Hello, Winter Gardening!

It's been a while since I made a post here. We've been busy with guests, travelling, and with a lot in the garden. What I've been doing in the garden:

-Pulled all the tomato, pepper, and eggplant plants (all the hot weather plants). I salvaged the remaining 8 tomatoes and one of the pepper plants that still had mature-ish peppers on it is now drying in the kitchen.

-Winter-pruned all our fruit trees. I did some of the pruning myself on the smaller trees, and then we HAD some pruners (they'd say they were arborists, not "pruners", which they were, in all fairness), come and prune the plum, and the fig. The fig tree got massively cut down which is very very exciting. They were cool guys who came by and were very willing to tell me how to prune correctly and why certain trees can be massively hacked and others can not; they also demonstrated orchard style pruning versus "ornamental" pruning or pruning for general care. I learned a lot! They also took out the two eucalyptus trees, sadly, that needed to go.

-Planted garlic and shallots! This year I decided not to accidentally plant the garlic in the shade, like I did the year before. So hopefully it will grow big and strong this year. Not sure if I mentioned, but last year I planted it in a little pocket of dirt that was mostly in shade. I'm STILL not sure what to do with the mini bulbs that appeared. Probably have to toss them at this point. Over the garlic and shallots, I put a layer of leaves that had fallen from the trees. Apparently, the leaves act as a very good mulch for these bulbs as they break down.

-Mulched the yard with the pruned clippings. Well, I should say my sister, who was visiting did all of this! Prepared areas for wildflower planting in the front area by the street. I am almost ready to plant wildflowers, just waiting for someone named Sam to come get the extra mulch that is sitting by the curb.

Otherwise, I generally assessed the garden and did some cleaning up. We have leeks, chard, four kinds of kale, collards, mustard greens,, mizuna, brussel's sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower all doing well. The brassicas have been very heavily attacked by aphids, to which I've counter attacked with various oils; but the plants still seem healthy. (My row covers were not that well monitored so I suspect this was the cause!)

The lettuce and spinach we have eaten and I again did not plant successively as I should have, so we won't have more until early spring.

The beets - same seed that did so well in spring - are very sad. I am sure it is because I watered too infrequently this summer when we had those heat waves! (D was learning to run and liked to practice this every time we went out by the front of the house, so that is my excuse.) I had to pull the golden variety entirely and the Bull's Blood crop is looking oh so sad. And I was SO looking forward to beets this winter!!