Fall's Bounty

After a fairly blah summer, the garden really started to pick up when it got hot and humid at the end of August.  The past month has meant daily trips to see what needs harvesting.  Usually, that's cherry tomatoes, but other plants have been earning their keep.

I experimented with carrots in a pot that was too small for them, and they did very well.  I've been sowing carrots every couple of weeks in new spots to see what works, and the little pot and the pond have been the greatest successes so far.  I don't need a cellar-full of carrots.  They keep better in the ground.  It's just nice to be able to pull one when I forget to put it on the grocery list.  The pot will probably be for an herb once I pull the last one.

I pretty much ignored the green beans for two weeks.  It was close to 90º, monsoon humid, and I only had one day off work.  I saw the white buds peeking between the leaves when I was watering the pot, but it takes a couple of weeks for a bean to grow.  They blend in with the stems.  Finally, I decided to pick whatever was there to have with a chicken dinner.  Well...

I put them on the kitchen scale.  A quarter pound, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it was three servings.  And there are more flowers and baby beans.  They were just waiting for the right weather conditions.  These are all the bush variety.  There's one weak pole bean left, twining itself into the tomato plants and not producing any beans.

The pot next to the bush beans has been empty for a couple of months, since I harvested all the turnips.  I finally decided to put in some September peas.  I rigged up a trellis out of scrap wood and twine, and we'll see how many I can get before December.

Two or three days a week, I'm working to preserve tomatoes.  Since I don't need canned, some became freezer pasta sauce.  The excess cherry tomatoes are becoming either dehydrated halves if I have the 5 hours it takes to dry them, or confit if I only have a couple of hours.  The big guys are turning into pickles or oven-dried.  I'm trying to avoid freezing any, since that renders them only good for sauce or other uses when you want them to dissolve.

I'm trying to start the fall greens and herbs, but it refuses to stay below 80º.  I can't even do kitchen pots, since it's up to 85º inside half the time.  There's no point in germinating arugula or cilantro if they're going to bolt before they have enough leaves to harvest.  I'm on my third attempt at parsley and celery.  It's just a touch too warm.  If this one doesn't work, I'll reluctantly buy starts.  I did manage to get some leeks going inside.  They will be transplanted when they're strong enough.

I'm not going to grow kale next year.  For one thing, chard tastes better.  Mainly, I'm tired of fighting the bugs.  If I take a break, the butterflies will forget and go somewhere else.  I'm also going to skip that space hog broccoli.  It's cheap in the market.  I can grow four types of lettuce, about six turnips, or a dozen carrots in the space it takes to grow one broccoli, and lettuce can survive the flooding if it rains a lot this winter.  There's going to be a shocking amount of square footage once the determinate tomatoes come out.