Fall colours are muted around here this year, possibly because of the months with no rain over the summer, but there’s still a lot of lovely yellows and oranges with pops of bright red showing on certain trees, such as sumac and red maple. When it comes to yellow, we think of other types of maple, as well as birch and ironwood, but my favourite is hickory. Specifically, the shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) trees that dot the wooded parts of the yard. Their leaves turn a perfect buttery yellow, I think, and when the sun hits them it’s like a giant spotlight has been turned on.
I’m joining Jim at Garden Ruminations this week with six things from my garden. Two are growing in my kitchen garden but only one is edible. A friend gave me a eggplant seedling in June, saying it was an Easter egg plant. Turns out the fruit do indeed look like eggs, and apparently some turn yellow and pink to resemble painted Easter eggs. Mine have stayed a nice milky white. Unfortunately they’re grown as an ornamental, and aren’t meant to be eaten.
Then there are these cherry tomatoes – Riesentraube. Fitting that the German name means ‘giant grape’ because these are truly large. They have a sharp pointy tip that makes it interesting when popping in your mouth (makes a large mouthful) and a delicious flavour, but my goodness it’s taken forever for them to get going. It took them 10 days longer than other tomatoes to germinate, and after transplanting in June they sulked for weeks before adding any appreciable growth or deigning to put out a flower or two, with the first fruit not ready to eat until mid August. Now of course, with the end of the season in sight, they’re producing huge flower clusters and there’s loads of green tomatoes…
Something else that was late to flower is this native perennial new to my garden – Agastache nepetoides, giant yellow hyssop. I planted these in a tray with a clear plastic cover last January then brought them outside to stratify. The seeds germinated and grew nicely and the seedlings were planted – I was expecting tall stems with yellow flowers that would look great mingled with the giant purple hyssop I started the same way. For this first year; however, the plants are very short, with stems growing all over the place like octopus arms, and the flowers are white. Hmmm. At least pollinators, especially bumble and carpenter bees, are liking them.
I think I’ve mentioned my woodpile already, but here’s the final product – finished splitting and stacking yesterday. Should be enough for the winter, although I had my doubts earlier this week, waking up to a light frost on the car windshield and a few very chilly mornings.
Finally, something cheery to start the weekend…the dry summer delayed and/or stunted the growth of a lot of things, but with the scattered rain we’ve had recently a few clumps of prairie coneflower, normally blooming in August, have had a growth spurt and are looking especially lovely. Have a great weekend everyone!
County Gardening 
Love those eggplants. Very impressive woodpile.
Sent from my Galaxy
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Just like eggs eh?
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The fruits of the various plants in the Solanaceae are so interesting. I’ve never seen this one, and I can’t remember seeing any of their fruits that are oval. All that I can think of are truly round, although their color varies (yellow, black, white, etc.)
That’s one impressive wood pile. I hardly can believe you’ve had frost already: rather, I believe it, but still am impressed by it. We did make it down to 18C last night, so we’re trying!
I’ve been in Texas long enough now that every time I come across the species name pinnata I read it as piñata!
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LOL re pinnata! We’ll hit 18C a few afternoons in the coming days, but after that all bets are off weather wise this year! And that eggplant…whenever I walk by and see it (growing near the woodpile) I get hungry for a fried egg…
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How do you know you can’t eat that eggplant? I have seen ones looking like that at farmer’s markets. I love eggplant, I would probably try to eat them because I adore eggplant. Those really look like eggs! I used what might have been my last eggplant harvest of the year to make a nice caponata that also included peppers, basil and parsley from the garden. I still keep scattering R pinnata seeds in my garden, but they have not yet decided to germinate for me, so who knows, Maybe like so many other plants, I will just get a bare root one which will then self seed like crazy and make me wonder why I put so may native plants so close to the vegetable beds, and why I jam so many into the space… Impressive woodpile!
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Well, every site I turn to says Don’t Eat These…ornamental only…small shrub in warm climates…. But I know! So tempting! Had my final purple eggplant yesterday, with tomatoes and pasta….
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Quite a variety of everything in your yarden. I was taking pictures of a small tree, yesterday, on the edge of our woods…bright yellow leaves..I think it’s a Raisin tree. You must know that all the green tomatoes will ripen, inside. There are lots of recipes that use green tomatoes. Your wood pile is totally amazing…what a lot of work!
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I’m not a fan of green cherry tomatoes, but do enjoy large green tomatoes, fried, by someone else….Never heard of a raisin tree before…it looks interesting!
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Oh, the Eggplants look yummy. And that’s an impressive stockpile of wood–promising many warm fires for the cold season ahead. We have two Shagbark Hickories in the backyard, and while I’m reading your post I’m nodding in agreement with your description of the bright, golden foliage capturing the sunlight. Nice. 🙂
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It took me years to realize I even had hickories in the yard – this time of I can now spot them everywhere!
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Now my iPad is ID’ing as a Northern Spicebush…that seems more likely…it’s very pretty!
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Can’t you lift up the eggplants and pot them to continue ripening? The green cherry toms are delicious, although you might think they would be less sweet. The variety I’m growing here is very interesting, and I still have some fruit. With the cold weather coming, let’s enjoy them for another week or 2…
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Nowhere to keep them indoors, unfortunately, especially with cats!
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Here the cats don’t touch the tomatoes, but they love the monstera and the indoor banana tree…ouch…
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Now that’s an impressive log pile. The Easter egg plant is very unusual indeed – I think I’d call it a boiled egg plant!
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Ha! Yes!!
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Wow – that’s some woodpile – I must let my son see that 😁 The eggplant really does look like eggs! So unusual.
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Yes! Wood stacking and splitting should be assigned automatically to the young(er)!!!!😆😆😆
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What a wonderful woodpile, that should keep you warm all winter! The yellow coloured leaves that we have here in the hedgerows in the autumn come from the Field Maple, Acer campestre, they certainly brighten up a dull day!
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I love Acer campestre! I don’t see it often enough here…
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What a shame you can’t eat those eggplants! They look really pretty though. As do the coneflowers. Your Agastache looks just like my Hyssop officinalis, but bigger – I get confused when I start looking up Agastache and Hyssop, seemingly related but different! Hooe some of those tomatoes ripen for you. I brought loads of green ones indoors about four weeks ago and most have ripened and been eaten. 😃
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Isn’t Agastache and Hyssop the same thing??? Oh oh…..
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😝
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