The morning started off cool and foggy as most late summer morning do. After routine chores, I moved on to the garden, intent on getting it ready for some fall garden plantings. Armed with a spade, cordless drill, and some outdoor worthy screws, I did some more path weeding and tackled rebuilding the onion/garlic bed from early summer, the one that had literally burst it’s seams.
Garden box 
The box was put back together in the manner of the ones I repaired late last winter and early spring, placing the corner posts inside and attaching the boards to the outside of them instead of using the grooves that fail. It was moved uphill slightly to align it with the one next to it. The third one in the row is even farther uphill and when it is no longer growing, it will be shifted slightly down hill. Once they are aligned, I am going to install some of the long boards from the old deck to make a long bed instead of three smaller boxes and fill the paths between them. The thin cedar boards are not holding up and will soon rot away. The asparagus bed, you can see above the middle box is not in a box, but is bracketed on each end by one, so long boards will be used to create another long bed there once the asparagus ferns are cut back for winter. Some asparagus have escaped the original bed, so those crowns will be dug and moved back into the bed, knowing that it will stunt them for a couple of years. After repair and re-leveling, the bed was fed with some of the fermented comfrey and some of the comfrey tea. By the time some weeding had been done and the box rebuilt, the fog had burned off and the temperature already heading for the 90 degree mark, the prediction for the day. When it cools off this evening, I will move a barrow of compost over to it, dig it in and plant fall peas. Over the next couple of days, the longer bed where the mint had been planted will get the box made for it, compost added, and some other fall veggies planted. Later in the week there are rain showers expected and cooler, wetter weather next week which will be good for getting the seed started. The garlic will be planted where the first planting of beans grew and where the tomatillos are at the back of the box. When the tomatillos die back, that box will receive a load of compost and await the arrival of the garlic order that will come late fall.
For now, gardening is limited to early morning and late afternoon as it is too hot in the middle of the day to do anything physical outside.
This sunflower is a volunteer that came up by the side garage door. For days the bud looked like Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, but yesterday it bloomed. It isn’t the best location for a sunflower, but is is fairly short and thin stemmed, so it will stay and bloom.
After all the wet we had, the past few days have been very hot and dry, the new walled garden had to be watered for a couple of hours yesterday. Most of the plants that I transplanted to that garden survived. The purple Echinacea that I moved from a pot where it had been started from seed did not survive the move. It is too late to start it again, but there are two plants in front of the volunteer sunflower and one of them may be moved when it isn’t so hot out. About the time the garlic goes in the ground, I will plant some Baptisia seed that has to freeze before it will germinate. It’s blue flowers will look lovely in the bed with the purple and yellows of the other flowers there.
Stay safe everyone.
