Category: Gardening

Fall has arrived here in the PNW! The colors are starting in the trees and bushes. It’s beautiful! Things coming along in the garden, which is surprising, but I’ll take it!

Our berry bush leaves are turning. The blueberries and honey berries are just gorgeous! The honey berry bushes in the foreground are yellow and the blueberry bushes are mostly shades of red.

In the main garden, the fall peas are somewhat blossoming. I should have planted these where they could all climb something. Most of these are sitting on the ground. Lesson learned for next year, plant the peas where they can climb.

The beans are drying out. I have harvested quite a few black beans that will be seed beans next year. There are two pods that I think are scarlet runner beans. I’m still waiting for those to dry to know for sure.

We have a TON of green tomatoes. They went in late this year, but eventually got around to fruiting. Now, they need to ripen. We’re not yet at risk of frost, so I’ll let them keep going. I’ve harvested 3 ripe tomatoes so far.

I have 2 peppers growing. Time will tell if they will actually ripen in time. These seeds came out of some small snacking peppers from CostCo. What’s growing doesn’t look like the same pepper I had gotten them from.

I’ve also have several pickling cucumbers that have come in. The ones picked are now sitting in brine in the fridge. We’ll have to see how we like that pickle recipe.

We have an onion (maybe 2) that might decide to grow by spring. I originally had about 8 onions that took, but only this has stuck around. I can’t tell if they’re just dying or if they’re being eaten (slugs?).

I have beets that are growing, but still pretty small. I think the beets must need something that the soil is missing. The beets in my fall garden are also growing VERY slowly!!

Kale is coming along, but still getting eaten by slugs. I’ll put some anti-slug stuff around them to allow them to grow uneaten.

The alpine strawberries are still flowering and growing berries. I guess these babies are an all-season berry. They seem to be even more ongoing than the other everbearing berries we have in the yard.

(the one in the photo below has a blossom petal that fell on it. So cute.)

The fall garden on the side of the house is coming along. (Beans, radishes, beets, spinach & kale) The slugs have enjoyed this one too, but the anti-slug stuff does help.

I have harvested a delicata squash. It is small but based on what I’ve read, the coloring was right for harvest. If it went toward an orange color, then it went too far. I have a couple more growing which are smaller, but the coloring is getting about right. I’ll leave those until the first frost and see if they’ll get any bigger.

The tubers seemingly look good, but until we dig them up, we don’t really know.

The fall harvest of the raspberries has been fantastic! Everbearing berries are great! I think the fall harvest of these is better than the spring harvest – bigger berries, more of them! They are starting to wrap up.

Lastly, the chives are flowering again. I’m not sure what to do with all of these. I need to start cutting and using more of these. I hear they’re delicious, I just forget to cut them.

The sweet potato, like the tubers, seems to be doing great, but until I dig them up (after the first frost), I don’t know how they’re really doing!

I harvested all of the apples from our columnar tree. The other apple tree that grew any apples has been cut down. My hubby said that tree has never grown good fruit since he planted it over 10 years ago. We cut it out and will move some blueberries to that area and then plant a few more blueberry bushes.

The total harvest from the back yard so far for 2024 is at 117 pounds. I think with the tomatoes, tubers and sweet potatoes, 150 pounds is still well within reason to finish out the year. Time will tell!

The summer garden is still alive and kicking. I was able to harvest my first cucumber and there is at least one more to harvest and 4 more tiny ones. If the weather holds out, those might grow big enough to harvest.

(If you remember, the cucumber plant was one of the things that I threw a packet of old seeds on the garden to see if anything took. One cucumber seed took!)

The tomato plants are still growing and the fruit is growing bigger. So far, none are turning red. There is a local blogger near me that posted what to watch for as the summer ends to know when to pull all the green tomatoes off the plants and bring them inside. As of now, my plants aren’t showing any signs of late blight. I’ll leave them in place until I start seeing that they’re telling me it’s time to do something else.

The asparagus shot up two new stalks this past month. I’m not picking any this year because it needs to all go to seed and nourish the crown underground. Having thought I had killed it, we have thankfully had 15 stalks come up. Hopefully next year will be a great year for asparagus.

The beets and kale are coming along in that part of the garden as well. The one cabbage that is still green seems to have stopped growing. I’ll have to read up on how to grow cabbage as what I’ve planted is obviously missing something it needs.

The peas seem to be a bust. I’ll get some supports set up for them next year. They started out well, but are puny and also seem to have stopped growing.

The black beans are slowly drying in their pods. Once the pods feel papery, I pluck them. All of the dried beans are being saved to be used as seed for next year. (Although, yesterday I saw that a 50lb bag of black beans at the business Costco is $20.69 – I’m pretty sure I can’t grow enough black beans in our backyard to supply us for the year and certainly don’t think I can do it for less than $21.) Gardening right now isn’t about supplying all of our needs. Maybe someday I’ll grow a crop large enough to supply us for the year, but that isn’t this year.

I harvested the potatoes from this part of the garden. All total between the garden and the pot, I got a bit over10 lbs. of potatoes from 2 lbs. of seed potatoes. There are some little potatoes from this batch that I’ll see if I can save to use for seed potatoes next year. And I’ll also try cutting the potatoes to have more to plant.

