Carrots

The weather is finally becoming more fall like and the only things I have left in the garden are Carrots and Dahlias.  It will still be a few more weeks before I will dig the Dahlias.  

The carrots have done exceptionally well this year.  They germinated well in the mild April weather and then thrived in the cool wet May.  I planted four varieties in containers and one variety in seed tape along the back of the strawberry cages where I previously had Parsnips.  With my shallow raised beds I have to choose my Carrot locations carefully.  They need deep, loose soil to grow long and straight.  I have been growing them in containers with potting mix for quite a few years now and get very good results.  But it was kind of nice to have some growing in the ground because the containers require dedicated watering.

I pulled Carrots from containers all summer to use in salads.  When the foliage started getting a little rough looking, as it does every August, I just cut it all back to about two inches to see what would happen.  It came back fresh and green and one container has started putting out flowers.  I've never had this happen and assume this is because I cut the foliage back and tricked the plant into thinking that it was the second year.

Nantes and/or Sugarsnax flowering like Queen Anne's Lace

These carrots had become next to impossible to pull one by one because they were so rooted in.  I dumped one container and was curious to see what the overall root systems looked like.  They had pretty much taken up the entire pot.  

That's a pretty strong secondary root situation!

I started breaking the soil away from the side and the carrots came out easily.

Rotild on the left and King Midas on the right

I cut the foliage off and rinsed the worst of the soil off and put them all in a plastic bag in the hydrator.  The less you handle them the longer they keep well.  I will probably end up cutting these, blanching and freezing them.  

The Carrot tape did very well despite infrequent watering.  The soil is pretty good here, but they are still pushing themselves up out of the ground.  The variety is YaYa, which is a sweet, Nantes type. I like the Nantes Carrots because of their blunt ends.

  I feel somehow that there is less waste if I know where to trim the root as opposed to a tapered "Imperator" type Carrot where you have to decide just how much of the root is useable.  But I still plant those too because I love pulling a long, slender Carrot.

Last year's Sugarsnax Carrots

The great thing about Carrots is that they get sweeter in cold weather.  I cannot leave them in containers over winter because they will freeze solid and turn to mush, but the Yaya Carrots in the ground can be left for quite awhile.  If I were to cover them deeply with straw or leaves to insulate the ground I might be digging them in the middle of winter and adding fresh, sweet carrots to my Crockpot meals.

The Weather is Changing

 For the past seven weeks at least we have had perfect warm, dry, sunny weather except for two rainy days and a couple of random showers.  It is going to be difficult to adjust to anything else.  Today is 82F and sunny and the overnight low is a moderate 59F.  Tomorrow is supposed to be area wide rain with accumulation of half an inch.  Then, the next two days will be cool and sunny and I'll bet we get frost advisories.  Our average first frost date is Oct 7th so this is right on schedule.

This means that today was the last day to deal with anything I want to be dry and frost free.  First order of business was to transplant all of my Coleus cuttings to see if I need to save any more from frost.  Some plants will withstand cool nights but Coleus is not one of them. 

The camera focus was a little off kilter but you can see that when I pulled these cuttings they had enough roots to bring undisturbed soil with them.  Perfect.  I ended up with a tray of 18 with a couple of spares set aside.

I was also experimenting with Marigold cuttings.  I am not going to try over wintering something as easy to start from seeds as Marigolds, but it is good to know that if I run short in the spring I can pinch my seedlings back, root the pinchings and double my inventory.  

Three of these had excellent roots and the rest had nearly none.  I transplanted the rooted ones for now in the interest of experimentation but I won't put too much time into them

Sweet Potatoes will spoil after the vines are killed by frost.  I got one grow bag dumped but then got distracted before I got to the second one.  Each of the five plants had one nice main tuber suitable for baking if I want.

I dumped the rest of the soil through a sifter and found some midsized ones that will work for frying.   All of these came from my own starts from last year's crop.

The Celosia won't survive the rain and frost.  We have had around three inches of rain over the last two months and I have not watered these even once.

These are on the third year of reseeding themselves.  As I was knocking the roots around to shake off the soil, I could feel the seeds raining down on my feet.  No wonder they reseed so well.  I have to add soil to this planter which will cover most of the seeds too deeply.  I plan to buy a packet of seeds and direct sow them in the spring.  Hopefully I can get a better mix of yellow and orange because the red has taken over.

Some of these Marigolds have already burned in the cool nights.  Not exactly frost, but not happy.  Again, we're really dry and they have been on their own.

They don't look bad today. but they are nicer to pull now that they will be after rain and frost.

This planter of five Coleus has done so well.  You can see that they are faded and dropping leaves.  That isn't because of lack of water.  I have watered them all along.  It is the cool nights (we had low 40s the second half of August) that has made them unhappy. So out they go.

That leaves me with Dahlias, which need a frost to cue them into dormancy, carrots which are sweeter after a frost and one grow bag of Sweet Potatoes.  I also have my ornamental pepper plants that I will bring indoors on the cold nights and otherwise let them try for as long as they can.

Then its Leaf Season....

A Sinking Feeling

 Back in May we cleaned out two old Whiskey Barrel planters and replaced them with poly resin containers that look like terracotta.  I promise they look more like real terracotta from the side.  They look pretty cheesy and orange on the inside.  Anyway... look how much the soil has sunk.  I need to add at least four inches of soil, maybe six inches.  But I am waiting for spring.  The Hostas are rooted in and growing well.  I don't want to disturb them going into winter.  I will cut them back and add a layer of shredded leaves on top to insulate them.  This Hosta variety is supposedly hardy to temperatures down to -30F.  When planting perennials in containers you should choose varieties hardy two zones lower than your own and we are currently a zone 6b.

