It was so great to wake up to the sound of rain hitting the roof this past week. It probably won’t be enough rain to alleviate the extreme drought conditions we’re having, but it is welcome nonetheless. The cooler weather we are experiencing is also nice, and while I’m not planning on building a fire anytime soon, it is nice to be able snuggle up in a warm sweater in the morning and again late in the evening.

My fall garden is not doing as well as I had hoped. Several things didn’t even come up, and the bugs or bunnies ate other plants that did sprout. The only things that are doing well are the arugula (Eruca sativa) and the zucchini (Cucurbita pepo “Eight Ball Hybrid”).

 A small zucchini. Hopefully it will be dinner soon.

 

The zucchini have started blooming, and I have seen both male and female blossoms, so it won’t be too long before I’m harvesting the squash. I chose this variety of squash, called “Eight Ball,” for my fall garden because it had a shorter maturity date, and also because it was described as “very unique and tasty, a round zucchini with dark green skin that can be picked at any size between a golf ball and softball.” It just sounded like a fun squash to try.

Another of my semi-successes is an experiment I am trying with lettuce. Believe it or not, in all my years of gardening I’ve never grown lettuce before, especially since I love salad. At a spring garden show I had seen lettuce for sale growing in a small decorative pot. While it would only have yielded one or two salads at the most, I thought it was a good way for a “beginner” to grow lettuce, and that it would look ornamental as well as being tasty. I planted seed from a packet described as mixed or “mesclun,” with six different types of lettuces, in a couple of pots that sit next to my front steps, a location getting almost full sun, and close to the hose so I can water them as often as I need to. The seed was planted on September 5^th, and I saw tiny sprouts coming up by the 10^th, but only in one of the pots. The only problem with this is that I have no idea what the seedlings are supposed to look like, and since it is a mix of seeds, any of the little seedlings could be the plants I want and not the plants I want to weed out. So, I’ll let the seedlings mature a bit more before I start pulling weeds, and hopefully I will be able to tell them apart when they are bigger. Next time I will either plant the seeds indoors in a seed-starting tray, or I’ll only plant one variety. At least until I get used to what the little lettuce seedlings look like. As for the pot that has not shown any signs of sprouts, well, I guess I need to just dump that pot of soil out and start over.

Last week I was surprised to see several fall garden vegetable plants at the garden center section of Lowe’s. The feed store where we buy chicken feed also carries fall garden varieties, and many local nurseries will stock a good variety of vegetable plants. If you’d like to try adding vegetables to your fall garden this year, it’s not too late; check out what is available for you locally and enjoy harvesting delicious veggies later in the year.