In gardens, beauty is a by-product.  The main business is sex and death.  ~Sam Llewelyn

I’m a pretty lazy low-key gardener, especially this time of year when darkness sets in early and the soil is so cold.

Luckily some plants respond pretty well to my ways, like garlic.

Last year was the first time I grew garlic and I enjoyed the whole process.  The scapes were tasty and novel and the garlic itself was outstanding in flavor, a whole different ball game from those mass produced Chinese cloves I’d been eating.

This year I put about two dozen cloves in the ground and wished I had space for twice that many.

I love fall gardening because I rarely need to water, there are less bugs eating the goods, and it is downright exciting to me to pick fresh greens when everything else is brown and dreary.

We’ve had a few frosts so far this month.

The cosmos finally bit the dust…

And the peppers are done.

But the sugar snap peas are holding on!  They have a few flowers but I’d be shocked if they actually make a pea (I planted them too late) so I’ve been snipping the tendrils and eating them in salads.

The greens, arugula and lettuce mostly, grow pretty slow in these temperatures so I tried to grow a lot of them.

I can’t believe the strawberries are still producing!

Are you growing anything this fall/winter?

In case you are wondering Charlottesville is in zone 7a on the USDA’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map.