Art Design 4 Garden

Im doing a Harvest Moon walk tomorrow evening, which should be nice.  And, its always good to celebrate the first day of fall.

Its warm enough still (too warm, actually) that the nocturnal symphony (crickets, cicadas, tree frogs, and their ilk)  is still in full swing, although muted by droughty weather.

And, we need rain.  Planting (of shrubs, perennials or fall vegetables) requires lots of watering to properly get a planting place ready.  Even in the mountains, Ive had to frequently drench my raised beds to keep up moisture levels.

Today was kind of exciting, There was a 5.0 earthquake about 6hrs north of Brantford. I was upstairs doing some renovating and the floor started bouncing. This house is quite old which just added to the bounce with its sunken floors. I thought the floor was going to cave in. No damage thankfully but the shelves fell out of a bookcase. Crazy!

After I caught my breath I planted some fall crops.... Above are 9 early dividend broccoli and 3 purple sprouting broccoli. Last year I started all the fall broccoli on June 1st so I am a little late this year. The summer is reported to be a hot one so the late start will probably be beneficial.

I also order a few things to plant this fall and they arrived the other day. Here is what came from Johnnys for fall planting:

• red pac choi
• bonsai pac choi (mini green variety)
  
• happy rich broccoli (asian sprouting variety)

I also picked up a few other things:

• Anuenue Summer Crisp Lettuce (for a summer planting)
• Savor F1 Charentais Melons (for next year)
• NuMex Joe E Parker Peppers, Anaheim type (for next year)
• Sugar Snap Pea (for next year)
  

Its been busy, trying to keep Woody calm (ha!) and tidying and planting as I can.

But I was glad to see the first saffron crocus in flower.  Id noticed their foliage a couple of days ago, and made a mental note to watch.  The fun of having a blog is I can search and realize that I posted in previous years, too, about them.

I snagged the stigmas (the saffron) of this flower to dry.  There will be more to come.  These are plants were established quite a few years ago.

Heres a photo from 2008, from a post on Oct. 26 of that year.

Saffron crocus (2008)