Fall Garden Progress

Due to the summer-long drought and then Benjamin's accident in which we lost all of September, we didn't thing we would be able to get a Fall Garden in this year.  Well, we got it done.  There was one crop we didn't get planted in time.  Potatoes.  It was just too late to plant them.  Everything else was planted by the fall deadline.  As of right now, there's only one additional thing I'll plant.  Turnips.  I don't like turnips, but I like turnip greens.  Nothing goes to waste, though.  The cows love turnips.  I eat the greens and I cube up the turnips and feed them to the cows.

Last year we got an early hard freeze that wiped out a lot of our seedlings like carrots and beets.  That's why it is so important to get the plants up and growing.  Let's check in on a few of them.  Here's a small bed of Red Romaine Lettuce:

And here is some Black Seeded Simpson leaf lettuce.  We like lots of salads, even in the cooler temperatures.  It gets hot so fast in the spring that the lettuce bolts to flower and gets bitter.  In the fall we can grow all we can eat and give away.

This is a miracle tomato. I don't know what the variety is, but somehow this tomato plant came up volunteer from seed and made it through the drought.  I noticed it and would give it water.  It has flourished like a champ.  It stands about 3 feet tall right now and has a tomato on it and lots of blooms.

Here is some Russian Red Kale.  I also planted some Siberian Kale that is just starting to come up in the next row.

I have three varieties of carrots that are popping up.  They are slow to germinate, but when they come, they really come.  I'll have to thin them out once they get a little bigger.  I've got orange carrots, purple carrots, and red carrots.

The two rows of snap beans ought to be blooming soon.  We have Contenders, Romas, and Purple Teepee beans.  Just to the left of those rows are three varieties of beets: Detroit Red, Bull's Blood, and Chioggia beets.  To the right are two varieties of Sweet Potatoes: Golden Wonder and Beauregard.  I normally harvest those in October, but I think I'll wait until December (or the first frost) to harvest them as they didn't grow a bit during the drought.

On the trellis where the spring cucumbers grew, I have Sugar Snap peas growing.

They'll climb up the trellis, clinging tightly by their tendrils to the panels that they climb on.

We also have garlic, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, buckwheat, two varieties of spinach (Galilee & Monstrieu de Viloflay), and finally, radishes.  I did plant some parsley from some seed I saved, but I think the germination is bad.  I'll have to buy some plants.

We also planted broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower from seed.  As soon as they get a little bigger, I'll transplant into the garden.  The okra is still producing as is the eggplant and peppers.  As soon as all that plays out, I'll plant something else in their place, even if it's only a cover crop.  So happy to be able to get the garden in!