Special place, special morning

We had quite a bit of rain this past weekend, one inch according to the garden rain gauge, and suddenly it appears to be winter. After the rain the skies cleared (this is the desert after all, and not the PNW), and temperatures dropped to just below freezing last night. This spelled the end of the summer garden as the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and basil look a bit bedraggled today, but the winter garden fared well, thankfully, even without frost protection.

All this moisture and then clearing meant that this morning a huge fog bank rolled in during our morning walk, and for a brief while we were alone in the world. Certainly not a day to be cycling so we decided to hike our nearby, and always beautiful, Cochise Stronghold instead.

Surprisingly no fog there, just sunshine with cloud banks rolling in on occasion. When we got to our favorite lookout, the valley was blanketed in fog all the way to the Chiricahua Mountains. Skies cleared this afternoon and the temperatures are forecasted to be on the rise again tomorrow.

Grasshopper time

Every season has its insects here. Right now it is grasshopper and praying mantis time. I wonder how many different varieties of hoppers we have, they come in all sizes and colors and all seem to really enjoy hanging out in the garden. Thankfully the new juicy plants are well protected, but the tomatoes and basil are taking a hit.

The largest grasshopper is the horse lubber (don't ask me about that name as I do not have a clue), and I have seen them in a 10 cm size. The males are the only ones that fly and display a red wing flash.

This guy (unknown variety) was on his way somewhere on the dining room window, and finally did lose his grip.

The praying mantis are a favorite insect of mine. I saved one from the grazing mouth of Buggsy and it turned its head to me as if to say "well, thanks!"

Winter garden

I am serious this year, about growing a winter garden. Last year I kind of dabbled by putting in some kale and broccoli and covering the plants with winter blanket when it froze, and was amazed that plants survived hard freezes.

Scaling down the size of the summer garden helped. Rather than planting all the beds, I left 5 of them empty and amended the soil as time permitted, so there was no agonizing over having to pull still producing plants in our long (compared to PNW) growing season. There still is plenty of growing and eating of summer vegetables.

I was inspired by Eliot Coleman's Four Season Harvest and did my best doing succession planting for both the summer and winter garden. This resulted in having cantaloupes from July until now and having beans (just enough for a meal a week), with plants still producing.

Here are the winter beds. Most of the veggies are leafy: Asian greens, lettuces, spinach, various kale varieties, cabbages and escarole, but also green onions and carrots. Everything is well protected but still some mice managed to get in and nibble the growing tip from some plants, and I had to reseed. Currently all appears quiet on the rodent front now. Knock on wood.