My pea plants have been in bloom for four weeks, but cool autumn temperatures have slowed growth. I’d bet many blossoms are all of four weeks old and still looking fresh. The few pods that remain from blooms that have dropped petals haven’t even hinted at thickening. I might have harvested them to eat as snow peas, but I couldn’t spot even half a dozen on 28 foot-rows of plants. A two-night deep freeze has finished off the pea plants.
Just last night we experienced a deep freeze—down to about 24F degrees. It was cold enough to wipe out almost all the annuals I grow in my kitchen garden except for lettuce; the lettuce still looks happy. The cold damaged my pea plants, however, so I definitely won’t get a fall harvest from them. Next season, if I do a second planting of peas, it needs to happen three or four weeks earlier than this year’s second planting.
Despite the cold damage, the pea plants are still in bloom. After that, I had to step out of the kitchen garden to find flowers for today’s Garden Bloggers Bloom Day post. There’s not much left, but some of it is beautiful. Please enjoy the photos.
Still within my vegetable garden, every cosmos blossom woke up five days ago looking like this. It was a light frost, but the temperature reached about 30 degrees. There are cosmos in my garden because someone once told me to plant cosmos with corn and the corn wouldn’t attract ear worms. In two seasons of growing the combination, no ear worms… but that could be simply because the pesky insects haven’t yet discovered that I grown corn.
Four feet away from my vegetable bed is an ornamental bed in which my wife planted petunias. Despite 24 degree nights, the petunias are in prime condition.
I once returned from a trade show with some 24 young rose plants. Many survived under lights for three months until I could plant them outdoors. This blossom is on one of three plants in my herb garden. The plant is covered with beautiful pink blossoms and bright orange hips. I suspect a few more nights down to 24 degrees and the plants will finally shut down for winter.
I featured violets in my September Bloom Day post and am impressed that the plants are still in bloom. These are the over-performers of the year: they put out blossoms in early spring and kept at it through the entire season.
There seem to be confused forsythia blossoms every fall and this is no exception. I found several dozen blossoms on my plants. I guess they’re anxious for spring but I’m glad to see most of the buds holding tight; I’d rather they join the show in March.