Late summer pics

Just a quick recap of what is going on out in the back yard in mid-September (need to weed!):
Vegetable garden with the last of the tomatoes, marigolds, rosemary and broccoli and beet seeds. B7

Front porch garden with marigolds, sedum, and rose of sharon still blooming.  Red gaillardia still hanging in there. B6

 Garage side garden - needs some serious weeding, but the hostas are doing well. B4

 Daylily bed B5. It really was just all daylilies!

 Back fence line - B10

 North fence line B11. After I removed some thorny shrub.  I thought it was a rose of some sort, but the blooms were just tiny white flowers - definitely not worth the thorny mess. 

 Screen porch ferns B1

 New japanese holly and chysanthemums. B2

 Family room bed B3

Lily seeds thrown in

As an experiment, I scraped the seeds out of the lily seed pods that Julie gave me.  I threw some around the lily plants that Ann and Mac planted, then some around the newly planted Japanese Holly.  I just need to remember that come spring so I don't yank them all out as weeds.

Summer Vegetable Recap

I thought I'd recap what went wrong and right this summer with the veggies:
Yellow straightneck squash: planted 2 plants from Home Depot.  Yielded 2 lovely little straightneck squash.  I definitely did not have enough room for these since the tomato plants just took over EVERYTHING.

Red Bell Sweet Pepper: planted 2 plants from Home Depot. These totally got overshadowed (literally) by the tomato plants.  We got one pepper.  Unfortunately I picked it too early - I forgot they were supposed to be red peppers.  Next year, I'd like to so a separate bed with sweet and hot peppers.

Black Prince Heirloom Tomato: I guess these are heirloom for a reason.  They tasted awesome, but we had trouble with these tomatoes being deformed, split, or hole-ridden.  We didn't get many perfect ones, the rest I just incorporated into sauces.  Not going to do this one next year.

Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato: This plant went crazy.  Good yield, good taste.  Would definitely plant these again. Next year I need some better and taller supports.

Orange cherry tomatoes - GREAT SUCCESS.  June loved picking these and eating them.  Huge yield!  There are still lots of green tomatoes ripening on the vine now in mid-september.  Again, next year I need better supports - the plants grew to about 7 feet tall before slumping over and shadowing all the herbs.

Rutgers Heirloom Tomato: Tasty, but unfortunately the deer and rabbits took a lot of these.  Next year - fencing!  These grew pretty big and we didn't have too many problems with splitting or disease.  I might stay away from the heirloom varieties next year and stick to the hardier types.

Sweet Basil - total success!  No deer or rabbit trouble.  but gone now :(
Oregano - success - gone now
Parsley - success - gone now
Rosemary - success- still going strong
Mint - in pot, could use a sunnier location next year

Fall Vegetable Planting

I cleared out the weeds and low-producing tomato plants yesterday.  I added some peat, and churned up the soil.  Today I sowed seeds for:
Touchstone Gold Beets:

and Nutri-bud Broccoli:

I've read that these can be harvested through the fall.  The broccoli is 55-70 days to maturity.  The beets are 45-60 days to maturity.  It is an experiment. Cross my fingers!