by Leslie Cox; Saturday; September 30, 2017

Still working on putting the garden to bed. No sense in working at it too hard…although I am keeping an eye on the extended weather forecast. Just yesterday, I brought in the last two rex begonias. They are in large, heavy pots…a bit of a grunt to carry them into the house to be sure. But high time they were indoors with the upcoming forecast lows of 2 °C (35.6 °F) and 3 °C (37.4 °F) in the coming week.

I still have my two, really large pots on the driveway…loaded with edibles and a couple of annuals. Combining ‘Uchiki Kuri’ squash, ‘Crystal Apple’ cucumber, ‘Patio Snacker’ cucumbers, two ‘Flamingo Pink’ Swiss chards, two ‘Canary Yellow’ Swiss chards, and four coleus certainly added a splash of colour to an otherwise drab blacktop driveway.

All the ‘Uchiki Kuri’ squashes have been harvested but I have been loath to cut the plant back just yet. One of its stems has made a run along the driveway for about 8 feet (2.4 m). Looks rather cool. And besides, another flower has developed. Not that there is time left to grow a squash to edible size but there are still bumble bees around, looking for nectar.

And that silly ‘Crystal Apple’ cucumber plant. It took forever to develop fruits last spring and early summer. No flowers at the beginning because of the cool, damp spring. Then the weather turned hot and it put out all male flowers, as did most of the curcubits we were growing. Finally harvested the first round apple-flavoured cuke on August 26th…and it was from one of the ‘Crystal Apple’ plants in the greenhouse. (Had two ‘Crystal Apple’ plants in the greenhouse but they did not really do much better than the plant outside on the driveway.) We are re-thinking about growing this cucumber species next year…even though the flavour is quite nice – sweet, juicy, and crisp.

Also in readiness for the upcoming temperature lows, I moved the last six tomato plants in pots on the driveway under the house eave. Five are ‘Patio’ tomatoes…a new one we were trying this year. Only just picked the first fruits yesterday so the taste jury is still out.

Not their fault, I suspect. I should have planted them in bigger pots and I was a little skimpy on the fertilizer program. They would also have benefited from more sun hours. Even though we do get sun, and hot sun, on the driveway, the three large trees (chestnut, silver leaf maple, and European maple) do cut the sun hours back. I figure the potted tomato plants only got a total of 5.5 to 6 hours of direct sun and filtered sun per day. Tomatoes really prefer a minimum of 8 hours. But for all of that, production has been decent even if the ripening has taken quite a while. And it is not like we have not had tomatoes to eat in the meantime.

Speaking of the trees, the leaves are starting to fall more regularly. Up to now, I have been raking up the few which have come down and dumped them in the compost bin. But now the lawn mower will be coming out for its mulching capabilities. We’ll beat up the leaves and dump the mulch around the perennials to leave in place for the winter. Not only will the mulch protect the soil from erosion by the winter rains, it will also add nutrients and structure to the existing soil.

And while we are on the subject of soil…I took a soil sample from our vegetable garden this week. Selected three spots, dug down about 8 inches (20 cm) in each spot and scooped out some soil into a clean bowl. After removing bits of bark, roots, and a couple of stones, I mixed it well and then measured out two cups (500 ml). This was placed in a new plastic ziplock bag and labeled. I have requested a full nutrient survey of my sample which I should have inside of three weeks from the lab.

Once we know the components and nutrient levels of the soil in our vegetable garden, we will be able to add the appropriate amendments. This is the ideal time of year to amend our soils and having a soil survey done by a reputable lab takes the guess work out of what we should be adding.

But even if you do not want to spend the money to have a soil survey done…cost is really quite reasonable…you cannot go wrong with top-dressing your vegetable garden with your finished compost and sowing a cover crop right now. Both compost and cover crop will add good nutrients to your soil.

Until next week…happy gardening!