New veggie (to me anyway) that is very good even raw: bolting daikon radish stems - stems are smooth and sweet, leaves a bit rough and the whole has a tiny bit of a bite for additional interest. I have been pulling them as the flowers get ready to start opening. This would be a lot like broccoli raab. Many varieties of daikon and other winter radishes will bolt if spring planted. I expect some will be more pungent than others, but the daikons I have had are very good tasting, both sweet and mild. Next spring I will plant a bunch of fall daikons just to get the bolting stems. Tomatoes are starting to come in. I plant mostly the "two bite size", for example Burpee's 4th of July, planning to eat them as snacks while working in the garden. 4th keeps setting fruit all season. Next year I will try to add Glacier which is said to be very similar but is OP. The first sweet banana peppers stated to turn red and then were eaten (as fresh). The plants are stretching for more blooming. Just two plants this year, a lot more next for sure. I was hoping that scented geraniums (aka mosquito plant) would keep the tree rats out of the tomato I planted in the big pot. Didn't work, not even with a chicken wire skirt. BTW that kind of geranium roots real easy; I broke off stems to plunge into the potting soil on all sides and they all seem to have taken without any extra care. Fall broccoli and cabbages have been transplanted. Fall radishes are up and have been thinned. Earlier daikons are starting to push up in the row and build diameter; some are pushing an inch (they would be much larger, but they got planted later than I like). I love daikons. Sweet potatoes are vining nicely, but I didn't get the black landscape fabric down. Hoping for decent roots anyway (fingers crossed!). I will take some stem cuttings again this fall like I did last year. They root real easy in water and vine like pothos or philondendrons. Some of the root types have real interesting foliage - some ivy leafed, some real deep cut, some with various colors. You don't have to sacrifice interesting sweet potato foliage to also get roots. Garlics are cured and bagged, now waiting for fall planting. Multiplier onions, too. Tree onions are ready to collect the topsets and then dig the roots. Fun time of the year for sure!

PankaJt, I loved that photo of your 21-year-old planting of Katsura and chestnut! Though we've been in our house for fewer years, I do appreciate seeing plants that have matured. It's continuity. I'm posting a picture of old hostas that were my mother's. Not too exciting a plant, but every gardener can probably appreciate this sad tale. My brother took over my parents house with wonderful plans to remodel the house itself. One day when I drove over to check out the work, I saw a bulldozer plowing through Mom's gardens and tearing everything apart! All the dogwoods and mountain laurel she planted when the house was built, her iris collection, the peonies and poppies, her favorite columbines, my dad's field stone wall ... all of it was gone! He didn't even ask me if I wanted any of it! I almost burst into tears thinking of all the hours I had been "conscripted" into helping Mom weed her garden, not realizing at the time that all this work would become the seed for my own love of gardening. Along the edge of the yard in a spot the bulldozer had not yet reached was this sad clump of hostas that Mom had planted among some of her favorite pink, white and blue perennials. We rescued them and brought them home, along with some bricks and field stones from the rubble that once was Dad's pathway and wall.

Yesterday I wasn't able to get photos to load, but here is our first snow of the year. It was supposed to be just rain, but we got both more precipitation than expected and colder temperatures, so some of it came down as snow late afternoon. It made a messy commute since it wasn't predicted. Like a couple of others, my Iberis/perennial candytuft is still blooming, even after a couple of nights in the lower 20's and the heavy, wet snow. Magnolia 'Leonard Messel' is a three season plant in my garden, with spring flowers, fall color, and huge silver buds on gray branches all winter. Since it's in a perennial bed with lots of more interesting flowers and foliage during late spring and summer, it is just part of the background in warm weather. Here it is last week before the high winds stripped it of foliage. Prior to this rich chestnut color, it was a beautiful clear yellow for a couple of weeks when nothing but Fothergilla, dogwood, beech, and oak still had foliage color.

I have had some in their first year do very well and then “old” healthy favorites. First year honorable mentions: Earth Angel The Lady Gardener Desdemona Tried and true healthy favorites: Teasing Georgia James Galway Claire Austin Spirit of Freedom Gentle Hermoine (great BS resistance but less so to PM) Sadly Olivia didn’t fare so well this fall but because it is crowded - it has such dense growth anyway but is planted in a group. I will be moving them next year.