It's already the end of October...  Can you believe it?

It has been so long since I have written, but it has been a busy fall.  The weather has been so obliging and the fall vegetables are rolling in. Nice warm and sunny days, and cool nights make all those plants really happy.  We had one major frost and I was able to cover my sensitive plants so we are still holding on to a lot of the summer vegetables with beans, peppers and eggplant still on the harvest list.  Unfortunately, all that looks to be coming to an end with hurricane Sandy on the horizon and the forecasted freezing temperatures for several nights in a row will kill off the last of the summer veg.  It has to happen sometime and we still have enough fall produce in the ground to keep the kitchen well stocked.  

Neon pink Scarlet Queen turnips on their way to the kitchen.  

I am still planting and will continue to do so for another month, maybe longer if it warms up again. Today I planted spinach, mustard greens and some winter density romaine lettuce.  For now, the plants are out and exposed but over the next few weeks I will begin to cover (once the temperatures are in the 20s at night) with agricultural fleece and eventually with plastic as well.

The last month has been a lot of clean up, pulling out all the tomato, and bean plants, laying straw over the beds for winter, pulling stakes and removing trellising twine. Most of the material has gone into the compost pile, except for the tomato plants.  Tomatoes carry a lot of diseases and fungus, so I feel it is better to remove all of the material from the garden, and then put it on a brush pile to be burned.  It is a precautionary measure as most of those problems die off in the winter, but if the temperatures are not cold enough (as happened this year) the fungal spores may survive and rear their ugly heads the following season wreaking havoc on the garden.

Flagrano beans drying in the greenhouse

This past week, in addition to planting and harvesting, I have pulled the last of the flagrano beans and put them in the green house for drying.  In a few weeks I’ll separate the beans from the pods and we will have dry beans for the winter months. Over the next few days I’ll harvest the last of the eggplant, beans and peppers, and put the plants in the compost pile. I’m cutting back the lemon verbena for drying (so that we can make tea), and then digging up the root balls to keep in the greenhouse for the winter.  Same goes for the lemon grass, and after harvesting I’ll save the crowns to replant in the spring. 

The next few weeks will consist of more cleanup, a little planting, and lots of harvesting.  In addition I will begin to reflect on the season.  I find it is best to sit down while everything is still fresh in my mind, and write out a list of notes; things I will do differently, crops that were successes or failures and why.  All of this is in preparation to meet with the kitchen, so we can decide what we want for next year.  I’ll let you all know how those meetings progress in the coming months.

Raised beds of Pac Choi

This week on the harvest list we have the last of the lima and French beans, eggplant, and peppers, as well as broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, radishes, spinach, kale, lettuce, pac choi, salsify, scorzonera, carrots, beets, and herbs.