Prepping for the Fall Garden

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for fall.  This summer feels like it has lasted much longer than I can actually stand.  Which is funny since when we lived at the coast, summer was pretty much 9 1/2 months out of the year. 

Last week, I had the fun of taking a Fall Gardening class at our county Extension Office.  It was a delight.  That probably sounds weird but turns out we have 2 pretty cool Extension agents.  In fact, the agent leading the class was a fellow local garden blogger I've been wanting to meet but hadn't gotten up the courage to talk to yet.  I learned so much from the class and listening to the other attendees discuss gardening.  I came home re-invigorated for our fall gardening season in our new zone. 

I had to start casting a critical eye at some of my plants.  Several had to go so the soil could rest and rebuild before planting.  I also had to mark which new plants could go where since some of our pests prevent other members of the original plantings from sharing those containers. 


As much as I wanted my late-season squash and cukes to grow, it was just too late for them to produce if I wanted to use these buckets for fall plantings.  I'm not sure what we'll be putting in these buckets but it won't be from the cucurbitaceae family.

All the empty buckets, sitting and resting until time for new seedlings.  All have been or will be amended with compost and other organic matter over the next few days.

This is my discard pile.  I don't want these in the compost bin since most had an infestation of some kind.  They'll get thrown into the back corner of the yard with the yard debris.

Girl Wonder #2 has claimed the 2 front flower pots for lettuce.  She not-so-happily took out the pink and purple flowers.  But she was thrilled that she could have these 2 for her lettuce so that eased her pink-and-purple-lessness.