Category: Flowers

Overwintering Dahlias

SabineLeave a Reply
A beauty from the communal bed, dinner plate dahlia Cafe au Lait

About a week ago (on November 7) after our first light frost had killed the dahlia leaves, I dug up the tubers, both from the communal flower bed and my own plot including my back porch container dwarf varieties. I roughly cleaned them and let them dry in card board boxes in my back hallway. This morning, I transferred the boxes to a cool dark spot in the basement. I plan to check on them once a month or so and mist them if necessary to prevent them from shriveling up to much. Fingers crossed they will survive.

Ready for storage

Fall Clean-up and Planting Garlic

SabineLeave a Reply

Today, I finished cleaning up my plot (weeding, spreading compost and salt marsh hay), and I sowed my garlic for next year – 6 rows total, 15 cloves of hardneck garlic, and 20 cloves of softneck garlic.

New garlic patch
Plot at the end of today. Still growing: kale, Swiss chard, leeks, fall greens, komatsuna, a few carrots, calendula.

Back Porch Semi-Cleanup

SabineLeave a Reply
Parsley and cherry blossom

Yesterday, with temperatures forecast to be in the 30s at night, I decided to bring in my tender perennial herbs. I had brought the basil inside a few weeks ago, and now moved the thyme, rosemary and lavender. Thyme and lavender are winter hardy, but in containers, I have not had much luck overwintering them in the past. The thyme resides in the kitchen now, and the lavender rosemary live in the back hallway.

I still have two containers with parsley and also kale, some very skinny leeks, tiny radishes, chives, mint and nasturtium growing outside. The full porch clean-up including covering and/or putting away furniture will happen in a couple of weeks. We will have a few more warm days this week (sixties and even seventies), and I am looking forward to enjoy the afternoon sun on the back porch.

Big container with still very healthy parsley plus (now sadly almost dead) basil

Fall Work Day

SabineLeave a Reply
Blueberry foliage

Yesterday, we had our community garden fall work day. We got a lot done, from weeding and clearing the common areas inside the garden to getting the communal outside beds ready for winter (including planting 100 tulip bulbs and 100 crocus bulbs), to spreading hay and mulch, replacing three more timber plot borders and more. We harvested the last green tomatoes and flowers for gardeners to take home, and placed the remaining tomatoes in our donation box outside the garden gate for neighbors to take home. All that is left to do apart from finishing weeding & mulching and cleaning the shed is to dig up the dahlia tubers after the first hard frost. The common areas are (almost) ready for winter.

Before
After
Pinwheel marigolds

Late October Plot

SabineLeave a Reply
Plot today after harvesting the squash and removing tomato plants

Today, I started cleaning up the garden plot. It is (unseasonably) warm during the day but there will be frost tomorrow night. I took out the tomato plants and harvested all the butternut squash. Over the next week or so, I will get an area ready for planting my garlic. I still have chard, kale, radishes, beets, fall greens, leeks, carrots and flowers growing.

Swiss Chard
Calendula
Fall greens
Radishes