Leaf collection in full swing -- putting pre-soaked alfalfa below leaf layer

So far, have collected 2 garbage bags and 1 garbage bin worth of leaves.  I estimate 2 more garbage bins will probably be enough to cover the rest of the yard.  It's a lot less now that the central bed has gone back to the dogs as of a month or two agol

Below the leaves I'm scattering pre-soaked alfalfa pellets.  The only place that doesn't have the alfalfa is under the big rock pile in the south part of the west bed -- that's where I'll put carrots next year.

Garlic: Planted the rest of it

The second half of the garlic (some Elephant, some "regular") went in today.  Elephant in the north section, Regular in the lower section.  Two of the elephant bulbs were MASSIVE (they're the first two from the left in the northmost row here).

And, I added kelp as well as pre-soaked alfalfa to these ones, and scattered that over top of the first half garlic too.

All is covered by a thick layer of leaves.

One of the "regular" garlic bulbs was half-bad/shrivelled -- very disappointing at $25/pound plus tax!  But overall I still had enough to fill my ~4x4 foot garlic bed area.

First hard/killing frost in the yard last night

The massive volunteer cherry tomato by the hydro meter is mostly kaput now, along with any other remaining tenders.

Garlic: First half planted ("Elephant" and "regular")

Several weeks ago I bought $54.50 (!!) (including tax) worth of seed garlic from Ritchies' (all garlic was $24.90/pound and my purchase was 1.93 pounds):

- 2 x Elephant garlic

- 4 x "Regular" garlic (bulk)

So that's a total of 6 bulbs of seed garlic.  The elephant ones are HUGE!  Will be interesting to see how they do.

Today I planed half of them:  1 of the elephant and 2 of the regular, for a total of:

- 10 cloves elephant (in 2.2 square feet, the NW-two-most squares in the garlic bed) (4 per square)

- 20 cloves regular (in 2ish square feet, the two SW-most squares in the garlic bed) (9 per square)

The bed prep consisted of loosening the soil, sprinkling a generous amount of last year's shredded leaves from the basement; then afterwards (because I forgot during), sprinkled mrp and azomite over top.

In a few weeks I'll do the second half.

Yard hasn't been hit by frost yet, though car windows frosty this morning

^^^

GA: Hard frost hit this week; removed everything except the hardies

As of now, the only things left at GA:

- beets

- carrots

- lettuce

- leeks

- chard

I think that's it.

Lettuce seed heads full of aphids

Dang, the backyard lettuce seed heads are full of aphids, so I might just not collect any lettuce seeds this year.

GA: Watermelon harvested! Delicious!

It wasn't huge -- the size of a large grapefruit -- but it was tasty!  There were quite a few seeds, but they were very edible too -- crunchy and inoffensive.

I had waited until the tendrils at the top where it connected to the vine had dried all up.  The stem itself was a bit dehydrated but not brown.  And it was perfectly ripe.

One more awaits harvesting.

GA: Caterpillar at top of an corn ear

A plump beige/grey caterpillar was at the top of one of the ears of corn I harvested today.  The rest of the ear was perfectly fine though, so just removed the damaged part and ate the rest.

Potato harvest in yard -- north of the broccoli

Today was part deux of reclaiming the central part of the yard for the dogs!  So I pulled the rest of the potatoes -- these ones being from north of the broccoli.  The plants had long since flopped, but were very green, so I'm sure if I had left them in longer, the smaller ones would have kept growing, but that was not the priority this year.

A good harvest from that patch!  Many nice big ones!  These were Kennebecs.  They did at least as well as, maybe even better than, the AC Chaleurs.  So, I will definitely grow both of these varieties again in future.

Re-reading my note from the spring -- I had done the following experiment:  "The experiment is that in each type's northerm-most row, I added 1 Tbsp alfalfa (in addition to the above amendments)."  Well, ha!  I completely forgot about that, and have no idea how the northern-most rows did.  Oh well! :D

Potato harvest in yard begun -- the west part of the south bed = "AC Chaleur" has beautiful big potatoes!

Some are smaller, but overall I'm very happy with the size!

One was HUGE but had a sizeable hole drilled into the middle of it by some critter, and it had some rotting with various critters nibbling at it, so obviously tossed that one.

GA: Cantalope harvested! But I think too early even though tendrils were all dried (stem was still green)

Harvested the cantelope today because both tendrils where the stem joins were completely dried up, and I worried about theft, especially since it was my one and only cantelope.

I think it needed more time on the vine though, because while it's perfectly edible, it's not particularly sweet or flavourful.

GA: Ground cherry harvest ramping up / ongoing

Even though the ground cherry plants at the allotment are only inches high, they're delivering a decent harvest!  Finally had enough today to make a pie.

GA: Praying mantis!

Saw a green praying mantis wandering in my garden!  I have a feeling s/he must have come from an egg sac that someone bought, but who knows.  Cool regardless.

Removed tulle from rest of the zukes which aren't doing well anyway

Yeesh, another bit of a measly year for the backyard zukes -- after the initial flush, they just petered out and don't look like they're doing much of anything -- the females are dying before even opening.  So, removed the tulle today and will let them live out their days.

GA: FOY corn harvest!!!! --- DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!

Woooo!!!!!  Harvested my first ever corn today!  2 cobs!  One was a bit smaller than the other and had some -- unpollinated kernels?

But both were spectacular!  The texture was so juicy and crispy -- not at all dry or pasty -- and so tender and sweet.  I mean it probably could have been sweeter, but no complaints here at all!  At first I had them with the usual margarine, salt, and pepper, but the last quarter I didn't put anything on it and it was perfection all on its own!  That's the one I gave the last half of (eight of) to Scooter, so cute -- he loved it too.

GA: Oh no -- the sheer curtain over the broccoli has an unrepairable tear

Oh dear -- the sheer curtains may be only good for one season!  Noticed today a tear in the curtain over the allotment broccoli -- tried to fix it with clothespins, but completely impossible because any touch just creates more tear.

So, for the rest of the broccoli year, I won't freeze anything, will eat it immediately ("just in case").

GA: Tomato harvest is happening -- picking them blushing -- delicious!

So, yay!  The sad, pathetic tomato plants (which are very much like a lot of our allotment people's tomatoes) are managing to yield a few tomatoes each.  Not going to be tons of batches of tomato sauce, but, enjoying the ones that are coming in!

GA: Harvested more potatoes: ____ pounds (still a good amount of potato bed I haven't dug up yet)

So far that's ___ pounds from the GA potatoes.

GA: Onion harvest

Harvested some onions today.  I think they were from the sets, rather than my home seed starts.  Not gonnan lie, they're definitely on the small side!  But they're onions none the less!  I'll use them in upcoming recipes, not likely to be many to put away.