I just wanted to mention how gangbusters my garden is going right now. Dahlias, Zinnias, and Cosmos, with some cool weather annuals making a return. I have been cutting bunches and bunches! How fun! My two greatest producers have been Mexican Sunflowers (Tithonia “Torch”) and good old Mealy cup Sage (Salvia Farinacea). Both of these have to be started ahead in order to bloom, but they have given back more than enough for me.
We have not yet had a frost, but I am giving up on the rest of my tomatoes and harvesting them green. It was a hot sunny summer, and I got more rain than my sister, but at least one variety (Zapotec Pleated) never ripened. I have a great recipe for Green Tomato Apple Chutney, so I am ready to move on. Maybe next year I will try pruning them.
About the Author
Until recently, Rosemarie Hanson gardened in the alkaline soil of New York’s North Country. Now she gardens in the Finger Lakes region of NY, where the soil is acid and the deer are a plague! She is particularly interested in fragrant plants, old garden roses, tulips, gardening for kids, and kitchen gardens.
Now, the digging and dividing of perennials, the general autumn cleanup and the planting of spring bulbs are all an act of faith. One carries on before the altar of delayed gratification, until the ground freezes and you can’t do any more other than refill the bird feeder and gaze through the window, waiting for the snow. . . . Meanwhile, it helps to think of yourself as a pear tree or a tulip. You will blossom spectacularly in the spring, but only after the required period of chilling.
~Adrian Higgins
in
The Washington Post, November 6, 2013
I CAN’T READ YOUR REPLYS HERE…I don’t need glasses here, but you printed so tiny with the answers, but questions were fine. Can you the moderate enlarge the prints please?
I’m south of you in (tropical!) NJ and I still have cosmos and marigolds. The zinnias are finally exhausted. I had to pull up the Tithonia to make a new garden. They had blown down weeks ago but kept blooming anyways!. My asters are pretty much finished. The mums are coming into their own. And last time I checked, I still had some calendulas. I wish they would hurry up and finish already, I have lilies and poppies to go into that bed!
I am 2 hours farther north than Kathleen, but on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.
Well, we’ve had enough cold (no freeze) to dis-courage the annuals except for alyssum to merit pulling them, and the perennial asters have lost their zing, but the mums seem to be holding their own. (no cushion mums, though) The trees have become totally confused with some bare, some green and some full of bright leaves. Our 100 yr. old sugar maple hasn’t turned its totally golden color but is dropping leaves just the same. Late for any color up here in the U.P. Time to cut a whole lot of stuff back, too. Exactly where are you situat-ed?