Autumn -- Endings and Beginnings

September sugar snack peas

     Today is the first day of fall, and, step by step, our outdoor season for 2013 will be coming to an end. But just as we tend to get a bit over-anxious to get started in spring, we tend to give up on our yards earlier than we have to.

     Many of our flowers are gone, but others, like my Limelight Hydrangea, are going strong and others are just coming into bloom. If you have nothing blooming in your yard today you should consider a trip to the nursery.

Our Limelight Hydrangea.

      In my vegetable garden only one planting is just this week spluttering to an end after a gigantic harvest-- my pickling cucumbers. They are always the first casualty of autumn.

     September is as much about beginnings as it is about endings. Today, for example, is a perfect day to sow grass seed. We can finally expect temperatures to stay low enough for us to provide the surface dampness seeds need without watering every half hour. And if we get started this week, we will have time for the grass to get rooted before the frosts.

This grass median was sown a few weeks ago.

     Now is also a good time to plant perennials. I continue to buy them as long as I can tell they are healthy. And if they are on a good sale, I am even willing to gamble on buying what look like pots of dirt from a reputable nursery. We can plant trees and shrubs as long as we can get a shovel in the ground. And it is too early to plant bulbs.

This Brussels sprout plant is as tall as Wan. 

     Aside from the cukes, our vegetable garden is still going full blast. Our tomatoes, pole beans, and peppers are producing more than we can handle. The broccoli we planted early last spring is continuing to provide us with harvest after harvest, as are our kale and Swiss chard. We are packing the freezer with basil and parsley pesto because we have more than we can eat.

     But what is really fun is that we are just beginning to get whole new crops based on plantings we made in late July and early  August. We have new Romain lettuce and we are going to eat our first new bok choy tonight.

Recently planted bok choy with new lettuce to the right.

     And, best of all, we are getting in a whole new crop of sugar snack and snow peas that we can continue to harvest when our beans have decided it is too cold.

Two snow pea pods both on the bush and in the hand.