A bit of this and that, and winter prep....

 October 2, 2024

We've had a lovely stretch of warm, sunny days to finish off September. October has started a little cooler due to an overnight cold front that pushed through and dropped an inch of rain last night. Autumn mornings are very dew-wet, and sometimes quite foggy, but the sun has been able to burn off the fog, and dry up the dew, until by afternoon, it is perfect to be outdoors.

I recently sliced up a bevvy of fresh garden vegetables, and made canned coleslaw. We'll see if we like it.

Some garden-fresh red peppers going under the broiler for roasting...roasted red pepper jelly in the making.

A recent warm afternoon was perfect to clean all the garlic and onions and get them prepared for winter storage. There are a few shallots there as well. This is the first time growing them. The red onions were grown from seed, the yellow from sets, and there isn't a very noticeable difference in size between them.

I potted up a couple of pretty geraniums, and some coleus for bringing indoors later. Behind them is a little fig tree I got this spring, and it has grown 3 figs. No chance of them ripening before frost!

The plum trees are prepped for winter with firmly staked deer deterrent cages to prevent the winter winds from bowling them over. The trunks are wrapped to prevent vole chewing. There seem to be a lot of voles around this fall, and if we get a good depth of snow this winter, they will create havoc under it. Two winters ago, they girdled an unprotected small crab apple tree, and killed it. Lesson learned...wrap the baby trees!

There is a bit of leaf colour appearing around the clearing, and expect it to intensify over the next couple of weeks.

 

 Garden clear out is awaiting frost now. In the meantime, there are still cherry tomatoes, lots of greens, and the root crops are still in the ground. I'd love to get at it, but the root cellar is still a little too warm for storage...and these guys are still active.