Summer Garden Abruptly Comes to a Close
Hi gardeners,
As I wrote in the last post, the miracle of Indian summer will indeed come to an end. That happened last weekend with three nights of heavy frost. The winter squash was hit particularly hard. Almost all plants were badly nipped after the second night of frost. The same is true of the pole beans which had refused to acknowledge the end of summer. I was picking a good sized grocery bag full each week right up to the frost. Now only a few plants remain and these probably won't produce any more.
The shelling beans, however, survived and continue to bloom. The tops of the eggplant were nipped hard but foliage closer to the ground was unharmed. Even though the plants don't look good, they are still loaded with eggplant fruit. Probably no new fruit will set but many of the ones still in development will mature before the eggplant finally give up the ghost around Christmas. The same is mostly true of the peppers. We have harvested all of the super sweet mature red peppers, but the plants are producing large numbers of new peppers. If we don't get any more tough freezes before Christmas, then many of these will mature into nice peppers.
The sauce (romana style) tomatoes were unharmed by the frost. They continue to produce; however, it takes longer for them to turn red. I pick them when there is the first sign of color change and put them in a box with already ripe fruit. This encourages further turning and eliminates the risk of slugs/snails or mold destroying the tomato before it ripens. Note that this is only an issue in the late fall and winter. I hope to still have tomatoes well into January but what actually happens is in the hands of the weather. A few nights of below freezing temperature and the tomatoes will be done.
The winter crops are starting to take center stage. The fall cauliflower which was nestled among pole beans has grown significantly with leaves approaching a ft. long. And now that the pole beans are gone, nothing hides the cauliflower. It is now a star of the winter garden. The leeks look so nice that I have to force myself to pick any of them. See pictures below. But it is time to enjoy leek. The onions are gone and leek has taken their place. My storage tables are covered with winter squashes ready for winter baking and steaming. A few plants in protected areas survived the frost. There are probably a half dozen winter squashes still trying to mature in the garden before the inevitable happens. And the carrot field is a solid green with foilage almost two ft high. There is still a little mildew but most have outgrown it. Carrots gradually replace beans in our steamed vegetable mix. I have a mixture of white, yellow, orange, and purple carrots. The giant white Kuttigers and yellow Yellowstones are the most productive and best for overwintering carrots I grow. We will harvest from that patch well into April of next year. Recall that I plant carrots with the first two plantings of 90 day corn. These carrots were planted in April and May. The corn has long been gone as are the pole beans that grew with the corn. Most of the carrots have also been harvested from the April planting. But we are just now starting to take carrots from the second planting. Sometime I will post a garden plan if I ever do one.
Recall that late 60 day corn which I call Thanksgiving corn? Well it came through. There are probably 30 or so ears out there. They are small but extremely tasty and well pollinated. That is, the cobs are covered with ultra sweet kernels. I just started harvesting last week and pick a couple of ears a day. The plants are only 5 ft. tall with one ear per plant. Recall that I planted this in the third week of September in the same plot where the first batch of 60 day corn was planted in April. I plant a Candy Quick yellow or equivalent corn.
I continue to start six packs with a mixture of cauliflower (Fremont), purple kohlrabi, joi choi, and spinach on a biweekly basis. We are just now starting to enjoy a few leaves from the first batch of spinach and joi choi. Lettuce and mustard are growing throughout the garden; most of it comes up on its own because I allowed a few plants to bolt and produce seed early last summer.
Now is the time to plant favas. I try to do a different section of the garden each week with the goal of having all favas in the ground by the end of the year. Note that I plant a few favas among the cauliflower and kohlrabi. The favas then take over after these brassicas have been harvested.
The peas are finally starting to grow. As usual, they have spent most of the Indan summer trying to decide if they are going to succumb to pests or lead a productive life. Most are picking the productive life route. Recall that I experimented with planting a few shelling pole peas among the last 90 day corn in early July this year. I have never done this before. Well... it's too early to tell if they will yield anything, but I have some beautiful shelling pea plants growing up old corn stalks. See pictures below. These have been sharing the supports with pole beans. The pole beans are fading away and the peas seem to be taking over. Still, I've harvested very few peas. So the jury is still out on this experiment.
