The Display Vegetable Garden in October

The first hard frost finally arrived in mid-October. That frost finished the growing season for the Black Beauty zucchini, the beans, the tomatoes and the squash vines. So sad to see the last remnants of the once-flourishing garden shrivelled beyond all recognition. With the bountiful harvest of squash, zucchini, tomatoes and beans we’ve been too busy freezing and processing to mourn the loss of our vegetable garden.

Successful Vegetables

The Anna Hubbard squash were the stars of the October vegetable garden. Seeds were sown directly into the soil at the end of May and produced four vigorous plants. A couple of weeks ago, under threat of a hard frost, we harvested 13 very fine looking squash. Each squash weighted in at about 3 to 5 lbs. The Anna Hubbard squash have a very dense flesh. Once baked in the oven for 30-40 minutes the squash becomes soft enough for eating or baking. This vegetable is really delicious when slathered with maple syrup.

Surprisingly the Black Beauty Zucchini continued to producing new zucchini despite the light frosts. The zucchini leaves showed damage but kept right on producing until the first really heavy frost in the second week of October. We harvested about a dozen zucchinis and stuck them in the crisper of our refrigerator. Black Beauty seems to be a very good “keeper” as the larger zucchini are still nice and firm though picked 2 weeks ago.

Carrots continue getting fatter and fatter. They are still producing nice looking and tasty carrots. The October frosts haven’t damaged the carrots at all, though we did cover them twice so far. At this time of year, we usually see some slug damage, but curiously, we haven’t seen any chewed up carrots this year.

Ironically, the parsley, which finally started sprouting in late August, is now lush, green and delicious. Parsley is frost-resistant, so it’s a great fall crop that will hopefully keep producing until November. Chard is still growing though very slowly. Since only one of the four chard plants bolted we still have a decent amount of fresh chard to add to our soups and salads.

October has turned out to be a lovely month with today’s temperatures reaching a unexpected high of 68 degrees (or 19 Celsius) . The color of the leaves was just magnificent this year providing this wobright colorful backdrop to the farm. Frosts have been light enough to allow the hardier vegetables to continue growing, so we’re still eating those fresh salads we’ve become addicted to. That won’t continue for long, so we’ll enjoy every minute while it lasts.

Happy Gardening!
Annie Rose

Footnote: Our Nikon D40 suffered “irreparable water damage” according to Nikon which apparently can happen simply by taking the camera into a “humid environment”. The pictures this month were taken with the Google Smart Phone, the Nexus HTC. It’s a wonderful phone, camera, personal organizer, compass, GPS, toy and in a pinch – like now – a real life-saver.

The Display Vegetable Garden in August

August was a perfect blend of heat and rain. The vegetable garden has flourished into a tangled jungle. The regular rains made it totally unnecessary to lug heavy hoses around. Since the garden was really overgrown, the weeds never had a chance. Basically all we do now is harvest our bounty of crops.

Successful Vegetables

Our plan to pick only the larger carrots and leave the little ones has worked out fabulously. The remaining carrots are now all a decent size. We pick a couple every day, and there still seem to be a good number of remaining carrots.
My Black Beauty zucchini have gone bionic. The main zucchini plant simply dominates the other two plants, but has steadily produced 5 to 6 zucchini each and every week. I’m very pleased with Black Beauty as even the larger zucchinis tend to be nice and tender .

The beans now have lovely big, fat, tasty and juicy pods. We love the mottled beige and brown color of the pods in salads. Because of the overcrowding the bean plants never reached their expected height, but with this years bounty, it hardly matters.

The first crop of lettuce has been purged from the garden. For our second crop we had planted only Romaine lettuce in early July which has done surprisingly well in the heat.

Vegetables with Issues

The second crop of parsley barely came up, probably due to a combination of too much shade, too much competition and the evil slugs. Lettuce has all bolted now, expect the latest crop of Romaine.

