Friday, October 1, 2010

My October garden

It isn't big or fancy.  It is a bit weedy, but I have quite a bit still happening. 

The chickens are in the main garden doing their clean up.  The fall garden is the jungle in front.   I haven't erected any new hoops.  That has to be done this week, if I have time.  We've been having some warm/hot tropical weather lately, but that will end after today.  They aren't saying well get a frost yet, but it can't be far off.  It's already rather late for my area.  I'm actually now questioning whether I'll put them up, or just throw a cover over a few things. 

This is another angle of the bed.  At the top is broccoli, then red cabbage, overgrown bok choy, rainbow chard and then at the bottom is carrots. 

I'm in awe of the carrots.  I've tried so many times to grow decent carrots, without success.  These were planted in late July after the garlic was harvested from this bed.  So far they seem to be doing amazingly well.  In another bed are some beets, planted about the same time.  They are both doing very well.  My spring plantings generally are pretty pathetic.  Since we don't really appreciate the beets in the summer, but love them in the fall, I think I'll stop even doing a spring planting.  It seems it would work out perfectly to harvest the garlic, amend the beds and plant my carrots and beets.  How cool is that? 

The broccoli is also doing remarkably well now.  All those plants that had looked beautiful and healthy, but weren't doing a thing, are now pumping out broccoli like crazy.  With these, there are a few things I'm thinking.  First, they got planted later than they should have.  Second we had a very hot summer and the broccoli loves the cool.  My plan for next year is to winter sow the coles and greens.  I'll then plant a second round in early July and see how that works.  We love our broccoli around here, so finding a good way to grow it is imperative.

How is your fall garden doing?

10 comments:

Daphne Gould said...

I've always found July a good time to plant carrots too. They do well at that time. I think I might just give up succession sowing them, and just do a very early spring planting then a July planting. But we will see. I always change things around.

farmwifetwo said...

Shall I admit it's still a jumble of weeds??? :) Well 3/4's of it is.

I have strawberries still, need to get straw over them shortly. Was surprised to see brussell sprouts, had nearly given up on them. Been eating carrots since late July, I just pull as I want them.

I desperately need to pull the potatoes. The first pulling 2mths ago are nearly used up. Most are still in there, if they keep, I should have more than enough for the winter.

It's "maybe" freeze Sat night. Should the weather hold, if I get a chance next week I'll put up a few more L's of tomatoes. Still have one more round of apples to do. So out of 1 bushel, I should have about 10L of sauce.

farmwifetwo said...

Oh... forgot, dh put up the watermelon and squash this past week. Pumpkins are still out there. I'm debating getting more peppers, but we have beef coming (ours) next week from the butchers and I need to wait and see how much space I have.

UGH!!! Lot's to do... where did Sept go???

The Mom said...

Daphne, I'm still trying to figure out what works best for me. I still feel like a brand new gardener.

Farmwifetwo, mine is quite the jumble of weeds as well. That's what the chickens take care of! It sounds like you've gotten quite a bit harvested and put up.

meemsnyc said...

My carrots did horribly! Only grew like stumps. We got only one broccoli out of 4 plants. Yours looks great.

Karen Anne said...

I just noticed, some of the plants are growing in cinder blocks?

The Mom said...

Meemsnyc, I was sure my broccoli wasn't going to do anything. Just as I was ready to rip it out, it headed up.

Karen Anne, the beds are constructed out of cinder blocks. I made big rectangles of them and filled them with dirt last fall.

Mary said...

Thanks for sharing your fall garden, it inspires me as we are about to plant ours. Your broccoli looks amazing!

We also constructed our beds out of cinder blocks. Last spring we got two cubical pumpkins! The seed fell into the holes...

Karen Anne said...

Cubical pumpkins, ha ha ha :-)

The Mom said...

Mary, the cubical pumpkins sound awesome!