Getting Ready for Fall in the Garden

You know fall is around the corner when mushrooms start popping up all over the garden.We had a long, hot, dry summer but the last few weeks have been cooler with plenty of rain and grass is green again and I have been spared from the task of watering the garden every other day.

 ...group of golden mushrooms...

 This weekend I spent quite a bit of time in the garden, doing clean up, mulching, and planting seeds. I planted several different kinds of lettuce, spinach, kale, and collards. This fall I want to try row covers to help extend the fall crop into November. I have never done this before so it will be interesting to how it works.

I also thinned the spinach, broccoli raab, and carrots seedlings I planted in early August for fall crops. This is the first year I have tried growing broccoli raab.  My spring crop was a complete failure. In fact most of the spring greens were a complete failure, except for the lettuce. Broccoli raab, spinach, bok choi, and mustard all got a few inches tall then bolted. It was a cold wet spring, weather that these greens usually like, so I was surprised. I'm hoping for better luck this fall!

Broccoli raab seedlings

I dug all the potatoes who's vines had completely died back. This was every thing but the Pontiac red potatoes. The Pontiac reds, which are a late storage potato, still have green leaves, but I pulled one plant anyway just to see what was going on in the ground.

Wow, the one plant had many huge potatoes! I was very impressed. In the photo below are 8 hills of Yukon gold potatoes, and one hill of Pontiac red potatoes. I turned one Pontiac red potato into scalloped potatoes for Saturday dinner.

I prepared the soil where I had dug the potatoes for planting garlic this fall by pulling all the weeds and tilling in a few inches of compost. With any luck I'll get my garlic in the ground next weekend.

For a while a little tiny woodchuck joined me in the garden. Actually, he was right on the edge of the garden, busily munching on clover and alfalfa. I know most people wouldn't consider a woodchuck a pleasant gardening companion, but he was so tiny and cute and has been the first one I've seen since one got locked in our large garage the first week we moved here and destroyed the insulation.



...a lunch of clover and alfalfa...

We may have to do something about him later, but for the moment, I just enjoyed him, and he obviously was delighted with the alfalfa and clover. He keep one eye on me the whole time, he wasn't about to to let that stop him from getting a meal.



It has also been a delight to watch the butterflies, of which we have many. This summer I have learned so many of their names. (I have plenty more to learn, though.) Here a Pearl Crescent pauses for a moment on a blade of grass.



A Pearl Crescent butterfly.

What things are you enjoying in your garden right now?

This post is part of the barn hop over at Homestead Revival.