Everything Gets A Haircut

The past two weeks we have been getting ready for the next stage of the garden which is Leaf Season.  We try to have everything cut back and ready for winter by October 1st.  We can get snow in October, and the leaves will be falling soon.  Everything in the landscape is looking pretty over grown and disheveled by mid-September so cutting it back to a clean slate can be refreshing.

I harvested the last of the Broccoli side shoots.  I wanted to show you what the variety Belstar means by "smaller side shoots".   That's a secondary plant coming off the side!

I usually plant some Basil although I rarely use it.  It smells like licorice and I like to pinch some off while I am in the garden and enjoy its fragrance.   I generally consider the flowers to be a bonus because the bees love them.  But this year I tried the Emerald Towers variety.  The flower stage of Basil changes the taste so if you want it to remain sweet and edible you have to constantly pinch it back.  Not so with Emerald Towers.  Here it is at the end of the season with not a flower in sight.

I left the volunteer Snapdragons and Cosmos for the bees.  Last year I planted Cosmos here and was reminded how messy they can be.  I pulled most of the volunteers when they were small, but I left one growing because it chose the center of the bed.

Things look a little barren with the huge grasses cut down.  It takes us about three stints of a couple hours each to cut everything in each bed.  Then we have to spend time going through and pulling all of the weeds that have been hiding.

I began pulling annuals weeks ago, and put tree tubes on all of our smaller trees.  Last year the deer did a lot of damage, and I also worry about rabbits girdling the fruit trees.

The Dahlias are still going strong.  I have begun pruning some of them back a bit.

The ball style dahlias are looking gorgeous.

Down in the corner is a mystery dahlia that popped up out of nowhere.  It can't be an over wintered tuber because last year I had singles in this area.   Best guess is a stray seed from a Dana and Lady Darlene cross two or three years ago because I discarded Dana awhile ago.   Not very attractive in my opinion but my first volunteer growing dahlias for seven years.

It looks like a frizzle chicken

The seed must have dropped when I cleaned the tubers on the patio.  And then it just hung out for a couple of years waiting for inspiration.

This is Dana, the only Cactus style I've ever grown.

But the broken color reminds me much more of Lady Darlene.

Right now Bumble Rumble is the variety doing the most in the singles bed.

My strawberries rooted in well and today I snipped all of the runners.

Hello there big Toad!  He was bigger than my fist.

Here is Foxtrot Pennisetum showing why that name was chosen

And with that, I am pretty much done with fall garden chores.  I have a bag of daffodils to plant, Sweet Potatoes to harvest, and the Dahlia tubers to put away.  Other than that, we can just relax and enjoy the beautiful fall weather until we have to start blowing leaves.