Fall is Here

It has begun to cool in the evenings. Each morning, I open the bedroom and dining room doors, then put up the living room window so Gracie can enjoy looking out. When I hear the AC turn on, I close up the house. Today, the AC never started up. It was 70° outside when we went to bed. It’s Fall.

Tuesday, CC and I weeded around the tomato ring. Wednesday, I planted 3 Big Boys, 1 heritage Purple Cherokee, and 1 Florinada around it. At least that’s what I think I planted. All of my labels were faded. I’d started the seeds in pots before we went to New Zealand, and I had anticipated coming home to lush plants. Didn’t happen. After 3 weeks of solid rain, I’d had Steph turn off the mist system. The next 3 weeks were bone dry. I came home to almost bare sticks. Crossing my fingers and planting the little tomatoes deep, I hope we will have some fruit this year.

I cobbled together an anti-bunny fence of screen held up with bamboo stakes around the ring. I don’t know if bunnies eat tomatoes, but something is eating the pineapple plants near by. We don’t have deer.

I also planted 6 Romas in the west bed where our sweet potatoes had been. I’d dug up about 2 gallons of mid to large sweet potatoes when we go home. I am reinforced with this veggie. Easy to plant, easy to harvest. The southern peas in the same bed had burned up from lack of water. Again, crossing my fingers and planting the woebegone little tomato plants fairly deep. Lots of new roots should make strong growth.

The additional real anti-bunny fence I ordered came. This was to go around the bare root strawberries Grant had planted. I’d ordered them from Lukas Nursery: 10 plants for $9.99. Worth a try, but the only windows for picking them up were the Friday and Saturday I was with girlfriends in Atlanta. We had decided to put 3 in his tower and 7 in the blackberry bed. 

This is the 3rd set of fencing I’ve ordered from the same company. I have to twist the legs on each piece. This time either some of the legs were too big, or more likely, the male threads on the pieces were too small. In any case, several legs just slipped on, rather than were rally attached. I needed to get the strawberries protected, and it’s too much trouble to return the fence. But huh?

While at the nursery, Grant bought dill, basil, thyme, and parsley for his tower. That water system I can control from my phone, so it had enough but not too much water the entire time we travelled. Everything but the beans I’d planted are looking good. I may try them again in one of my beds.

I sowed radish and carrot seeds in the small east-most bed. Not as spread out as I hoped, so I transplanted them to distribute more evenly. Everything seems to have survived. I may fill in empty patches seed by seed.

There are still 5 Florinada plants that I may put out near the bananas and hope for the best. They would be close to the magnolia I want cut down, but who knows when I can get that done, with all the hurricane damage. 

In my covered cut-glass candy dish, I have onion seeds which I hope will germinate. So far nothing. I may give in and order sets from Texas.

I’m going to give our beans one more chance by planting several seeds next to the trellises at the veggie bed ends. There are 2 southern peas hanging on. If I have beet seeds, I’ll start germinating them today.

That’s all for our fall vegetable crop. Likely more than I will manage. But the weather is cooling. The fall birds are back. Lovely time to be in the garden.