I'm back!

Just got home last night from my sojourn in Austria and Philippines. Apparantly I lost my pine tree and most of a bradford pear in the hurricane. There is a big pile of limbs and cut up trunk in the back yard and a stump where the pine was. There are some missing shingles and part of the soffit on the front of the house is missing, but overall not bad damage. The TT beds didn't shift although one of the "legs" of one trellis is bent into an S shape.

SFGarden report:
I planted tomato seed in 2 pots and 1 square the day before I left. Came home to 1 ripe tomato and some small green ones on the saddest, leafless vine you ever saw in one pot, a pot of water and a viable plant with a few small green tomatos in the square.

6 squares swiss chard are still growing. Picked some for lunch today and it seems a bit bitter.

1 collard plant - small
4 kale plants with some leaves still growing
4 onions
2 carrots
2 huge basil plants
lots of marigold plants blooming great
4 butternut squash on sad vines teaming with squash bugs. Planted the day before I left. (harvested them and ate 1 for lunch)
4 various sweet and hot pepper plants with 1 to a dozen peppers on the plants
6 beds full of grass and dandelions - took about 1/2 hour to clear most out before the rain started.
Hope to put in a few lettuce, spinach collard, carrot and kale seeds tomorrow. Frost date here is 21 Nov and will try to get some things before frost.

Herb pots:
rosemary looking good
some nasturtium vines
borrage
mint looking good
parsley stems covered with large green and black caterpillers
oragano
big citronella plant in a broken pot

flower beds and deck pots
lost 2 azeleas
some flowers alive including a blue sage, shasta daisy and some iris and daylilies
portulaca grew in the deck pots but looks pitiful now.
lantana is putting on a show
african daisys are healthy, with a few blooms left. need deadheading
caldium bulbs are small but a spot of color.
periennels barely hanging on in the shade bed.

All beds full of invasive vining grass and nuthatch weed and I will not be able to get to them until late Oct as I have been tapped to babysit while my DIL goes to Philippines to visit her parents for a month.

All in all, the place is just sad looking, but not in bad shape.

Kay

back, Kay!!! I'm glad you've made it back home, but sorry that you came home to some storm damage and damaged plants! At least, with gardening, we have a chance to replant and make things better. Here's to a better outcome next try!

walshevak wrote:
lantana is putting on a show

I adore lantana! That's one of the perennials that I truly miss from Georgia. I can find it here, but it's not hardy, and doesn't grow nearly as big and beautiful.

Ahhhhhhhhhh!!

Welcome back Kay. I have read many of your prevous posts prior to leaving. I wondered how your garden was doing. I had to leave mine for 4 days, had my daughter water it daily. Came home to find my carrots covered with inch worms and all the foliage gone. Still, have some carrots to harvest, but the point is, no matter how long or short your departure, your going to have some loss. Glad your back, hope you get more out of your garden. Isn't it great that you have some thing left to fiddle with? Personally, I'm impressed that there is that much still surviving.

So glad you are back and there was only minor damage.

I put my fall garden at my house on hold. I finally just turned off the automatic spirinkler and left it. My DIL's father is not doing well after two strokes and we decided to send her to the Philippines for a month. So, I'm at my son's house babysitting. However, he is the one with the pond beds and we are going to do a fall garden here and maybe add 2 new pond beds for next spring. I bought some transplants yesterday, winterbore kale that did so well in the spring, vates collards, some broccoli, and some romain lettuce. We also have seeds for more lettuce, spinach, bok choi and swiss chard. Hope the frost is not early this year.

Kay

walshevak wrote:I put my fall garden at my house on hold. I finally just turned off the automatic spirinkler and left it. My DIL's father is not doing well after two strokes and we decided to send her to the Philippines for a month. So, I'm at my son's house babysitting. However, he is the one with the pond beds and we are going to do a fall garden here and maybe add 2 new pond beds for next spring. I bought some transplants yesterday, winterbore kale that did so well in the spring, vates collards, some broccoli, and some romain lettuce. We also have seeds for more lettuce, spinach, bok choi and swiss chard. Hope the frost is not early this year.

Kay

Kay, Your DIL's father is in my prayers.

walshevak wrote:...However, he is the one with the pond beds and we are going to do a fall garden here and maybe add 2 new pond beds for next spring...

Kay, you are one busy person!

Maybe you'll be able to do an end of season evaluation of your pond beds? Pros and cons. Water bill, etc

https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t5716p30-experiment-to-deal-with-pure-sand-and-high-water-bills

I updated the pond bed thread and want to comment on the Wilmington, NC babysitting beds now. These were the beds and pots that were thrown together when I uprooted all my tomatos, peppers and eggplants after finding out I was spending the summer in Austria.

The tomatos in the pots did well for most of the summer, especially after moving them to a shadier spot. The tomatos in the bed didn't do well at all. Couldn't keep up with the water and couldn't move into some shade. The squash went the way of bettles and borers after a limited harvest. But the eggplant and peppers have produced bumper crops. Eggplants are done for now, but still have peppers.



this one habenero plant has produced over 100 peppers




peppers and an eggplant that is still flowering. Probably don't have enough time before cold weather to get any more fruit.


this is probably the last eggplant of the season and there are collard starts around it for fall.




flowers gone crazy in MM


What's left of the pi r squared flower garden in MM. Ready for winter panseys and ornamental cabbage. Plan to save some of the marigold seeds. Pots are filled with a half assed MM. Didn't have enough vermiculite left and no time to get more, so it's heavy on peat and compost