In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Season

If you are counting, we are on our third planting in the Kitchen Garden of 2013...yes, it's time for the Fall Garden! Technically, I guess you'd call it our second "cool season" garden of the year, as the plantings will sound suspiciously like our Spring Garden. When the weather begins to turn cooler, especially the nighttime temps, it's time to say goodbye to the warm season veggies like tomatoes, peppers, squash, and okra for the year, and welcome back "the greens and things." 

Ready for the roll call?

We have (English) peas planted in the Block Garden (shown above), climbing up the fence that Mr. T added after the raccoon(s) destroyed the corn. Inside the fence, we have red cabbage...a second planting of those since the cutworms got the first ones. In the Box Garden, we have 4 varieties of lettuce (Romaine, Bibb, Black-seeded Simpson, and Red Sails); two more kinds of cabbage (Bonnie Hybrid and Early Jersey Wakefield); collards; broccoli; beets; spinach; carrots; onions; and (new for us) Romanesco cauliflower (also known as broccoli or cabbage, depending on which country you grow them). And in the Row Garden where the bean fence was this summer, we've got two rows of turnip greens...yep, I only grow for the greens, since I don't like turnips; Mr. T likes neither.

We are already enjoying the lettuce and a leaf or two of spinach...which, along with the last of the Sun Gold tomatoes and sweet bell peppers, make for some yummy salads this time of the year. Soon, I hope to add some of those tasty green peas.

The Fall Garden presents a few challenges not found with the Spring Garden, even though we are basically growing the same veggies. For one, we have to monitor the moisture level in the soil more closely than in March...the warm, dry days at the end of Summer/beginning of Fall can mean too-dry soil for tender seedlings. That's how I came to have to replant both my beets and my spinach. The seeds germinated, but they didn't receive enough rain in those all-important first 7 days...and I didn't provide supplemental water; before I knew it, the seedlings withered...lost all except one single spinach plant.

The second...and more problematic challenge has to be da Bugs. In the Spring, it's too early for the pest population to have built up their numbers and control is a bit easier. But as Summer turns to Fall, da Bugs are going strong. Until the first frost, we will continue to do battle. 

My main nemesis is the above-mentioned cutworm...which loves all things in the brassica family: newly-added transplants of cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, etc. In addition to chopping through that first planting of red cabbage, you can see (below) that the newly-planted Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage also provided a tasty meal. If that's not enough to contend with, the first plantings of broccoli are quite lacy after an evening with a cabbageworm...despite being covered with a row cover. What's a chemically-cautious gardener to do?

Row covers are my first line of defense...and will be necessary for protection when temps drop below freezing. And, I've sprayed with neem oil and also dusted everything with Dipel Dust [a biological control with the main ingredient being Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt), a microbial pesticide]...which is why it looks like it snowed in that photo above. Next step: crossing my fingers. 

And wishing for an early frost, I suppose. 

Clean'em Up; Move'em Out

It's that time of year when the Summer 2013 (or warm season) garden is winding down, and our thoughts turn to their successors. This post will be about the clean-up activities; the next will be about planting the Fall 2013 garden. Sorta "out with the old, in with the new!" But first...a little recap is in order.

All-in-all, the Summer 2013 garden was a winner in terms of productivity of tomatoes, cucumbers, garlic, onions, okra (shown above), beans, and peppers. The squash were prolific early contributors, but faded toward the end. All that rain we had made for mountains of garden-fresh goodies. 

Of course, all that rain we enjoyed made for an ideal environment for pests, both insects and diseases. Sigh. And, we lost two of our favorite crops (corn and watermelons) to critters...probably a raccoon or ten. A cautionary tale, if ever there was one.

I spent the better part of last weekend pulling up the spent tomato plants (many of which had been productive far longer than I'd imagined after a bout with both early and late blights), the withered squash and pumpkin vines (both of which had succumbed to the appetites of the evil squash vine borer, despite my best efforts with neem oil and spinosad applications), and the lacy-leafed bean plants (which had lost the battle with overwhelming forces in the form of Mexican bean beetles). 

All of this plant residue went in the black Yard Waste toter to be hauled off our property on the regular Wednesday trash day. Normally, we compost "used" plants, but not when they have been damaged by blight or beetles or any other potential "carry-over" pest. We don't need this year's evils overwintering and becoming a challenge for us next summer. No, no, no.

I also put up the final harvest of tomatoes, shown in the picture (below) in the boiling-water bath, just prior to a dunk in ice water, in preparation of removing the skins and being packed in freezer bags. We'll really appreciate them this winter in chilis, soups, and sauces.

Fortunately, the Summer garden is still giving us tasty dishes. For instance, today's harvest is shown in the picture below. 

As you can see for yourself: A beautiful eggplant, a lovely bell pepper, many ripe-to-bursting Sun Gold tomatoes (the five Sun Gold tomato plants survived the blights, the great Clean Out, and are still yielding fruit by the pint), and several red and green jalapeños (all from one plant!). Looks like a Stir-fry to me! Check out my recipe for Beef-Eggplant Stir-fry over on our family blog, The Adsit Adventure. Click here to go there.

So, we are winding down the warm season and preparing for the cool. And in my next post, I'll share what that means.