Oh yes, we are still digging potatoes and have just started digging Jerusalem artichoke tubers. I keep knocking down the potato plants which try to grow out of potatoes still in the ground awaiting digging. Note that one can plant potatoes now. I do have a small area where I grow winter potatoes. They aren't as productive as the spring ones, but it's nice to have even a few very tasty purple and red potatoes in February.
The main garden activity now is leaf composting. As the street trees lose their leaves, I am there to rescue them from the street cleaner. We have liquid amber and Modesto ash trees on the street along with my giant tulip tree in the front yard. I take a 100 sq ft. area of the garden close to the composting area to build the leaf pile. It is a mixture of Starbucks coffee grounds, green cuttings from the garden, tree prunings, and loads of leaves. Last week I had a ton of green material with all the frosted squash and bean plants coming out of the garden. I will continue to build the leaf pile over the next month with it being completed before New Years. My goal is to compost 30 packed wheelbarrow loads of leaves. Then composting activity will shift back to the open furrow pile where I make compost throughout the year. This area isn't large enough to handle the volume of leaves coming in now.
Now for some pictures:
The leek crop adorns the front of the garden. Notice the old pole bean to the left and right of the picture. These survived the frost but have no new blooms. Pepper and eggplant are on the far right.
Thanksgiving corn. These ears are ready for harvest. But there is no hurry because the cool weather keeps the ears sweet unlike summer ripened corn where an ear can turn to starch in a day.
A Papaya Pear summer squash hides under a mature broccoli bush. We continue to pick small but tasty broccoli three times a week. The broccoli protected the squash from the frost. Notice, however how the squash has been covered with spotted mildew.
Here is the carrot lawn. The picture quality isn't that good due to lighting but is adequate for you to see how the winter carrots look. Notice the old corn stalks with struggling pole beans to the left of the picture. Blackberry bushes are on the right.
Here we have fall cauliflower in celebration. Please ignore the shadow. Photography isn't my best skill. The pepper and eggplant patch is to the left. In the bottom left, are four cauliflower plants which were set out last Sunday.
And finally, a July planted shelling pea is slowly climbing an old corn stalk.
Well, that's it for now. Remember to build that winter leaf compost now. I will try to add a post about how I compost leaves in the next few days. And remember to plant those favas now.
Happy gardening,
danh
As I wrote in the last post, the miracle of Indian summer will indeed come to an end. That happened last weekend with three nights of heavy frost. The winter squash was hit particularly hard. Almost all plants were badly nipped after the second night of frost. The same is true of the pole beans which had refused to acknowledge the end of summer. I was picking a good sized grocery bag full each week right up to the frost. Now only a few plants remain and these probably won't produce any more.
The shelling beans, however, survived and continue to bloom. The tops of the eggplant were nipped hard but foliage closer to the ground was unharmed. Even though the plants don't look good, they are still loaded with eggplant fruit. Probably no new fruit will set but many of the ones still in development will mature before the eggplant finally give up the ghost around Christmas. The same is mostly true of the peppers. We have harvested all of the super sweet mature red peppers, but the plants are producing large numbers of new peppers. If we don't get any more tough freezes before Christmas, then many of these will mature into nice peppers.
The sauce (romana style) tomatoes were unharmed by the frost. They continue to produce; however, it takes longer for them to turn red. I pick them when there is the first sign of color change and put them in a box with already ripe fruit. This encourages further turning and eliminates the risk of slugs/snails or mold destroying the tomato before it ripens. Note that this is only an issue in the late fall and winter. I hope to still have tomatoes well into January but what actually happens is in the hands of the weather. A few nights of below freezing temperature and the tomatoes will be done.
The winter crops are starting to take center stage. The fall cauliflower which was nestled among pole beans has grown significantly with leaves approaching a ft. long. And now that the pole beans are gone, nothing hides the cauliflower. It is now a star of the winter garden. The leeks look so nice that I have to force myself to pick any of them. See pictures below. But it is time to enjoy leek. The onions are gone and leek has taken their place. My storage tables are covered with winter squashes ready for winter baking and steaming. A few plants in protected areas survived the frost. There are probably a half dozen winter squashes still trying to mature in the garden before the inevitable happens. And the carrot field is a solid green with foilage almost two ft high. There is still a little mildew but most have outgrown it. Carrots gradually replace beans in our steamed vegetable mix. I have a mixture of white, yellow, orange, and purple carrots. The giant white Kuttigers and yellow Yellowstones are the most productive and best for overwintering carrots I grow. We will harvest from that patch well into April of next year. Recall that I plant carrots with the first two plantings of 90 day corn. These carrots were planted in April and May. The corn has long been gone as are the pole beans that grew with the corn. Most of the carrots have also been harvested from the April planting. But we are just now starting to take carrots from the second planting. Sometime I will post a garden plan if I ever do one.
