Whoa! It's November?

So, it has been over two months since the last entry.  I was working a lot more than at the beginning of the summer and the garden was let go in many ways, much more so my posting regularity.  

There are at this point very drastic changes in the landscape.  The tomatoes have come and gone.  We put up many quarts worth of the harvest to be used this winter.  The blight eventually slowed production and they have now been removed from the bed.  The peppers lasted quite a bit longer and, while not prolific offered some very tasty and colorful specimens.

Eggplants were even less productive, and it was very late in the game that we eventually harvested the little fruits.  We pickled two pints worth, and had some delicious baba ganoush (sp?).

The brussel sprouts never really stayed in bud form.  They unfurled their leaves prematurely and they are now gone (but not forgotten).  

The corn was a treat for the few weeks of harvest and now the stalks are mulch on top of the bed.  Underneath, the pumpkins really suffered first from the squash borers, and then from a serious powdery mildew problem.  Even so, the vines ran about 20 feet all the way into the raspberry bushes (whose fall harvest has produced huge dark berries that melt in your mouth), where I harvested our two pumpkins last week.

Our first row of bok choi didn't do well.  But we sowed a variety of different greens (spinach, bok choi, swiss chard, arugula, salad mix, kale) to cover through the winter and they are doing very well now that the weather is cooled down.  We built a sort of lean-to cold frame to sit on top.

The cucumbers were more than we could handle.  We pickled a whole lot of them.  The trellis really worked well for them.  The beans which grew next door employed the trellis too.  They never made it to the fruiting stage, though.  They were an asian variety and probably needed a much hotter summer than we had.

The herb garden really took off after its slow start and we had too much of everything.  I potted up the rosemary for the winter along with a few pots of parsley and the lemon verbena, which I pruned and hung the branches to dry the leaves out.  

Last week, I harvested the remainder of the beets, but left the carrots and parsnips in the ground.  I mulched them with a hay/straw mix.  If all goes according to plan, we should be digging up good roots as long as the ground isn't frozen solid.  

What else?  We've had a lot of beautiful cut flowers between the wildflowers I sowed and the zinnias, and the dahlias.  The dahlias are a new event since the last posting.  We have had a three different varieties that are absolutely stunning and keep for a long time inside.

I am away for the next two weeks, but when I get back, I will be mulching all of the beds, pruning back the raspberries and peach tree and some other season finishing tasks.  I will also put up pictures of some stages of the last two months for you few but faithful die-hard subscribers.