Fall Garden Clean Up Time

Why is it that this time of year has so many glories of the harvest (sunflower seeds, tomatoes for canning, sweet corn), but yet on a day like today, I work in the garden with a heavy heart? All my hard work throughout the summer seems to stop today. The start of the fall garden clean up always gets me.

But... I keep telling myself 'all good things must come to an end'.. "the sun will come out tomorrow"... yeah, all those cliques. So I do tell myself that next year's garden will be here before I know it and that keeps me going.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers have been harvested, the seeds dried and ready for seasoning. (I am preferring to ignore the experiment I did earlier and posted on steemit. It was a fail and I have blocked it from my mind).
All we have left are the stumpy stems that need to be pulled out.
old stems.jpg
As you can see there are still some herbs out there that need to be trimmed and brought in for dehydrating. But that's a chore for another day. Today is all about starting the fall garden clean up.

Almost Hot Potato Time

Still NOT quite ready for harvesting, but getting closer. I can almost taste those red beauties. I planted your basic red skinned potatoes because they are just so good. Next year I think I will be adding some Yukon Gold. I grew those a few years back and they were so 'buttery' and scrumptious!

Bye-Bye Corn, Cukes & Peppers

I pulled the corn stalks, the cucumber plants (as they stopped producing about two weeks ago) and most of my pepper plants. I left two Jalapeno plants because they still have about two dozen peppers on each plants. I foresee poppers being made soon.

You can see the two lonely Jalapeno plants in the distance

Greenhouse Is So Bare

I was looking at earlier in the season pictures of the herb greenhouse: it was so FULL of life. Seedlings growing, herbs sprouting.. it was a wondrous sight!
But now... LOOK!

I had just swept out the leaves maybe thirty minutes before this picture was taken
Gotta love how the leaves just fall.. and fall.. and fall all day long. It's a never-ending sweeping chore.

All that's left is two small Brussel sprout plants that I haven't decided what to do with as of yet. Not sure how they would survive indoors. So this week I need to make a decision.

Transplanted Mint From Outdoors To Indoors For The Winter

Two weeks ago I dug up a mint plant in my front herb garden with the hopes of it taking and adjusting to the indoors. I had wanted to have fresh mint for my herbal teas all winter long.

As you can see, it is adapting quite well. I'm going to give it another week or two before I trim some leaves off to dehydrate. Right now it appears to be to 'stem-y' and I would prefer a bushier plant. Seems as though the bushier the plant, the better the harvest in my experience.