Just outside our garage—maybe 100 steps to the north—is a garden that we call the patch. It is surrounded by a double fence, mainly to keep out deer, boar, armadillos, and rabbits. This area is hard to just call it a vegetable garden because so much grows inside. Because of its security, I have planted many plants inside, and the patch houses a variety of perennials, cut flowers, carnivorous plants, and propagules. However, the back part is planted mostly with vegetables. I have to admit in the three years that we’ve lived here, this year is the best it has looked and the most productive it has been. I think it’s because the garden is finally settling into its own. I’ve had to take the design through a few iterations, mainly due to some rare flooding that can occur to make sure that the edibles are located out of the inundation zone. But, we are in the final layout where from here on out the bones should all be laid for the pathways and the beds.
Also, I have an organic matter system from collecting leaves on our 2.5 acres as well as bags of leaves sent to the curb in town. (Don’t worry. I always leave some leaves in our yard for my insect friends!) All of that organic matter is funneled to this garden.
But, another reason it looks good is because November is a time my fall vegetable garden reaches its zenith from the little warmth left of summer and the absence of a hard frost yet from winter. We have been delighted from all the produce we’ve harvested so far this winter from it.
I spoke to a group of gardeners with the Huntsville Botanical Garden earlier this week via a webinar about the joys of cool-season gardening, and I took a plethora of pictures of the patch for that presentation. I wanted to share a few of these photos with you so maybe I could even whet your appetite for gardening on the darker side of the calendar.