We had volunteer Petunias in them all summer.  Next year I will plant colorful annuals in them and use the Hosta for centerpiece plant.

Dahlia Photography

It is still Dahlia season, and because all of the big gardening jobs are done now but the weather continues to be warm, dry and sunny, when I putter around out there I get to spend time enjoying the Dahlias and taking pictures that will get me through the long winter months.  I still have a few small chores like planting the daffodil bulbs that I dug to relocate this spring.  And I am placing wire cloches over the perennials that are evergreen through the winter.  I have Primrose, Heuchera and Penstemon that will keep their leaves and must be protected from the rabbits and deer.  The other annuals are looking tired and I'm pulling them out, but the Dahlias are at their prime.  I still have several plants that have not bloomed.

Summer's End Dahlia

Only the second bloom for Peaches n' Dreams

Ice Tea Dahlia

Bloomquist Pleasing Dahlia

Beautiful from any angle

Bloomquist Pleasing Dahlia

Bloomquist Pleasing Dahlia

Bloomquist Pleasing Dahlia

Mai Tai Dahlia
looking like a pinwheel

Cornell Bronze Dahlia

Ice Tea Dahlia

Bloomquist Gordon

City Lights Border Dahlia

Happy Daze

Happy Daze is one of my Bee's Choice crosses with Junkyard Dog.  It opened red and yellow then faded to pink.  And the collar petals turned in a way I've never seen.  

The bees absolutely love it

Even the back.

My one and only Bee's Choice in orange.

HS Date Lookalike

Every morning these Dahlias are just covered in bees.  For a few weeks they were working on the wild golden rod and asters but now they have developed a taste for color!

Cosmic Pink

Cherubino Lookalike

This lavender Dahlia's is unique in that the petals stay turned into a cup shape from beginning to end.

My Summer Lovin' Dahlia attracted a Viceroy Butterfly this morning.  Every time a honey bee approached the Butterfly would flutter its wings to scare off the bee, but this one was determined,

Bee's Choice Dahlias

Last year, because all of my varieties of single and collarette Dahlias flowered well, I saved seeds to see what sort of new crosses the bees had created.  Usually, I grow Dahlias from tubers so you are guaranteed an exact copy of the same traits year after year.  When grown from seed, you get new traits based on what different pollen the bees (or the breeder) are bringing to the mother plant.  This is how new varieties of Dahlias are created.  You can choose the parentage, or you can just let the bees choose.  I grew out a dozen plants from my seeds, and they have been opening for the past few weeks.  Not all of the plants have flowered, but I have some fun new blooms to report.

The first one is one that I call Summer Lovin'.   It is a large single bloom and the plant blooms better than average, putting out three or four blooms simultaneously.  Some of the petals are tipped with white.  The blooms actually look a little frumpy to me.  Sort of like someone wearing baggy, unironed clothes.  But there are a lot of them so they are a happy, bright spot in the garden.

I think this is a cross between Wishes n' Dreams and the large, showy Junkyard Dog.  It is larger than Wishes and the size and number of blooms both remind me of Junkyard.  Plus the occasional white tips.

Wishes 'n Dreams   x   Junkyard Dog 

Then there are three that remind me of Cosmos flowers.  The white one is actually pale pink and fades to white.  The medium pink one has double rows of petals.  The stems are dark, but the leaves are green.

    

Its just about anyone's guess what the parents are.  The dark stems and compact height say Wishes to me, and the dark color and double petals suggest maybe Hootenany.  Because they remind me of Cosmos flowers I call them Cosmic Red, Cosmic Pink and Cosmic White.

Wishes 'n Dreams     x    Hootenany

Then we have a very tall, leggy one that is pale yellow with some shading.  While it is a single, the color and height is like Apple Blossom.  I have just about had it with Apple Blossom.  They are beautiful blooms if insects don't ruin them before they open.  And insects just love pale yellow so they have ruined every bloom this year either in bud stage or as soon as it blooms.  I won't keep this one and I am not keeping Apple Blossom anymore.

 

Again, the stems are dark like Wishes n' Dreams, so that is probably the other parent.

Wishes 'n Dreams and Apple Blossom

        

Now this is an Apple Blossom child that is a winner!  The bloom is large and flat.  The petals are pointed.  The stems are dark and the plant is short. But the color and collarette form is close to Apple Blossom with added deep pink streaks.   The insects are leaving this one alone.  

Probably a cross between  Apple Blossom and Junkyard Dog.  I call it Afternoon Delight and it is a keeper.  My favorite in fact.

Apple Blossom and Junkyard Dog

And lastly I have one that might be a Cherubino self pollinated.  It appears to be an exact copy.   Except - note the "forked" tips on the petals.   It is very tall but is blooming better than Cherubino does.  I think I will keep this one as a replacement.

Cherubino Lookalike

I still have three or four plants that have not bloomed.  Hopefully, they will be something completely different.  I still do not have any that I think could be a product of my favorite dark foliaged and orange petaled HS First Date, but one that is budding up looks promising. This year I am going to save some seeds from my Ball and Informal Decorative varieties and see if I get anything interesting from those.