The September Garden

The September garden in zone 9 is very much like many areas early spring garden. We have started many of our cold weather crops but we still have a few warm weather crops growing.

The lemons are slowly turning yellow. Most are still very green and won’t be ready until Thanksgiving but we’ve picked a few small yellow ones, already.

A friend started an elderberry tree for me and it’s been in a pot on my porch all summer. It’s cooled off enough that I felt we could go ahead and plant it.

We also put our blueberry bushes in the ground. We dug out an a large bed to about 16″ and are filling it with peat, pine needles and pine cones from our trees. Our soil really isn’t acidic enough for blueberries but I think that since they have such shallow roots and since we have several huge pine trees growing near this bed, they will do just fine.

Our fig tree has figs again. This is the second time it’s produced this year. Normally figs are ripe right around July 4th here. I’m not sure why it’s producing again but we’re pretty happy about it.

This is a flame tree and it will be red and orange in just a few weeks. We’ve been getting free wood chips from the county tree trimmers to use in our walkways and as mulch in some of our flower beds.

The bees love the flame tree!

Our moringa trees continue to grow which makes me super happy. I saw some moringa capsules in the store the other day and they were $27 a bottle! That is just crazy. You should consider growing some, either from the root or seeds.

Here is a big view of the untamed garden. Yes, I’ve mowed but then it rained. We still haven’t mowed the back and the weeds are about as high as the fence. {sigh} We might just let them die off this winter and see what happens. We don’t have any garden beds back there so we won’t be needing that space for a while.

This is our chinese cabbage and sweet peas…oh, and some basil in the corner. We should be able to pick the outer leaves of the cabbage in the next couple of weeks.

We still have several banana pepper plants that are producing again. We love these peppers so much and my guys will even eat them fermented.

Our basil is all going to seed. I’ll be collecting the seed for next year. But I planted three different kinds of basil this year, I’m sure they cross pollinated so I have no clue what the outcome will be. Obviously, I wasn’t thinking when I planted them together.

The bees are loving the flowering basil. I’m still picking leaves and making pesto, though.

This is the beginning of our lettuce bed and some green beans are on the trellis. Melissa from Melissa K Norris sent me some of her family’s heirloom Tarheel green bean seeds last spring and we loved them! They germinate well and are super prolific…and taste great.

This is broccoli and I call this my lazy way of starting seeds. Just before we have a few days of rain, I go out and make a trench in one of the beds and sprinkle those tiny seeds in it. In a few days they have germinated. Once they get a little bigger, I dig them up and replant them – like transplants. If you have a short growing season I don’t recommend this, but it works well for me.

This is two luffa plants and they are totally taking over. They completely cover the cage and go across the walkway on the right and have started coverI ing the trellis over there. They are also spread out over to the left and are covering the fence.

I counted 8 luffa this size or bigger. I have no idea what we’re going to do with them all. But I’m thinking some might end up in the Etsy shop.

I have tried several times, unsuccessfully, to grow ginger. And look at what I have on my front porch! I planted this ginger root from the grocery store about 3-4 weeks ago. I soaked it overnight and then planted it in potting soil, leaving the top uncovered. I’ve tried to keep it moist and I’ve waited. You can see a little white spot on the other side across from the green and I think that will become green soon. I’m super excited about this!

Tell me, what’s happening in your garden?