A Quick Look at the Fall Garden

The other day my new job in Lafayette took me a little south and west from the office and I found myself driving down roads that I haven't driven down in years and years.  On an old country road between Loreauville and New Iberia, Farmers were in the middle of sugar cane harvest and as I looked at the cane, it dwarfed the tractors and 18 wheeler tractor trailers loaded with the chopped sugar cane.  I had never seen sugar cane that tall before.  While sugar cane is grown right down the road from where we live, it is not nearly this tall.  My first thought was that perhaps this was a different variety of sugar cane.

But then I looked at the soil.  It was rich and black as onyx.  There's the answer.  It is the rich soil that makes the cane grow like Jack's beanstalk.  The soil is everything.  Unfortunately, the soil 50-something miles west where I live isn't near that good.  Not even close.  We work every year, though, to amend our soil with manure, compost, organic matter, lime and other amendments to improve it, but this takes work, time, and great patience.  Truth be told, I'd like to import some of that black soil to Jeff Davis Parish.

But despite the soil deficiencies and the weather struggles we've had this year, we're still growing fresh vegetables.  Let's take a look.  Here is some healthy looking (and healthy for you to eat) Russian Red Kale.

I love to see the dew-kissed leaves.  While the leaves are still small - about five inches long and four inches wide, it won't be too much longer before it's time to pinch a nice little bunch of these to cook down for supper.

Here is a 24 foot row of Bok Choy or Chinese Cabbage planted from seed I saved from four years ago.  The germination of this saved seed was off the charts.  They are planted really thick as insurance against poor germination, but now I know I didn't need to do this.

I'll thin them out by plucking out a 'mess' of the baby bok choy to braise as a healthy, tasty side dish for supper.  The young, tender leaves are tasty.    

If there is such thing as growing candy in the garden, this is as close as it gets. Here is a portion of a 24 foot row of Sugar Snap Peas.  The young peas are reaching skyward with their tendrils about to grab hold of the trellis.

When these sugar snap peas bloom and put on pods, many of them never make it in to the kitchen to be stir fried - they get eaten right out here in the garden.

These are late this year due to the unusually wet August that delayed planting, but our carrots are just popping up.

And here is some baby spinach.  I planted more spinach a couple weeks later than these were planted to have a staggered harvest.  Raw spinach is good.  So is creamed spinach.  That might be good on the Thanksgiving menu.

One row over is the cabbage, then cauliflower, and then broccoli.

There's other items coming and I've yet to plant my mustard and turnips, but it is a good start considering the delay.  I'll show the fall tomatoes a little later.  It is really going to to be a race to see if we get any tomatoes before the first frost.  They have their first blooms now.  Who knows?  It is November and in the 80's still.  It is an abnormal year for sure.  That's what makes gardening the adventure that it is!