Quiltlady's Gardens

Its autumn in Maine and that means overcast skies over the mtns and color in the leaves, nites in the 40s, sometimes 30s.

The road to our house is blazing with red, orange, and gold beauty.

Its the season when our mums are prolific and beautiful.

This long view of my 9 raised beds shows a pretty bedraggled state. Most crops have been harvested. In the two left front beds I've now planted radishes, lettuce and Swiss chard hoping for a longer harvest. I have to cover both beds at night to prevent frost damage but the days are ok. In the 50s or high 40s right now. I have to pull the rest of the dead and dying plants and chop them up for the compost. I have also raked up 5 bags of dead leaves which I shall hoe into the beds and chop them in and cover them over for winter. This weekend I hope to get my grandson to help fill several more bags of leaves for this purpose. They should help feed the soil for next year.

This is the last Early Jersey Wakefield cabbages that I harvested last nite, Oct. 14th.

This is the last eggplant harvested 2 days ago.

The last zucchini was also harvested 2 days ago.

My veggie beds have lots of fall color from the marigolds I planted in the left corner of each bed to repel insects. I think it did its work, except for the Japanese beetles which attacked my sugar snap peas.

Nasturtiums in the right front corners also helped repel insects. I'll be planting them again next year.

I've enjoyed my first year of gardening. Next year I plan to allot only one or 2 veggies per raised bed. I think it will make my gardening chores easier and also better for crop rotation the following year.