The onions are tiny, but still alive. I’ll need to read up on them as well to ensure I put them to bed properly for the winter.

Some of berries in the yard are still coming along. The alpine strawberries are still blossoming and growing berries. That’s a very pleasant surprise! I love everbearing!!

The huckleberries are continuing to ripen. I’ll probably harvest them a couple more times before I leave the rest for the birds.

The raspberries are producing their fall crop. We have everbearing raspberries. That means that the spring crop is coming in on second year canes and they die off. The fall crop is coming in on first year canes. I got into the patch a bit this afternoon and cleaned up some of the old, dead canes. Hopefully that’ll open it up slightly for more light and air to get into the whole patch.

The lingonberries are producing a second crop this fall as well. These also seem to be everbearing. Our lingonberries bushes are still very small, and we’re only getting about 5-6 berries per plant right now. I expect that to increase quite a bit in the coming years!

For the fall garden on the side of the house, things are doing fairly well. Slugs are a problem, but I’ll use some anti-slug measures to try to get them to stop. The few beans that are growing are getting eaten alive. The radishes are doing well and most of the ones I transplanted after thinning seem to have taken. They’re a bit smaller but, are upright and still green. The beets are small but coming along. The spinach and kale both seem rather small and slow, but I’m hopeful those will both take off.

The Delicata Squash is doing well and there are several squashes that are growing. It seems I’ll get a couple of those if they ripen before the first frost. Since they are a winter squash, I’m sure I still have time.

We have harvested a few apples, but have decided to cut out two of our three trees. One of the trees has never produced good apples. (See the picture below of the ugly, bug bitten apples.) And the other tree didn’t produce anything at all this year. We’ll keep the columnar apple tree unless we start seeing issues with apple maggots on that one.

Lastly, the sweet potato is going strong. As least I assume by the foliage that what is below ground is doing well. I’ll wait to harvest that until first front.

All told, so far, we’ve harvested a little over 103 lbs. in the backyard with more to come!!

The summer garden has not done nearly what I had hoped. But, as I said in my last garden post, there have been lessons learned.

I ordered some seeds for fall planting from an Oregon based seed company – Territorial Seed Company. I planted some in my regular garden and then about 2 weeks later, I planted more in a garden on the side of the house.

The regular garden has Spinach, Kale, Onions, Peas, and Cabbage. Everything started well.

The peas have grown really well, then seem a bit leggy and are now laying over a bit. I’ll see how they do in the coming week.

In the picture below, the stuff at the bottom of the picture with leaves turning yellow are black beans. There are quite a few pods that grew and I’m letting them dry. I’ll use a couple to eat and try them, but will keep these beans to plant next year and get a much bigger crop of black beans.

The Spinach and Onions went in around the tomatoes and peppers. They both started well. The onions looked a bit pathetic, but perked up really well after a watering. The onions will stay put until spring or summer of 2025. The spinach is going rather slowly, but time will tell if it grows enough to eat.

Kale, Cabbage and Beets were planted in around the asparagus (which just shot up 2 more stalks in the last week!!) The kale is growing a bit better after a good watering. The cabbage had 2 start, but one died off and the other is growing REALLY slowly. And the beets didn’t grow. The beets that were put in the garden earlier this year finally look like they decided to try to grow. There are some greens but only 1 small bulb that I can see so far.

On the side of the house, there is an area which had flowers gone crazy earlier this summer, but hubby pulled those out leaving a good area that I could use to plant a few more things.

I planted more beans, radishes, beets, spinach and kale.

The beans were old seeds so I didn’t expect much, but more than half of them have grown. If I can, I might try to let those pods dry on the vine and use those for seed next year rather than eat this year.

The radishes went nuts. These were also an old seed packet, so I didn’t have high hope. But I was wrong! I had to thin them out considerably, but decided to try to get as many of those thinned out replanted. It looks like several of those replanted will take root and continue growing.

The beets are again really slow, but coming along. I did have to thin a few of those as well. Time will tell if I get anything from those.

Spinach and Kale are both coming along. Time will tell how those do.

Finally, the perennials we have planted are coming along well. The raspberry fall harvest looks like it will be fantastic. The alpine strawberries are still going. It’s early September and there are new blossoms.

The Goji Berries fall harvest has come in. I’m getting a small handful every day. And the Huckleberries are coming in well too! I’ve harvested about half and have more ready to go pick.

And finally, the potatoes are half harvested. I harvested the pot today and got a bit over 4 lbs from that pot. There were several that were still very small, so think it could have waited awhile longer. The potatoes in the garden will wait at least another week or so.

The sweet potatoes are looking gorgeous. I love this for the greenery alone! I had to look up when to harvest those because they don’t act the same as regular potatoes. The leaves are showing no signs of dying off. I’ll wait until just before the first frost and harvest those at that time.

I look forward to harvest in the coming weeks and months. I’ve already ordered seeds for next summer’s garden. I’ll keep learning, keep trying and work on getting more methods going to grow as much as I can.