The Compost Bin

Well, that'll do it. That fat lady has sung. Here lies the last of my Swiss Chard.

After about a week of nighttime temperatures dropping below freezing, the garden is finally closed for the season. The plan was to build some mini hoops houses over my raised beds and try to continue gardening through December but I didn't have enough free time to make that happen.

The other casualties beside this Swiss Chard include a few different kinds of salad greens, bok choy, arugala and brocolli rabe. They were in such bad shape that I didn't even want to take pictures of them. Let's keep this a closed casket funeral.

I really wanted to follow the advice of Elliot Coleman in his book Four-Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from Your Home Garden All Year Long and build little hoops houses or maybe even some cold frames and garden through the winter. But I'm still happy that I had fresh greens almost all the way through November. Next year, maybe I'll make it to Thanksgiving. Hmmm, that AeroGarden is looking better and better.

If you read this blog over the summer you'd know that I was very happy with my purchase of a Colocasia Gigantea Thailand Strain (Giant Elephant Ear). Watching it grow from a little stick into a behemoth with five foot leaves was a lot of fun and very interesting for me.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it once the cold weather came but I had ideas of letting it dry out and storing the bulb in my garage. Well that didn't happen at all because I smashed it.

While trying to move the plant and it's 100 plus pounds of planter and soil over to my pool (hey I wanted a more tropical look) I dropped it down some concrete steps. Ooops! Most of the leaves snapped off and I thought that was the end of it. It was really sad looking.


But with less leaves, it became a much smaller plant. So into the house it went. There was no way that a 7 foot tall potted plant could have fit in my living room but my accidental alterations changed that. My living room has very little natural light in it but I figured that since the Elephant Ear does well in the shade, that it would be okay.


And it did better than okay. A few new leaves shot up and it even flowered. The flowers look a lot like peace lily flowers although they're a lot bigger.


I keep cutting off leaves so that it fits in my house. It really doesn't look great as a house plant but I'm just happy that it survived the fall and it's making it through the winter.

This summer my elephant ear is getting a prime location by the pool. I just may need some help moving it there.