My garden has been rather neglected, and I rely on help to do most of it now. I still enjoy taking photos of my flowers, but last week most of them perished in a 6 degree frost. The 'after' photos  are sad. Fortunately the green vegetables I planted in late summer are growing well, and are ready to eat.

The garden is coming along nicely. Most of the tomato and pepper plants are in the ground now, the potatoes (purple, russets, and sweet) are in the ground, bush beans, peas, squash, and pumpkins have all been planted too. Still have to get the zucchini seeds planted, they go in the last section of the garden this year.

Tomatillos came up all on their own again, so we didn't have to plant any of them. Although the siblings have had to thin the tomatillo plants several times because more keep coming up. It's kind of crazy how many tomatillo plants have come up. Definitely have to be careful where you plant them.  

The compost piles aren't quite done, too many tomato vines from last fall, so in the future we will be burning the tomato vines instead. Anyway I've got compost turning duty for the next couple of weeks and what fun it is. The good news is one of the three piles is finally hot and I think the second pile is close. I keep pulling the tomato vines out as I find them and I think I'm getting close to the bottom of bins and having all the big chunks of vines removed.  

SnowAngel

Hooray for compost! My bin needs moving to a new spot, and I'll then cover the old pile with plastic to 'cook' . Maybe it'll be usable in spring. 

The man who mows my lawn and trims edges has left the garden much nicer to look at. Glad to have my helpers getting it tidy for winter. 

I got one of those composting bins that's a tumbler two years ago for Christmas (2021), and I thought I'd be using it all the time.  I remember filling it with a load over the following summer but have not checked on it since. . . and I can only imagine what monstrosities are going on inside of it .  I think the main reason that it's use came to a halt was my doing most of my gardening at my house now rather than at my parents' house, and hauling compost does not sound like a particularly fragrant thing to do.

@digorykirke could you take it to your house? I mean, is it built in, or can it be carried away by truck? My flatmate had a metal tumbler one on legs, and when we moved house, she took it with her.

It could absolutely be taken over to my house.  I have the space for it.  I suppose it is just one of those things that one thinks of, but doesn't actually do.  I don't have too much produce waste to put in it at my place either as I do most of my actual cooking over at my parents house because they have a better stocked kitchen.

The potatoes and bush beans are looking great. We had some heat over the weekend and a bunch of the beans sprouted, I love watching for the first plants to appear. The tomatillos are still growing like weeds and putting out blossoms like crazy.

Oh my, my little brother pulled the very wet grass/straw/mature mix out of the chicken run on Tuesday, and WOW.   That mix needed a home fast, so I had to get a compost bin emptied yesterday. Our new very tiny Top Hat blueberry bushes got blessed with the fresh compost yesterday and hopefully between being in the ground and the compost they will grow well this summer.

Started the new bin of compost by layering paper/cardboard pieces and the mix from the chicken run and soaking the whole thing. So glad that's done. Now to finish the next two bins and get them in the garden.

And lastly we think we might have several blackberry bushes growing in the edge of the woods. We couldn't keep the ones we bought alive through the winter, but at least two, maybe as many as six, bushes are growing in the woods this year. Someone threw some moldy berries over there to get rid of them last summer, that's a lot cheaper and simpler than buying bushes. Now to keep them from being accidently lopped off.

SnowAngel