October Veggie Garden Update

Oct18

Here’s the latest update in my garden as of Sunday October 18th. The season is winding down fast now, and so am I. The pics above are what we harvested today.

Some warm season crops like cucumbers, summer squash, green beans, dry beans, butternut winter squash and corn are finished. Today’s harvest of the warm season crops like tomatoes and peppers were picked, including some green tomatoes which I will ripen indoors. I got a couple of butternut squash and cucumbers too. I turned off the drip systems to all of them today.

The perennial fruit crops-strawberries, grapes, rhubarb and blackberries are also done. But the raspberries, which are a fall crop are still giving up some berries but are slowing way down now too. I will leave the drip systems on the perennials till it freezes.

Other cool season crops in the garden are still shining, loving the cooler weather we have right now. These include cabbage, chard, another winter squash (sweetmeat) and kale are still in the main garden and ready to harvest. I’ve been harvesting the kale, cabbage and chard for a long time.

I am harvesting broccoli heads, warm season lettuces and radishes that I planted as succession crops in August in my garlic bed which has been vacant since July. I figured I would have enough time to harvest them before I plant a new garlic crop back in it. The garlic heads are coming this week and I will plant them by the end of October in that bed once the other veggies are harvested.

But the season doesn’t end yet. I currently have some cool season crops that I started inside under lights like lettuces, spinach, arugula and Pak Choi. They will go into my cold frame and greenhouse this week but not in the main garden. I’ve actually been waiting till both the greenhouse and cold frame are cool enough in the day to put them in so they don’t bolt and this week with the daytime temperatures in the 70’s and the nighttime temperatures in the 40s is now perfect to put them out. They should last till December using row cover when the temperatures drop to freezing at night to extend their lives. It will be nice to get greens and lettuce from the garden in November. My last hurrah!

Growing Season for 2016/Fall Harvest

Nov2

Fall harvest in 2016-tomatoes, beets, carrots and kale are just a few of the vegetables still being harvested here on my micro-farm

This has been a most remarkable growing season this year. In fact, I can’t remember in all my 21 years here of weather like this. After two months of unseasonably hot summer weather at the beginning (when the tomato blossoms dropped because it was too hot) and then two months of very cool summer weather (when the tomatoes didn’t want to ripen because they need heat to ripen once they are set) we now have been in an unbelievably wonderful fall. Nice and warm in the 70’s in the day and cool but not freezing nights.

But all this is going to change very quickly now that we are in November. Weather prediction is for it to change to colder weather. Like duh, it’s NOVEMBER dude! Of course it will get colder! My fruit is done-apples (we made hard cider!), apricots, grapes, strawberries and raspberries are done here. Most of my warm season crops are gone (cucumbers, squash, peppers, eggplants, pumpkins, corn, etc. except the tomatoes, my favorite crop!)

Meanwhile the fall harvest continues with tomatoes still ripening (at least this week) and all the cool season crops are kicking it and should be for quite some time if I cover them with winter weight row cover. The kale is going gangbusters, cabbage is ready, onions and potatoes are ready to harvest, carrots and beets are ready to be dug out too and chard is busting out all over. My broccoli and escarole I planted in August at my fall garden class are almost ready too. Then pantry is bursting and the refrigerators and freezers are overflowing too! Enjoy what we still have left of this season!

The last of the summer harvest-Nov 4

Nov5

The garden finally froze last night in earnest and I got to say I’m relieved that I don’t have to go out and harvest today. Not bad being that we went up to November 4th before it succumbed. I still have chard, carrots, beets and kale but the rest of the garden is toast. All that cool season stuff will be around awhile until we consistently get super cold at night but the warm season vegetables are gone. It was a big year for me as I grew 125 tomato plants with 31 heirloom tomato varieties. Phew! Just thinking about it makes me tired!

So yesterday, knowing the weather was coming, I picked the very, very, very last of the tomatoes, lots of chard, the last of the beans, some Glass Gem corn, more potatoes and I found 2 more squash. The eggplants and all the peppers were done 2 weeks ago and the cucumbers were done a month ago. This has been the biggest and best garden I’ve ever had especially with all the rain we got this summer and all the wonderful, warm days-not too hot. I didn’t even have to use any organic pesticides or fungicides this year-fabulous!