Fall is in the air...

So we are now well into September and it is time to clean up summer crops.  Due to our warm winter and early spring everything has been approximately three weeks ahead of schedule this year.  It feels great in the beginning when the tomatoes are here in mid June, but unfortunately they are finished early as well, and it is a little sad to lose them now.   I can’t really complain, the vines got to more than 13 feet long and we harvested over 375 quarts of cherry tomatoes, more than 500 pounds of heirlooms, and around 200 quarts of drying tomatoes.  The plants have done their job.  I’ll be pulling out the cherry tomatoes this week, and the heirlooms next week. 

Blue guarding the last tomatoes of the season

Turnips growing under the fleece

The eggplants are still holding on strong, and the peppers are loaded with fruit, though they are ripening slowly with the cool temperatures. Fall crops are coming along well, and the cool nights are starting to turn the carrots sweeter and sweeter, as they pull sugar from the leaves to prepare for winter. The turnip greens are tall, but the bulbous roots have not really started to fatten yet. They are covered with a light weight fleece, which keeps them a little warmer, and should push them along a little faster as well as keeping the bugs away. Over the next few weeks more crops will get light weight fleece, eventually graduating to heavy duty.  Fleece can give you up to a 12 degree gain, making a huge difference in growing time, and keeping the frost at bay. It also keeps in humidity, and creates a mini greenhouse. Last year I was able to harvest right up until Christmas, and probably could have gone longer. (It was time for vacation, and the beach was calling my name.) I also use fleece in the spring to start crops early.

Beans, beans and more beans

I started harvesting salsify and scorzonera this week which was exciting as they are both new crops for me and seem to have done well. The flageolet beans did fatten and I will be able to harvest them this week.  Also on the agenda this week; seeding radishes and Japanese turnips, planting pac choi and lettuce, and weeding, weeding, weeding. 

  On the harvest list -- the last of the cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, eggplant, bell, shishito and peppadew peppers, lima, haricovert, and flageolet beans, carrots, beets, salsify, scorzonera and herbs.