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.  

Read All About It
This fantastic article will appear in tomorrow's Washington Post food section.  Martha Miller does a great job of describing what we do here.  Hope you enjoy reading it!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/food/the-farm-at-the-table/2012/10/08/4299e138-0373-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html

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.