Autumn 2016

One of the construction projects that ran late,
but oh so wonderful now that it is done!

I have been very delinquent in writing for my blog this year. In spite of an early spring, I started out the season a couple months behind because of some late running construction projects here at Wiese Acres that kept me out of the gardens. I didn't catch up all summer long! Thankfully, autumn decided it was going to be fashionably late this year, so I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. Tomorrow, I will clean off all the dried peony, daylily, and iris foliage and finish putting the gardens to bed for the winter.

We also remodeled my summer kitchen and made it twice as big.
The added space and convenience was well worth the delayed garden work.

 There were some other reasons why I never caught up this summer. We began the season very dry. In North Dakota, when it is dry, the desirable foliage putzes along while the weeds flourish. We didn't have the nice, lush perennial foliage that shades and crowds out the weeds by late June to early July. Thus, I battled weeds most of the summer. Add to that the fact that we had more wind this summer than anyone should have to bear, and every gust brought Canada thistle, dandelions, and sowthistle from the untended acres across the way. It made for wheelbarrows full of weeds being hauled out to the garbage. (No composting for those buggers!)

Late in the season, the rains began, which helped the perennial gardens catch their full glory and the vegetable garden began to inundate us with produce. In addition to gorging ourselves on fresh produce all summer, preserving all that we can possibly use (probably this year and next), and selling at a few Farmer's Markets, I was able to donate over 200 pounds of produce to needy families who don't have the space to grow their own. It's a good feeling to have all that food! Except for the back - that doesn't feel so great after bending over to pick all the produce.

The fruits (and vegetables) of my canning labors

I also had two gardens which needed to be completely replanted this year. One because I had removed everything from it last fall so that I could kill a nasty infestation of quack grass, and the other because the trees have grown to the point where the sun loving plants needed to be replaced with shade lovers. That, of course, meant that I had a lot of sun loving plants that needed new homes. So what is a gardener to do? Start a new garden bed, of course.

The new area that joins
 the Memorial and Nostalgia gardens

I moved some of them to an expansion between the Memorial and Nostalgia gardens, and the rest went to a new bed which is the beginning of the landscaping around our new barn. All in all, I was kept very, very busy over the summer, and winter hibernation has never looked quite so good.

As I write this on November 11, though, hibernation can't quite begin yet.  The strawberries are still producing, although not very much because we are already down to only about 9 1/2 hours of daylight.  The strawberries don't much care that the temperatures have been in the 60s and 70s if they aren't happy about the daylight. As soon as the foliage goes dormant, those strawberry plants will need to be covered with some type of mulch to protect the crowns over the winter. This year, instead of using straw, which can bring undesirable weeds into the garden, I am going to use shredded leaves and hope for the best. Once those are spread, I can officially go into garden hibernation until it's greenhouse time in the spring.


Sometimes, I need a garden fix during that hibernation time, and that is why I take lots of photos of the gardens throughout the summer. I love going back to see what things looked like in each of the months of the growing season. I'll be happy to share some of those photos with you in the next blog installment.