Friday, October 28, 2011

What's Growing in the Fall Garden

Though I've ripped out most of my plants in the garden, I still have a few producing. Or in the case of carrots I have tons. Above is a spot about 2'x8' section of my circle garden filled with carrots ready to pick. Since the circle garden is surrounded by bricks and brick path and close to the kitchen door I want to save these and cover them when the ground starts to freeze. I want to bring carrots to Thanksgiving. BTW the netting on this bed is for the almost gone lettuce. The birds would eat it down to the stubs if I didn't do this.

Then there is the main part of the garden that is lower in sun. These carrots were planted earlier than the ones in the circle garden, but with the lack of sun they are small and many aren't even big enough to pick. Over the next few weeks I'll be eating the ones that are large enough. I'll leave the rest and see if they make it to spring. This area is a massive area of carrots. I've probably got over 30 sqft of carrots in this bed, but only if they can mature in time.

The Argentata chard did so much better than the Ruby chard. There seems to be some disease maybe that is distorting the leaves of the Ruby chard, but the Argentata is fairly immune to it. I never knew anything could affect them besides leaf miners. Live and learn. I'll grow the Argentata exclusively next year or at least as long as Fedco offers the seeds.

Also in the Chenepodium family is my spinach. It has been struggling this fall. The leaf miners did a number on it earlier and rotted out their leaves. So I picked all the dying rotting leaves and they have recovered somewhat, but at this point it will be spring spinach and not fall spinach. I'm sure it will overwinter just fine.

My kale is growing so fabulously. I used to have a row cover on it, but in the last couple of days I haven't seen any of those white butterflies. So I'm guessing it is safe to uncover. Which is good since I wanted to stake them for fall and they were getting too tall of the cover. I'll leave them unprotected this winter and harvest the leaves in January maybe. I want to see which ones survive the winter. These are a mixed batch. I'm not sure which ones they are, but hopefully I'll be able to narrow it down. If they all survive, well then I want to find the tastiest and best growing for next year.

And last but not least are my herbs. I so love fresh herbs. I chop them up in the mornings for my eggs. I toss them on a slice of bread and melted cheese. They have finally filled out their circle. Now my chore will be to keep the English thyme from invading the French thyme. I like the French better, but the English seems to survive better. I also have some Rosemary in this bed. It is supposed to be hardy to zone 6 or 7. I'm hoping it survives. I also have two along the foundation of the house. One that is a hardy one like the above and one that is Tuscan Blue, which is one of the best tasting. I don't have high hopes for the survival of Tuscan Blue, but I had to try.

I also have my Asian greens bed producing, but I'll take photos of that another day.

10 comments:

  1. Seeing all the beds this way makes me really appreciate how my timing is. I hate waiting to plant my cool season stuff, but not having to empty my beds and see that dpressing sight is worth it!

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  2. What a great fall garden. I was surprised to see so many things still growing!

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  3. What a lot of work to have summer/winter gardens. My season is so frantic, but short in Alaska.

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  4. Daphne,

    I have been away from blog world for several months. Your garden looks great! I look forward to catching up on your past blogs catch the news from your garden. I hope that you have enjoyed the bounty from the new beds.

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  5. Sorry to hear you've been sick. I haven't stopped by here lately because I've had no harvests to post. I have some greens out there now but not much. It's snowing this morning so don't know what I'll be able to pick.

    Your new garden did so well this its first year.

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  6. Daphne I am glad to see that you are back and blogging more regularly. Thanks for sharing what is going on in your Fall garden.

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  7. Your remaining crops look good Daphne! My garden feels quite bare right now but there is actually alot available in it for harvesting - now and in future months. My job now is to keep everything healthy through the dark and cold days ahead and to pace my harvesting so as not to deplete my fresh fare too early by overharvesting.

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  8. Wow, you still have lots of green things in the garden! I'm down to broccoli and herbs. Is it spring yet?

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  9. Thats a fabulous lot of carrots - I wish I had more room to plant them here. I do tend to find that the green or white stemmed chard is a lot more productive than the coloured varieties so its interesting that it looks like yours are too.

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