As the World Turns

We're still getting some beautiful weather, and the forecast for Friday and Saturday is low 80s!  The coolest night temperature for the next week is forecast for tomorrow - 48 degrees.  Other than that, the night time temp forecast ranges from 52 to a balmy 66 degrees on Friday night.  Quite warm for the end of October.  I'm not complaining.

Since I planted my herbs at the front of the garden, as a whole, and from a distance, it still looks fairly nice.

There are still lots of things growing, and if I hadn't gotten tired of it, I'm sure I would still be harvesting okra.  Instead, I'm expecting to be pulling okra like weeds next spring and summer since I didn't keep the ripening pods clipped off.

The tomato fruits are still looking halfway decent, and I expect with the temperatures that are being forecast, they'll be ripening up faster this week.

They haven't appreciated the cooler weather we've had this month, though, and I'm seeing a fair number that look like this:

By the way, those are stevia flower heads in the harvest basket with the tomatoes. Stevia plants and seeds are expensive, so  I'm hoping to collect viable seed I can start indoors late this winter.  I'm also hoping to collect seed from the ornamental pepper Black Pearl.  I'm going to try to get them from both ripe and new fruits to see whether one source is better than the other.  (I hope at least one source will produce viable seeds.)  If I get good seed, I have no doubt I'll be swimming in Black Pearl plants next season.  I tend to overplant when I start seeds indoors.

All of the herbs are still alive and harvestable, but the Purple Ruffles basil is leggy now and falling over.  I regret not having cut it back earlier, but it was so pretty I couldn't bring myself to do it.

The peppers, which are also heat lovers, are still ripening.  The mini bells are in varying stages, but the chilis and jalapeños are pretty well done.

The cucumbers I planted in a tomato cage on the 27th of August have lots of flowers and are beginning to produce.

Salad greens I planted at the same time are looking nice now that the bugs have died off and quit feeding.

Lettuce, arugula and celery

Tatsoi

Both the limas and the Mexican sunflower plantings are looking end-of-season shabby.

The limas are still filling out, and if I had the inspiration and desire, I could probably prune up the sunflowers to look better.  Instead, I just picked the good ones for an arrangement.

Mexican sunflower, lavender, basil and Shazam! rose

I got my rose garden area finished up and covered, and the first rose bush (Pink Enchantment) planted.

I'll leave the cover on over winter so that I don't get a plot full of weeds, and I'll uncover each section as I plant it with rose bushes and herbs.

When I dead-headed the basil, I spread the spikes over the foot path that's between the rose garden and the vegetable garden.  I'm hoping that I'll have lots of basil plants growing up amongst whatever grass (and weeds) will grow there, so that when I mow it and walk it, I'll get that wonderful smell.

The Pink Enchantment rose I planted near the house is still blooming beautifully.  It's been an excellent disease-free tea rose.

Till next time, enjoy these gorgeous days.

Nothing to Do But Enjoy

We're still having some wonderfully warm days, so I haven't been having to do much winter prep.  I've finished digging my spot for roses and herbs, and we've had some rains on it, which is just what I was hoping for.  Consequently, it's still a little bit too wet to dig and plant the rose bush that's going from pot to ground this fall.

My granddaughters and daughter-in-law harvested a big mess of lima beans this past weekend while they were here visiting, and the younger girl had a great time searching out woolly-bear and other fuzzy caterpillars.  If there's any truth to the old tale that the wider the orange stripe is on the black and orange ones, the milder the winter, we should have a very mild winter this year.  Unless, that is, the one of that kind we saw was mistaken.

She found some of a color that I'd never seen before - a pale mauve tint - and yet I didn't have the sense to take any pictures.  If I come across any myself, I'll do that.  She also encountered a praying mantis or two, but was disappointed in her hunt for frogs.  This little guy had found somewhere else to go for the weekend.

He had that perch for a couple of days last week.  I'm not sure how he got up there, unless he used the thorns on the trunk of this Madagascar palm (Pachypodium lamerei, not a palm at all) like a ladder.

A few butterflies were still active, but mostly just some small moths.  The previous few weeks had been full of the larger, more colorful butterflies, including Monarchs and swallowtail Parsley Worm butterflies.

I've always heard that Monarchs feed solely on milkweed.  I've always been skeptical, too, and upon seeing the one in the pictures above obviously feeding on other things in the wildflower garden, I searched online to find out what they do eat.

"For starters, the larvae (caterpillars) of monarch butterflies eat ONLY milkweed, this is why the monarch butterfly is dubbed the ‘milkweed butterfly’. The larvae stage is the only stage of the monarch butterfly that feeds on milkweed; there is something in milkweed that allows the caterpillar to grow and keep all of the vitamins needed to transform into a beautiful butterfly. In turn, the adult butterflies consume all sorts of different things including nectar, water and even liquids from some of the fruits we consume. If you are looking to attract monarch butterflies to your backyard, simply plant a few fruit-bearing trees along with plenty of flowers and you should definitely have yourself a back yard full of monarch butterflies. They especially like to drink from mushy slices of banana, oranges and watermelon."

So it's partially true that they eat only milkweed; that's in the larval stage.

Although most of the showy butterflies are gone, my older granddaughter did spy and took a great photograph of a Painted Lady.

Photo: A. Morrow

The hyacinth bean vines are still brilliant, full of bright purple pods.

The cucumber vine is climbing its way up inside the tomato cage. 

Hopefully, it will produce some slicing size fruits before this year's frost kills the plant.  Right now, there's lots of flowers, but just one fruit, and it's not quite as big as my little finger.  I may end up doing some pickling if the plant doesn't pick up speed.  We're supposed to have a very warm weekend coming up, so that should help.

Speaking of tomato cages - I still have a good number of large green tomatoes on a couple of my plants, so I'm expecting to get enough tomatoes to keep us in fresh fruit and more to freeze as long as the weather holds.

The fall lettuces are beautiful.  And tasty.

I'm still getting okra, but I'm also getting tired of it.  It's hard to believe at the beginning of okra season that I'll get tired of it, but by this time, I always do.

But I love the misty early mornings.

Happy October!  Until next time.