Farmer's Almanac Weather Prediction for Ontario: "Fair skies and unseasonably chilly, with widespread frosts."
I did a huge deck cleanup over the weekend. It was the first reprieve we've had from the rain and grey in about two weeks. I've been planning to accomplish a variety of end-of-season tasks but had put them off due to the rain. My first task was to pull up the tomatoes in one of the planter boxes. I needed to do this so that I could clear up a winter home for my potted herbs. They won't survive the winter in small pots, but they need to go in before the frost so that they have time to establish themselves in their new home.
Unfortunately, most of the tomato plants were still bearing green tomatoes. Regardless, I pulled up the early girls and cut off all the fruit. I then tilled the soil and sprinkled a bit of  fertilizer (canola meal and rock phosphate) into the soil. I planted my anise hyssop, african blue basil, Mexican sage bush, thyme, persian catmint, purple basil, marshmallow and sage plants in the cedar box.
On Sunday, while I was out on a trip to the hardware store for shelving, I stopped at the local corner market and purchased two large fall mums; one with orange flowers and one with purple flowers. The one with purple flowers is the biggest mum I have ever seen. I'm guessing some serious chemical fertilizers went into pumping that plant into the giant puffball it has become. Normally I don't  buy the fall mums, but I got suckered in by the spicy orange of the flowers (my favourite colour) and the sheer muscle of the mutant plant. I also purchased a gorgeous butterfly lavender (Lavandula stoechas) which I promptly planted in the last remaining space in the cedar planter box. I'm concerned that it's not hardy enough to survive the winter so I left it in the container so that I can pull it up when it gets too cold. Needless to say my arms were full and I never did make it to the hardware store. The shelf I said was going up last week is still a distant idea waiting to happen.
 Sunday night Davin's dad came by for a visit and everyone had a laugh over the mutant mum. I showed him some of my plants and he commented that my pachypodium was the "healthiest he had ever seen". That brought tears to my eyes and pride to my heart. I may have killed off a few plants this year, but damnit my pachypodium is the healthiest someone has ever seen!! It has grown more than an inch this last summer and has an abundance of leaves right now. I kick ass!
I managed to send him home with one of my five portulacaria afras. Only three remain which might be a number I can manage.
I almost forgot to mention that I got a new succulent last week. I complain about the need to get rid of plants, and yet I always manage to acquire more. I've searched high and low but I can't find a name for it. I purchased it in the neighbourhood at a new corner store that just opened. I've had some problems with corner store cacti and succulents in the past (they over-water them), but I knew they hadn't had these long so they'd be okay. The plant has oval shaped green and purple leaves that form a rosette from the base. The purple is sort of dotted around the tips. I purchased it because it reminded me of a stone plant (lithops).
 Today when I went out to pick tomatoes I became aware that only a handful of fruit was ripe for picking. A quick tally revealed two remaining amana orange tomatoes, a handful or so of cherry gold and maybe two pints of yellow pear tomatoes left on the vines. Even though I've complained in the past about the over-abundance of fruit, I felt a tinge of sadness today at the lack thereof. It indicates that soon I'll be pulling those plants up too, and putting something else in their place. Then a day will come when the sun doesn't come back like it has in the last few days, and I won't be able to go outside free and easy in bare feet for several months. There will be no more flowers and my deck will be covered in snow.
This time last year: Rock on
previous entry
| 
