It’s a watermelon! Nope! It’s a watermelon radish! I planted seeds on August 15 after reading that radishes are a cool weather crop; since I missed the early spring planting window I needed to wait until the end of summer. And it worked! I sowed the seeds in the garlic bed, a few weeks after garlic harvest, mixing a bit of manure into the raised bed soil first, and look at the lovely radishes now ready to munch on and serve up at our Thanksgiving feast in October 12. I’m so impressed with this crop…the radishes are delicious; easy to grow; Visible Results!!
Also ready for Thanksgiving are my Brussels Sprouts. They’ve had a rough go of it the last half of summer, what with cabbage moth caterpillars having a heyday everyday on the leaves and outer petals (?) of the sprouts themselves. Still…
Enough with food! It’s autumn! And although we’re only a few weeks into the season leaves around here have eagerly accepted the assignment. They’ve been spurred into quick action by our very dry September (boo!), I think, because temperatures have been well above normal (yaay!) so far. We finally had a good night of rain Thursday, making everything look fresh when I was taking photos yesterday. Take a look at Jim’s site, Garden Ruminations, for six autumnal things in gardens around the northern hemisphere, and a number of six spring things from gardens in the south.
Here’s three favourite examples of the fall foliage in my yard. First is Staghorn Sumac – Rhus typhina. It grows abundantly in fields and roadsides in rural areas here, spreading vigorously via underground rhizomes to form mounded colonies as well as by seed, bird-disbursed I imagine. The orange and scarlet early autumn leaves make a statement!
There are a number of trees, large and small. with leaves that are left deliciously yellow after the chlorophyll breaks down. Here is a huge leaf from my Devil’s Walking Stick – Aralia spinosa. This small tree has a bipinnately or tripinnately compound leaf and has, I recently discovered, the largest compound leaf of any woody plant native to North America. Wow!
My other favourite yellow leaf right now is from my small Acer pensylvanicum – the striped or moose maple. The leaf shape itself is unusual and very un-maple like, and the keys (seeds) are unusual in that they grow on a long chain or raceme. Again, very un-maple like. But it’s just so pretty!
Finally, there are still quite a few flowers in the garden, either holdovers from summer-blooming perennials, annuals that will bloom until frost, or late flowering bulbs and tubers. There’s also, of course, mums. I purchased and planted this hardy Chrysanthemum about a month ago and it’s just started to bloom. Good timing! Have a great weekend everyone!
I’m not fond of radishes in general, but I do enjoy watermelon radishes. They can be hard to find in the stores here; I’m glad you have a good crop! No fall color here yet, although our cypress trees are browning, primarily because of drought. There’s high excitement in the land — we may have highs in the range of 85F/30C next week. It’s a start!
Don’t think I’ve heard of a watermelon radish…those grew very quickly! The Maple is interesting. Mum is a really pretty color. I have several Black Birches & Tupelo trees, that are quickly turning yellow & orange…and falling.
Lovely vegetables and autumn colour. And a gorgeous chrysanthemum.