Well, here it is September 10th already. How on earth did that happen? I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun! We’ve had some storytelling, laughter, and sharing of information at the farmstand this year for starters. Should we mention that Daisy has been a much better vegetable helper this year? She’s only barked a little bit, and mostly was interested in getting petted and finding out who had treats for her.
During this growing season, we saw all kinds of weather! From chilly to boiling hot and humid and everything in between. This past Saturday was definitely chilly at 50 degrees while we set up and that breeze kept us in our sweatshirts and work boots.
The gardens also saw all sorts of weather conditions and some were impactful – like the two high wind events within a couple of days early this summer. That is what kept us from having lots of tomatoes. All those blossoms were ripped off the plants, and then high humidity and heat just made it difficult for them to recover. However, I tried all the things to make them happy enough to set new growth and flowers and they are doing it NOW! Will they have time to mature? Will the scraggly plants be able to support this new growth? Am I even trying – YES! I will keep doing all the good things until it’s clear that we won’t see mature fruits. My inner meteorologist has felt that this will be a long, lazy, warm fall and that would be perfect! Keep your fingers crossed for one last round of nice slicers!
So, let’s get to the points about the gardens. Many tomatoes have been pulled already, and one very late Big Beef was planted as a Hail Mary. I’m happy to report that it is a beautiful plant loaded with small green fruits and it seems happy to keep going. The cherry tomatoes have been late getting started after losing all the fruits and blossoms in the wind storms, but be sure to get some while they’re giving! Salad tomatoes are slowing, but still giving pretty little tomatoes. Heirloom tomatoes have slowed to a crawl, but both varieties have maturing fruits – smaller than in the heat of summer, but we expect smaller fruits during shorter days.
Let’s talk about beans. This is by far the best season ever! The original bed is flowering and giving again!! Bed 2 is giving, Bed 3 has been whipped by wind but is still giving beans, and Bed 4 is starting to show signs of good harvests in the next week or two! The newer beds are a shorter bean variety so we could get them to maturity before cold weather gets here, so that means more beans to make a pound and overall less pounds coming out of the beds, but it’s still fresh beans in September!
The small hoop house has broccoli and mini broccoli that are starting to form heads. This week’s warm weather will have them coming on quickly, but keep in mind that there are just two small beds, so we won’t be seeing huge harvests at once. These plants will give steady, smaller harvests over a longer period of time.
There are new kale plants set out, new kale seeds were sown, and the original kale plants are looking better after some insects were killed with soap and water. More lettuce and spinach seeds were put in flats to get them started (the last ones directly seeded were pounded into the ground by a huge unexpected rain). The Swiss chard continues to do well!
Today, I seeded radishes for a fall harvest in a few weeks! Many of the squash and zucchini plants have been pulled after powdery mildew and high insect pressure. More have been seeded and I’m hopeful that we’ll see some late harvests from them. Again, the insects have been slowed with soap and water, so there’s a better chance for them to produce nice fruit.
Carrots enjoyed a great season and I’ve made a note to keep seeding them every other week again next year. The last full bed has been pulled, though. A vole found them and was enjoying the bottoms of those sweet roots. More have been sprouted and more seeds have gone in. These will be shorter carrots to get them maturing in fewer days.
What’s that tall bushy plant with the pale yellow flowers that look like magnolias? That is okra! There are double the number of plants this year, and it has been tough to keep them picked at a small size. Also, they have grown to be enormous plants with a jungle of huge leaves on 18″ stems. They’ve been pruned back several times and just make more! For the effort put in and the amount sold, this will probably not make the cut for next year’s garden. So, get it while you can! Let me know if you want some and I’ll make a waiting list and get to picking.
Peas were amazing in spring and through August! The late seeding was ravaged by the high heat, so fall crops will be very sporadic.
Peppers. Ahhh, peppers. They are most abundant at this time of year! In fact, all of them are LOADED! We will be doing grab bags soon. Those will be a good deal monetarily, and they’ll be perfect to prep for your freezer. You’ll be glad to have them for spaghetti sauce, chili, casseroles, omelettes, and so much more! Did you know you can make and freeze jalapeno poppers?? It’s a thing!
The acorn and spaghetti squash are ripening quickly, and I’ll keep you posted when they’re harvested.
Flowers will be interesting from this point forward. Sunflowers have had a great season, but are finished. The birds will continue to enjoy their seeds. Zinnias need to be deadheaded again and we should see more, albeit smaller, flowers coming back quickly. Some of the fillers have fizzled in the wacky hot-cold-hot cycle, but things like asters and sedum are starting to show their fall colors.
As the season slows and we are only setting up on Saturdays, please let me know if there are things you’d like during the week because there will be crops to harvest. There just isn’t enough to justify setting up for three hours, and this gives me Wednesdays to get weeds, crops, landscape and lawn under control. During the week, there are peppers, cherry or salad tomatoes, maybe some slicers, maybe some broccoli, a few pounds of beans, some beets, broccoli leaves, chard, okra and flowers that could be picked for you. I’m going out now to pick the essentials before they go too far in this afternoon’s heat. Get in touch if there’s something that you want.
Thanks for reading to the end! And, again, thank you all for your support this season!