The fall is always a busy time for me. That was true when I was teaching, and seems to still be true now that I am staying home. I am feeling a need for a break. The garden brings me back down from all the hustle and bustle. Come take a walk with me. See what is happening. 
The weather here in Southern California has been all over the place. One day it is pouring rain (and hailing) harder than I have seen in a long time, and a few days later we are boiling again with temperatures nearing 100 degrees. We just cooled off again, and the last two beds of the summer garden are still hanging in there. I just picked an eggplant today and have lots of green tomatoes still.
The garlic has been planted and mulched. I have four varieties in two beds and can see the little green stalks beginning to rise up above the straw. The artichokes are making their comeback. I have two new plants and can’t wait to see and taste their flowers.
My second go around with the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and kale is turning out beautifully. I have never successfully started broccoli, cabbage, or cauliflower from seed before, so I am feeling very proud!
Can you see that sweet potato right there at the surface? I am crossing my fingers there are a few more under the ground. These are a first for me too. I will pull them up at the end of the month.
The squash pile continues to grow. These are outside to cure for a couple of weeks. We ate our first one a few days ago, one of those buttercup looking ones, and is was delicious!
What is happening around your soil? Or pantry?
Growing Up in the Garden 
Nice! Congratulations on your starter plants. My broccoli seeds aren’t doing much of anything, but the cosmos and pumpkins still think it’s spring so they are coming up again. Crazy fall we’ve had (in Northern California) too.
The first time I planted all those seeds, not one of them germinated. I am not sure why, but I am guessing it was still too warm. The second time around is what you see. Now, I just have to keep the caterpillars off of them ;). I have a couple of flowers germinating as well. Just a random one here and there. Weird weather, indeed.
It has been really warm. Only this week are we finally expecting a bit of rain. I’ll leave things as is, and see if something sprouts. If not, then it’s probably too late for this season. 😦
It was great to take a walk through your garden and see how things are coming along. That sweet potato is a great sneak peek of what’s to come for you I hope! Our outside beds are nearly done (we’re well into hard frosts, though our days have been very warm this past week), but our hoop house beds are coming along with winter plantings of greens and some root veg, and it’s also time for us to put in our garlic and leave it till spring.
Do the hoop houses allow you to garden through the winter, or at some point does it become too cold for them too? Can you grow hard and soft neck varieties of garlic where you live? Here we mostly have to grow soft neck, although I am trying out a hard neck this time around.
It’s our first year trying to garden through the winter, so we’ll have to see how it goes. A layer of row cover is the additional protection that may help us get through some very cold temperatures (according to Eliot Coleman), so we’ll see! I recently met a woman who has been growing using that same model in our community with beautiful results, which is encouraging. The row cover is just going on now, as the greenhouse crops have been fine on their own until now. I really like Music and know that it’s a hardneck variety, but don’t know much about soft vs. hard otherwise. Is hardneck more difficult where you are?
Good luck with the winter garden! I am sure I will hear about it later….I just read recently that soft neck varieties are better than hard neck in the warmer climates, something about getting a bigger head (I think). I have always planted soft neck just because they store longer, but decided to try a hard neck before I had that tid bit of info. We’ll see how it goes.
That definitely fills in a gap in my knowledge, neat! I’ll be interested to see how you do with your garlic varieties.
Isn’t it fun to gro wstuff from seed, just think of all those yummy greens!
Loving the sign on the garlic bed too 🙂
Oh, the sign. Yes, I put it up because I was having some moms over with young kids and had no fencing to put around it. My children can distinguish a garden bed as something not to walk on, and I have forgotten too many times that other children may not know that ;). It worked a little bit.