Yesterday morning I saw this little tree frog stuck onto the stem of a canna in our front yard and it made me realize that I haven't seen very many frogs this year. I wonder why? Maybe I haven't been paying attention? Or, maybe it has something to do with the mild weather we've had?
Slowing down...
Just as the garden has been slowing down now that fall is around the corner, it seems that I have been slowing down lately too. More like slacking, really. I don't know if I'm just overly tired or if I have too many other things to do, but I've been ignoring the garden a bit. OK, maybe more like a lot....
Back to Work
I did finally get around to planting out the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, bok choy and lettuces I started indoors from seed awhile ago and I also planted some more beets, turnips, and carrot seeds directly in the garden. Of course the tomatoes and peppers are still producing like crazy and I did plant out a second set of zucchini and winter squash awhile ago to replace the ones that had been infested with squash vine borers ... they are starting to produce now too. Otherwise though, the garden is no longer the happening place it was just a few weeks ago.
My gourds are still growing and producing too. They've completely taken over the back corner of the garden. Really ... it's difficult to even walk through that part of the garden anymore! I've gathered three smaller bottle gourds that started to cure and fell off the vines already, but otherwise the gourds are all still out there in various stages of growing and curing. I'm starting to think a lot about what I'm going to do with them all .... my guess is that I'll end up with well over 100 gourds (most of which are very large) and probably another 50 luffa gourds! I have no idea where I'll keep them to cure over the winter -- perhaps on a (small) screened in porch we have? Many gourd farmers I've been reading about seem to just let them cure in the fields, so maybe I'll just leave them out in the garden until the end of the winter. We'll see.
Of course, cleaning up for next year is always on my "to do" list in the garden too, but I never seem to get around to doing as much of that as I'd like. I'm going to try to be better about that this year! Here in Virginia, we don't usually get our first killing frost until well into November, sometimes as late as December, so I still have plenty of time!
And, who knows, maybe I still have time to find more little frogs too!
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