Garden Notes: Oct. 19, 2022

What I'm Doing & Thinking About This Week

The season’s first frost is here, and I spent some time last week prepping the garden for colder weather. I top-dressed my containers with compost, and TJ took down some smaller dead trees.

I also planted garlic, the first ever from seed from the cloves I grew myself last year!

I don’t have a new garden space built here, so I tucked them into my one freestanding raised bed and into pots. In the raised bed, I spaced them out among lettuce, bok choy and herbs.

They’ll start poking up through the soil this fall but their real growth won’t take off until spring, which means they should be a bother to the veggies I’m growing over the cold months.

I got a few more plants in the ground from things I bought this fall, some ferns that I pulled apart to multiply. Turning 1 plant into 4 doesn’t yield the prettiest immediate result but it does stretch your dollars and ultimately fill a space in much faster.

And, I planted some iris rhizomes and spread some nigella seeds (thanks Master Gardener Pam!) which need the cold months to perform well in the spring.

Last night I dragged, lifted and shimmied the Meyer lemon tree and baby figs into the garage, gently (GENTLY!) telling my almost two year-old-son who was not wearing shoes and standing right in front of me to move it. I probably shouldn’t be lifting lemon trees, but TJ was out of town and I’m not giving up my lemons.

Once the weather warms back up a bit, I’ll find a better way to move it back outside.

Aaron von Frank of TyrantFarms taught me last year that Meyer lemons can withstand temperatures down to 37 degrees. So mine stays outside until the weather gets that cold and comes into the garage until it warms back up.