October Update

It’s fall, and the garden is winding down….or should be.

Actually, our summer staples – hot peppers and tomatoes – continue to thrive in the dry, mild weather. The volunteer Roma plant that grew back in last year’s location yields about a tomato per day, and I even spotted baby tomato plants growing back where this year’s crop had been.

These little guys must not know it’s fall.

Summer sagas continue…
I picked about a dozen jalapenos today. Last week, unwilling to go through the whole canning process but wanting to pickle the 2 dozen or so jalapenos we’d gotten in the past few days, I tried fridge-pickling them. Success! I’m not sure how long they’ll last, but they taste just as good – here’s the method I used. This time, I’m not so sure- they may get popped into the freezer as October’s lazy days continue.

The cayennes are really the stars of the summer-into-fall show, though. Each time we go out to the garden, they come in by the boatloads! Not to mention, they’re still putting out new flowers. I’m sure the first really cold snap will put them in their place, but for now, we’re picking, drying, and grinding up as many as possible to stay stocked up on hot pepper flakes for the rest of the year.

Fall’s leafy greens
Of the red chard, collards, kale, lettuce, and broccoli that we sowed, they’ve been successful in the following order:

• Collards. Wheee! These guys can’t get enough of our raised beds. We cooked up a big pot of them last weekend, and already they’re regrowing to the extreme. Pictured: the younger collard plants sown more recently, which still show lots of promise.
  

  The younger batch of collards, ready to go.

• Red chard. These guys are young but going very strong in straight rows. Can’t wait until they mature.
  

  Chard – lookin’ happy!

• Lettuce. Fewer of the seeds germinated, but the plants we’re getting look delicious. We’re eating some in a salad tonight!
  

  One of several lettuce heads that made it through. Yum.

• Kale. Only one plant germinated, but he’s happy and healthy, ready to harvest (if the slugs don’t devour him first).
• Broccoli. Nothing doing. The seeds didn’t even come up. Dare I plant another batch?

I’ll stop here to avoid cramming too much info into one post. It’s nice to have this bounty going into mid-October – we’ll be well prepared for the winter ahead!