It's hard to believe it's October...

The garden shed decorated for fall

So we have been having incredible weather. Cool crisp mornings with bright sunshine all day, perfect for fall crops. There still hasn't been much rain, but I’ve been running the irrigation and all is doing well. 

Last week the kids from both the culinary and the horticulture class from Rappahanock County High School came and paid us a visit.  There were 35 kids total and we toured the property as well as the kitchen, and then they helped us to get a few projects finished.  We mulched our little nature trail, and pulled all of the cherry tomato plants out of the garden.  Many hands definitely make light work and we got further on the path in half an hour than we would have all day with our own small crew, so they were a big help, and hopefully they learned something as well.  Blue was really in his element, getting love from all the kids.  He’s a glutton for attention. 

Working with the students of Rappahannock High School (and Blue)

Other than that the week consisted of a little planting with spinach, lettuce, kohlrabi, pac choi and swiss chard going in, and a little seeding with radishes and turnips. Lots of weeding got done, and things are looking great in the garden. Having the wall of cherry tomatoes gone makes the whole space look so different, everything opened up and seemed to get a lot bigger. 

The stink bugs are leaving the garden and heading for the indoors, good news for the veggies and bad news for the shed, as they are wiggling themselves into every nook and cranny for the winter. Other than them the bug troubles seem to be over for the season, which is great, there were a lot of battles this year.  Now I can only hope for a nice cold winter so that we don’t have a lot of these same problems next year. A few good long freezes would do wonders to take out a little of the populations, not to mention killing off the late blight that got the tomatoes.

Not too much on the agenda for this week, mostly clean up projects, like removing drip tape and cleaning shallots, some greenhouse work, and of course harvesting.  On the list for this week, we have pac choi, romaine lettuce, beautiful carrots, beets, salsify, scorzonera, flageolet beans, haricovert beans, lima beans, peppers, eggplant, heirloom tomatoes and herbs.  

Harvested pac choi ready for the kitchen

Look for an article on restaurants with their own farms and gardens next Wednesday in the Washington Post.