Garden Update: September 2014

I just had to take a break from making Small Spaces-related posts to share a little garden update.

After the freaky hail storm in August, Zach pulled up most of our destroyed eggplants, tomato, and pepper plants. The ones that we saved, have now fully recovered.

It's a little late in the growing season though, so we're hoping everything will have enough time to ripen. Especially those mellow star peppers. They are so delicious!

The week after the hail storm, we planted for fall. We have broccoli,

cabbage,

komatsuna,

collard greens,

bok choy,

rat's tail radish,

beets,

kale,

peas,

and carrots.

We are growing a lot of these veggies for the first time, and we're not even sure if some of the varieties we have chosen do well in containers. We'll just have to wait and see what happens. One thing I do know for certain, is that it's a royal pain to grow brassicas. The white butterflies will not leave our plants alone and we battle them everyday. I don't mind the search-and-destroy game with the eggs, but I hate finding cabbage worms. Hate!!!!! For the first couple of weeks, I was using row covers for the collards, kale, komatsuna, and bok choy. But they were really cumbersome to work with and some of the plants still ended up at the mercy of the cabbage worms. I'm starting to wonder if it'll be less stressful to just buy brassicas instead of trying to grow them!

Our herb corner is a mess! Our tarragon plant is covered in cobwebs, our mints are gangly looking, the thyme and the marjoram look sad, and the cilantro have bolted. But it seems the oregano,

parsley,

and shiso are still hanging in there and loving this slightly cooler weather!

It's also a lot of fun for us that our everbearing and "wild" strawberries are making a fall comeback and putting out handfuls of treats every couple of days!

We may lament the loss of our 15 tomato plants, but the cat is definitely happy to have space on the patio to roam again! He snacks freely from the catnip plant,

and occasionally, he even finds a friend to play with!

p.s. in case you're wondering, the chipmunk survived the ordeal!