warts and all

fall aster, basil, potatoes, chard, tiny lettuces, and plumbago in one of back vegetable beds

I was going to wait until I'd weeded the vegetable beds to post any photos, but since I've been such a delinquent blogger lately, I decided to post what's been going on here, warts and all.

at least they're taller than the weeds: chard, red winter kale, dinosaur kale, red cabbage, golden beets, Romanesco broccoli, parsley, dill, sage, cilantro, mustard green, volunteer tomato, and Thai basil

I started all my fall vegetables from seeds (except the mustard green) from Botanical Interests or Seed Savers Exchange. Because of our continued drought, I hand watered the seeds three times a day until they were 1-inch seedlings then cut back to a quick watering once a day. Now that it's a little cooler, I can give them a drink every other day and a once-a-week drip soaking. So far so good.

volunteer butternut squash (probably from our compost pile) and red cabbage seedlings

The ivy that's covered our garage shed finally died, so husband Kurt spent all afternoon carefully removing all those twisty vines intertwined in the beautiful old board and batten siding to reveal, what else? The beautiful old board and batten siding, circa 1941, although it's showing its age.

shed sans ivy

My first salvia madrensis is jazzing up the corner of the shed.

I'm pleased to have already harvested one big bowl of "Contender" green beans and to see a few beets almost ready to pull. The squirrels have been digging up various seeds, which has forced me to do successive seeding, something I've never had the planning or discipline to do before. Never thought I'd have a reason to thank squirrels. 

In the back beds, my potato, broccoli, cauliflower, snow pea, carrot, and beet plants are all doing okay. Now I just need to get to weeding them!