Gardening's Late Season

This has been a dud of a garden.  One cucumber, A few tomatoes.  Pretty decent string bean growth.  Green vines and leaves everywhere, overflowing to square feet not intended for them.  Edibles minimal.  My outdoor pots of herbs did not do any better, except for rosemary which thrives.  And I took down my aerogarden, disinfected each component with diluted bleach, and started over with six new herbs.  Even my chia triad is down to its last basil.  I don't know the reason for such poor performance.  For sure, I am not dedicated to tending each planting, going out to the backyard a couple of times a week to week and nourish.  I'm not even committed to harvesting on schedule.  Tomato plants take up more than one square.  They need a cage, not the commercial plastic stakes, to keep them upright.  And beans need regular harvest.  No clue as to why peppers, eggplant, and so many variations of lettuce never produce anything to bring to my kitchen table. Root vegetables unrealistic as weed block beneath the soil would not allow unlimited downward growth.

Culinary herbs in outdoor pots have more promise.  Basil grows.  Chives less so.  Parsley a great disappointment.  Dill and sage seem to do better in my vegetable garden.  Mint, which grows like a weed because it fundamentally is a weed, died in its pot overnight, suggesting some infestation or exposure to an herbicide from our lawn crew.  Mint has to stay in pots for containment.

Chia in my hands only grows basil reliably.  The hydroponic aerogarden also grows basil reliably, so abundant a root system as to crowd out the other five plant cylinders.

The mid-fall season still leaves me pumpkins to check on, but it's really time to uproot what will no longer grow.  Square foot has 32 squares, clean eight a day.  There is a supplemental section that can be turned over, as uprooting everything there is unrealistic.  The deck has three flower boxes that can have their plant remains removed.  For the pots, protect the rosemary indoors this year when it gets a bit colder.  Harvest what can be salvaged, maybe some basil, sage, and parsley for shabbos dinner.  Pluck everything else.  Plant something in the two remaining chia pots and add some diluted fertilizer.  And see how the new aerogarden herbs turn out.  Replace the dead bulb, consider getting their fertilizer pods which worked better than what I use now.

It really becomes how committed I am to having my own sources of herbs when I want them and the sensory superiority of produce from my own garden.  I am willing to do some effort, though not an extreme, focused amount.