Fall has come again, and update on the front yard potager

It's not that cold, yet, I guess.  Being cold is always very relative around here.
At 40 degrees right now, it's freezing...

However, 40 degrees in the spring? Wahoo break out the T-shirts!

The backyard garden is dying, and needs to be pulled up. Our little Espaliered apple tree had about 30 apples on it...which is amazing considering how small the tree was. A few of the small spurs/branches had broken off due to the weight of the apples on its limbs. 

On the other hand, our large apple tree lovingly referred to as "Biggie" by Momsi had one teeny tiny 2" apple on the end of one of it's branches.   LOL... silly nature.

We've had quite a harvest this year, looking back.   Ridiculous amounts of zucchini, robust Chinese broccoli that kept coming back for more every time we cut it, Chinese beans that grew over 10' tall on our trellises. There was more than enough food for my family, and I opened a small boutique CSA specializing in Asian vegetables.  It made enough to pay for the rain barrel and some materials.  I hope for the best with it next year.

here's an update on that front yard garden, and it's looking really well with the fall planting of baby bok choi.

A view from the front, of our middle box. Parsley, and rosemary... with chives around the edges.  Cilantro didn't really work out. Went to seed almost immediately. Neither did the Purple lettuce.

I may try purple Shiso perilla next year.

Pumpkins from the kids' 4-H pumpkin sale, and Libertyville Pumpkinfest.

The teeniest gourds I could find are sitting on the pumpkins.

We had some kids go through the neighborhood and smash up pumpkins, but not a single one of ours was touched!!  Don't know how they resisted? But thankful they did!!

A view of our back garden boxes.  Garlic is starting to come up.  Hopefully, they will live to see next year.   Marigolds, and uhmmm some red cockscombish flower in there.  I was disappointed that the carrots and beets in this box didn't do so well. Next year, I will plant some Amaranth.

A view of the corner boxes.  They filled out well with the Fall planting of Baby Bok choi. Marigold in the middle, and the edges are all green onions. To be used up throughout the winter.

A view from the sidewalk of everything

A fiew from the sidewalk dead on. 

It doesn't show that in between the boxes, and the sidewalk is a row of meadow sage/perennial salvia.  I started off with plantings of lavender, and they did not do well at ALL. It was such a disappointment :(   all the dreams I had of flowing fields of purple flowers!! The perfumes air! the dried sachels!! auuugh.  Worst is, I paid top dollar for them, and I couldn't get a refund.  Oh well :(

Currently it is full of Meadow Sage/perennial Salvia that has purple flowers, and I hope being a prarie plant it'll do extremely well with me not taking care of it.  I really lucked out, and across the street from the 4-H pumpkin sale was Mini Earth Greenhouses that was doing a $1 perennial sale.

WTF?!@ $1?!!?  ::head explodes:: I GOTTA check this out.

it was a table full of purple meadow sages, and 1 decorative grass... yeah they were all scraggly, but they are freakin' perennials.  Any self respecting gardener knows what I see is going to die back, and next year it'll be a supermodel.  Awesome... too freakin' awesome.

Another Idea for next year, There is a section of my backyard by the AC Unit that wasn't utilized. The kids don't even play there... So next year, I'm going to plant turban, acorn and Italian winter squashes there, so they can sprawl all over there, and I can have sweet winter squashes.  Hope the chipmunks never find out...

Surprise, it's Garlic!

After seeing the kids onto the bus, I took a look at my zombie garden.
The neighbor has been raking her leaves and putting it out to the curb for the trash to pickup. When I am able, I take a wheelbarrow over there and shovel up the leaves with the kids, and then proceed to dump the leaves all over my gardens. I figure it's free nitrogen and worm food. She has told me in the past to feel free to take her leaves :) (Whilst I sit back and wonder why she sprinkles fertilizer on her trees/lawn, and then bags up all the clippings and leaves for the trash to haul away. It's a vicious cycle of her losing all the fertilizer she's putting into the place.)

As I scanned the garden, the tomatoes were all droopy, and the sesame leaf stems were drying out to be stiff in the wind... and I saw something growing out of the leaf mulch. huh... looks like... GARLIC?! That's Madness!

I planted that in the Spring, and I didn't see it growing at all! In fact all summer, while I was tending my garden, I was somewhat disappointed that only 1 garlic stem was growing. By the time Fall arrived, I pulled that 1 garlic to find... 1 big bulb on the bottom. Wow that really didn't look like Garlic at all. But now, here... every single one of them are greeting me... WTFFFFF??

So what exactly did I do wrong? (O_o)

Well, I found out from Natalie, our local expert, that Garlic should be planted in the Fall to harvest NEXT Fall. So it has a whole year of growth underground. Wow, so all the garlic that are coming up now are ready for being in the ground next year :) ! HA! I totally am way better at this that I thought! In fact, I could maybe say I MEANT to do it. ::Evil cackle::

This actually makes me want to plant even more garlic, because now is the season to do the planting. That, and any of my friends will tell you I LOVE garlic. I love to eat it on pizza, with stir fry, roasted, and sometimes even raw with food (learned that from my Albanian neighbors).
This is much to the dismay of my friend who have to be around me after I've been eating a whole head of garlic.

Some other good news: I found the digital camera, and I can soon add photos to this bloginess!
In true digital camera fashion, I found it had drained the batteries that were in it.

Here's also a photo of the front of the house from Spring. We've since painted the white/primer parts a tan color, but the shape of the front yard is pretty much the same. This will be one of a few "before" photos used before the front yard is transformed by my friend Pam from four seasons, who has encouraged me over and over not to give up on the dream of edible landscaping.

Here's a shameless plug for such a sweetheart of a person!
http://www.4seasonslandscapeanddesign.com/