Recall that late 60 day corn which I call Thanksgiving corn? Well it came through. There are probably 30 or so ears out there. They are small but extremely tasty and well pollinated. That is, the cobs are covered with ultra sweet kernels. I just started harvesting last week and pick a couple of ears a day. The plants are only 5 ft. tall with one ear per plant. Recall that I planted this in the third week of September in the same plot where the first batch of 60 day corn was planted in April. I plant a Candy Quick yellow or equivalent corn.
I continue to start six packs with a mixture of cauliflower (Fremont), purple kohlrabi, joi choi, and spinach on a biweekly basis. We are just now starting to enjoy a few leaves from the first batch of spinach and joi choi. Lettuce and mustard are growing throughout the garden; most of it comes up on its own because I allowed a few plants to bolt and produce seed early last summer.
Now is the time to plant favas. I try to do a different section of the garden each week with the goal of having all favas in the ground by the end of the year. Note that I plant a few favas among the cauliflower and kohlrabi. The favas then take over after these brassicas have been harvested.
The peas are finally starting to grow. As usual, they have spent most of the Indan summer trying to decide if they are going to succumb to pests or lead a productive life. Most are picking the productive life route. Recall that I experimented with planting a few shelling pole peas among the last 90 day corn in early July this year. I have never done this before. Well... it's too early to tell if they will yield anything, but I have some beautiful shelling pea plants growing up old corn stalks. See pictures below. These have been sharing the supports with pole beans. The pole beans are fading away and the peas seem to be taking over. Still, I've harvested very few peas. So the jury is still out on this experiment.
Oh yes, we are still digging potatoes and have just started digging Jerusalem artichoke tubers. I keep knocking down the potato plants which try to grow out of potatoes still in the ground awaiting digging. Note that one can plant potatoes now. I do have a small area where I grow winter potatoes. They aren't as productive as the spring ones, but it's nice to have even a few very tasty purple and red potatoes in February.
The main garden activity now is leaf composting. As the street trees lose their leaves, I am there to rescue them from the street cleaner. We have liquid amber and Modesto ash trees on the street along with my giant tulip tree in the front yard. I take a 100 sq ft. area of the garden close to the composting area to build the leaf pile. It is a mixture of Starbucks coffee grounds, green cuttings from the garden, tree prunings, and loads of leaves. Last week I had a ton of green material with all the frosted squash and bean plants coming out of the garden. I will continue to build the leaf pile over the next month with it being completed before New Years. My goal is to compost 30 packed wheelbarrow loads of leaves. Then composting activity will shift back to the open furrow pile where I make compost throughout the year. This area isn't large enough to handle the volume of leaves coming in now.
Now for some pictures:
The leek crop adorns the front of the garden. Notice the old pole bean to the left and right of the picture. These survived the frost but have no new blooms. Pepper and eggplant are on the far right.
Thanksgiving corn. These ears are ready for harvest. But there is no hurry because the cool weather keeps the ears sweet unlike summer ripened corn where an ear can turn to starch in a day.
A Papaya Pear summer squash hides under a mature broccoli bush. We continue to pick small but tasty broccoli three times a week. The broccoli protected the squash from the frost. Notice, however how the squash has been covered with spotted mildew.
Here is the carrot lawn. The picture quality isn't that good due to lighting but is adequate for you to see how the winter carrots look. Notice the old corn stalks with struggling pole beans to the left of the picture. Blackberry bushes are on the right.
Here we have fall cauliflower in celebration. Please ignore the shadow. Photography isn't my best skill. The pepper and eggplant patch is to the left. In the bottom left, are four cauliflower plants which were set out last Sunday.
And finally, a July planted shelling pea is slowly climbing an old corn stalk.
Well, that's it for now. Remember to build that winter leaf compost now. I will try to add a post about how I compost leaves in the next few days. And remember to plant those favas now.
Happy gardening,
danh
posted by danh at
1:27 PM
|
0 comments
