AS THE SEASON ENDS
The Successes and The Failures

by Beth Lopez
(click on images to enlarge)

I wrote a column last December (here) describing the fall jobs of putting a garden to bed for the winter, along with my hopes and plans for the 2023 garden. It’s time for updates, time to boast about the successes and to admit the failures.

Bulbs in bloom; then dried and packed away for fall planting. *(Beth Lopez Photos)*

I planted sweet peas in the fall, keeping varieties separate and marking their locations. For the second year in a row, my fall planted sweet peas did not survive the winter. They came up nicely and were doing fine until that real freeze we had, where the snow lasted for several days and the sweet peas couldn’t handle the sustained cold. I don’t think I will plant sweet peas this fall. Two hard freezes in two years are telling me to give up.

But the sweet peas I planted in the spring did well. I kept them separate again and put the packets on the fence. Only two of the packages really did well and they were gorgeous. One was labelled “heavily scented” and it lived up to the name, but they were only white flowers. The beautiful purples, light to dark, and pinks came from the “Ocean Mist” mix.

The other fall planting were my bulbs, and they did just fine. Covering the bulbs with cardboard and dirt worked. The squirrels didn’t dig any up, the cat didn’t like what I’d done to his litter box, and the bulbs stayed safe hidden underground until the sprouts started pushing up the cardboard. Being in the big planter box gave them enough protection from the freeze. First up were a couple of dwarf irises and some weak looking hyacinths. Next were the daffodils and they were terrific — big double yellow with an orange cup and then some smaller white ones with an orange cup. I did love the daffodils. After the daffodils were done blooming, the alliums came up and gave me a beautiful display.

The bulbs finished flowering, blooms were deadheaded and foliage started turning brown. According to various “how to grow bulbs” sites on the internet, you leave them in the ground for a few years, they continue to produce flowers every year, and every few years you dig them up and divide them, taking all the extra bulbs they’ve made to expand your garden (or give away). That works wonderfully if you have a large flower garden, with succession planting and the bulbs are tucked into the middle of a big display. As they die back, other plants are ready to bloom and hide the dying foliage beneath.

I do not have a big flower garden. I have essentially a large window box and those dormant bulbs were taking up valuable real estate. Then I learned from Mike, our resident gardener, that when the bulbs die back it’s time to yank them out, spread them out to let them completely dry, take off leaves and loose roots when they are dry, and store them away in some peat moss to absorb any moisture. I did that, which left me a big spot to plant some showy perennials. Four gorgeous tuberous begonias were planted in June and are still full of bright flamenco orange and red blooms. Then I discovered the begonias can also be pulled out when done, stored, and replanted for next year too; another new experience to add to my gardening journal.

Those stored hyacinth, daffodil and allium bulbs will be planted in the fall when I next put my garden to bed for the winter.

One thing I learned about bulbs from my reading answered the question of what to do with all the little bulbs growing on the side of the big bulbs. They will someday become flowers, but probably not next summer. Besides, I have no idea which is which. The article I read suggested keeping small bulbs separate and planting them in a “bulb nursery” away from your display garden.

I have a bag of baby bulbs to plant out in my bulb nursery. They also will be planted this fall, but not in the main garden. I had to figure out some way to keep the bulbs safe since container plants don’t always survive the freezes. I have two insulated bags for carrying cold foods to a picnic. One I was planning on using to store my dahlia rhizomes and begonia tubers over the winter. The second one will be the bulb nursery for those little ones. I can unzip it come spring and let the baby bulbs grow right in the bag.

I also planted potatoes to overwinter. That was another failure; they rotted out completely. I’m not sure if they were another victim of the killing cold or they had too much water. There are drain holes in the bottom of the bags but they were sitting squarely on concrete and there was no drainage.

I cleared out the rotted pieces and replanted some potatoes. This time I set the bags on top of some bamboo sticks to lift them off the concrete and allow water to drain out. Both bags are now overflowing with big healthy potato plants. I did sneak my hand under the plant through the flap on the side of the bag. I found one tiny new potato that looked great. It will be another month at least before I pull them up and see how many I’ve grown.

Did I mention my dahlias? They went in this spring, leaving that end of the garden bare looking for a good while, but they grew so well, thick dark green foliage that seemed to grow taller every time I looked. I kept the rhizomes from last year and bought a few more by mail order. The new rhizomes produced gorgeous purple and white dahlias, big and showy. I also got a few yellow ones, but the bronze beauties I grew last year never appeared.

I should also report on the garlic I planted last fall from one head from the farmers market. I have 10 large and healthy looking hard necked garlic plants and look forward to harvest this fall. I did not realize that hard necked garlic are also the source of garlic scapes, the thin, vibrant green stalks that grow from the garlic bulb. I got 10 lovely scapes. A few became a veggie in a stir fry and the rest went in with some of the basil I grew to be a tasty pesto.

However, the garlic harvest was underwhelming, most of the single cloves I planted came back as two cloves. I will have to do some research on growing garlic I guess. Just sticking the cloves in the ground in the fall doesn’t seem to be enough.

I was gifted a rhubarb plant from a friend and am amazed at how quickly it settled into the big pot and started making lots of new stalks. I think I have to harvest some next month as the huge pot is getting very full.

This year I filled up my herb section with some mail-order plugs. I had dill growing up the brick column which gave me dill seed and dill weed. There is flat leaved parsley, two kinds of basil, Greek oregano and Mexican oregano, thyme, white sage, chives and two kinds of mint – peppermint and ginger mint. I’ve already taken two harvests of mint which I dry and store. I have also harvested and dried thyme, oregano and sage. Basil will be harvested and frozen. The chives manage to grow through the winter and I have harvested chives in January.

The clematis grew happily up my new bamboo trellis (thank you Leigh) but did not produce lots of blooms. However, after the first flowers died off, the plant produced more buds and the second bloom was beautiful.

The excitement and anticipation as new plants come into season is wonderful. My garden has made me so happy this season even with the failures. I am learning and experimenting and growing as a gardener.