, garage wall.

Coming in a future installment: a review of the tomato varieties we planted, some worked much better than others in containers and the square foot method. More on that later...

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