The satisfaction of watching Swallow Tailed butterflies working the Echinacea has almost made up for the agony of watching the Japanese Beatles devour the roses.   I'm thinking about what to plant for fall.

We are ready to double the size of the garden.  Why not?  It was a nearly complete failure this summer.  Doesn't failure inspire everyone to double the project?   I'm only just now figuring out our climate is well suited for three season gardening.

What were the adults of my youth thinking, carting us off to the beach in high summer and gardening under a scorching sun?  Well, it was all lovely and I'm grateful.  But its taken me forever to understand the beach is at its best in October and I can plant, here, from April through October.

Our most bountiful crop was the haul of garlic this year.  My best garlic ever with nice fat toes.  I left it to cure outside but the chickens found a way to perch over it.   So that harvest is lost.

I accidentally planted runner beans where we only had room for bush.  So all of those plants got ripped and composted.  The zuchinni and cucumbers died.  I don't know why.  Had I known they would fail, I could have let the beans go.  Oh well.

Our soil is too high in nitrogen for the peppers to set flowers so we'll have no peppers this year. But, hey, cheer up.  The pepper plant survived and that is a huge improvement over last year.

Basil and tomatoes are still going strong.  The parsley was beautiful.  Chard, and kale before that, carried us through early summer.    We are noting the successes and vowing to remember what has worked.  We planted an "Amish" variety of tomato.  I strongly suspect they are basically Romas.  I thought I didn't like Romas.  Wrong!  Romas do make the best sauce.  Who knew?

Its time to replant garlic, parsley, cilantro, chard, kale, collards, and maybe even some bush beans.   All of these can grow here, I've learned, up to and occasionally through the first frosts.