Who says a late autumn garden is dull and brown? Ours is hanging on to some color with rainbow swiss chard and greens, some of which self seeded when I neglected to pull the flowering mustard green plants. Austra the Australorp chicken regrew her jet-black feathers after molting and her comb is starting to redden up. On yesterday’s unseasonably warm evening, the sunset was full of bright hues too. Surely the color will fade or [...]

It has been a long time since I entered a What’s Growing post.  The end of the summer was so busy that I ran out of time to photograph and post on a weekly basis.  I hope to be more disciplined next year not only to share with other Columbus gardeners, but to keep records for myself. The garden is in a bit of transition now.  Most summer crops were pulled last weekend.  Herbs are [...]

What’s growing?  Everything!  Well, almost everything. Peppers are starting to mature and we are eating them as we need.  If we keep them on the vine, they will ripen to red, which is fine by me. We have tons of green tomatos on the vine.  A very few have started blushing red.  One cherry tomato plant (a volunteer) has given us our first two ripe tomatos! Speaking of volunteers, the sunflowers are a delight!  I [...]

Oh goodness.  We went on vacation for a week and a half and the garden GREW! It was green stuff everywhere, and most of it didn’t belong.  The grass was almost a foot high! We threw out the peas (they were past the sweet stage by the time we came home) and transplanted some tomatoes in their place. The strawberry bed needed major work.  Can you even see the strawberries in this picture? An hour [...]

This week marks the start of a new series, What’s Growing. We hope to post once a week a list and pictures of what’s growing in our backyard garden and around the neighborhood. So, this week, here’s What’s Growing: Tomato, pepper, foxglove, and broccoli seedlings, being hardened off for a growing number of hours a day Broccoli raab and broccoli in their beds Pea shoots about 3 inches tall Spinach and lettuce with second and [...]