Happy Gardening

Annie Rose

The Display Vegetable Garden in July

What a difference a month has made. The 12 x 12 foot display garden is now producing quite nicely and has begun to look like a bit of a jungle. July has continued to be delightfully warm, with just-in-time rain showers. Though it’s probably a great exercise for me, not having to pull around those 100 foot hoses has been such a relief

Successful Vegetables
The couple of remaining radishes inter-planted among the carrots have now gone to seed to provide next year’s crop. The carrots have graduated to “baby carrot” size. The carrots are still pretty closely planted, but I regularly thin them and add the baby carrots to my salads.

The snow peas stand about 3 feet tall now, rapidly outgrowing their initial supports. The snow pea pods are a lovely yellow, and provide nice color in salads. The pods on shelling peas are starting to get nice and fat, and should be ready for picking any day now.

Zucchini plants do not seem to like transplanting. The untouched Black Beauty Zucchini is doing very well with 3 small fruits, whereas the transplanted zucchini has yet to bloom. The third zucchini, planted from old seed, looks like it’s picked up a powdery mildew problem and will have to be pulled. No beans, cucumbers or squash yet, but lots of leaves, flowers and hints of things to come.

The lettuce is fabulous. The three lettuce types chosen were brilliant and we’ve eaten salads every day since the middle of June. Surprisingly the Grand Rapids lettuce has retained its great taste though it’s just starting to bolt. The Iceberg lettuce still looks and tastes like a leaf lettuce and shows no inclination of bolting. The Romaine lettuce is now just starting to “close” into that lovely core of lettuce. We expect the Romaine lettuce to reach its prime in another week or so.

Vegetables with Issues

It’s tough being green. We lost round one of the tatsoi versus flea beetle battle. Beetles: one – gardener: zero. We’ve brewed up a batch of garlic/hot pepper spray and will let the beetles have it. We are going to try surrounding the new plants with coffee grounds as well, to see if this makes any difference.

Replanting the peanuts was in vain. Some critter dug up all my freshly planted seeds and ate the whole lot. We give up – no peanuts this year.

July has been just lovely, sunny and warm – a great year for the garden and one to remember for years to come.

Happy Gardening to you all.

Annie Rose

Related posts:

The Display Garden in June
The Display Garden in August

Advantages of Planting Vegetable Gardens

Many people say they have little or no time to go to the gym or health spa to workout. Make gardening your daily dose of exercise. Tending your vegetable garden for at least 30 minutes a day is a great way to burn those excess calories and lose weight. You are able to work several major muscle groups in the body, like the legs, arms, back, buttocks and many others. Gardening also improves your flexibility each time you stretch to reach for weeds or bend to plant a seedling.

By the time your crops are ready for harvest, you will notice a change in your body, especially if you look after your garden on a regular basis. Unlike jogging, playing basketball and others, gardening has less impact on your joints. Gardening is best were vigorous exercises is not applicable, such as for people with high blood pressure, heart diseases, bone joint disorders and many others.

With all the types of vegetables you buy from the Supermarket on a weekly basis you really can not know whether the vegetables you buy are free of pesticides. Produce now comes from all over the world. Some vendors claim that their vegetables are free from harmful chemicals but they would only know this if they grew them themselves. Prolonged dietary exposure to pesticides is linked to various adverse reproductive and developmental effects, although there is little data to support this. Your children are at higher risk to the dangers of such chemicals on the vegetables they consume. Their bodies are not yet fully developed to properly metabolize or excrete such substances.

Once you grow your own vegetables you will notice how much better they taste compared what you can buy at your local grocery store. You will find out how much more flavorful your harvest is, whether you eat right from the garden or put in your favorite vegetable salad. Be it because of the extra amount of love and care these home-grown vegetables got or the person taking pride in growing crops in his or her backyard, it doesn’t rally matter. What really matters is what you serve on the table, that it is fresh right out of your vegetable garden for all to enjoy.