Closing garden for the year with last of the harvests

It's been a while since I posted any updates. We've had hard frost down to 20 degrees couple of nights so all garden items other than under the covers have been removed. You can see few last tomatoes and peppers from 3 weeks ago, onions and potatoes that were picked earlier but not weighted in - these are the last of our onions. Definitely will need to plant a lot more next year. Turnips are plentiful but too strong so won't be planting this variety again. Winter carrots are hanging in there - we've been picking few here and there for meals. Still have greens - parsley, arugula and salads and some remaining herbs.  And today picked out the rest of the leeks and scallions from small bed by the shed - it was overrun with weeds so leeks came out pretty small. But of course it's more than enough for us for winter.

So now the beds are cleaned, turned, leafs are gathered and mulched and layered on top of beds - in couple of weeks we'll turn it up all again and let it compost over winter for spring planting. I only have two beds remaining under covers in the small garden - that's salads and arugula, carrots and parsley. Winter is definitely here so hope it will go fast because I'm ready for spring planting :) Until then happy Gardening to Australia/New Zealand and southern states that still warm enough to get winter crops going. See you in spring :)

Planting Garlic and Harvest weekend

It's been very slow two weeks. We get few greens and remaining tomatoes and peppers for meals. And picked up our "surprise" watermelon. It wasn't hot enough for it to fully ripen but it was still tasty. Also picked up some turnips, one of the fall carrots that is very twisted; and found a nice Maitake in the local park under an old oak tree.

And this weekend I planted some of my garlics - German Porcelain Garlic (left) that I had this  year and plenty left for winter, Inchelium Red Garlic (right), and Kettle River Giant (middle) that I ordered new to try.

The new varieties are soft-neck and supposed to have nice flavor with long shelf-life. Will see how they'll perform in my garden and if the flavor is as good as described.  I will plant second wave of more German Porcelain next weekend in large garden bed to have more for green garlic for cooking in spring - I really like their scapes.

End of September harvest

This week's harvest is very basic - herbs, onions, potatoes and peppers and a handful of remaining tomatoes. Not in the picture are radishes, turnips, kale and beans - they were eaten before I realized that pictures were not taken.  After all that parsley was cleared from bed we found a nice watermelon still growing - its stem is still green so we're not picking it just yet.

Garden season is coming to an end we had few nights dipping down to 37 so frost is coming soon. In the garden we have carrots seeded, more kale, broccoli and cauliflower but it depends on how much longer we'll get sunny weather for all this to grow. I still hope to see some fall produce.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see how other gardeners are doing with their harvest each Monday.

September 22 harvest

Things are slowly getting back to normal at home, but garden is lagging behind. I'm not allowed to work on it for a while as I'm not allowed to bend or pick up anything heavy. But things do get harvested little by little. Tomatoes are pretty much over, only few remaining plants are still hanging in there - black cherry, black brandywine, red zebra, and azoychka being picked. Peppers finally woke up and producing like crazy so I'm happy with them - plenty for my hubby's meals. Parsley and kale are also on overdrive, young turnips that were planted in first week of August are being picked now, and two remaining ears of corn - second generation on old stalks were picked.

Visit Daphne's Dandelions to see how other gardeners are doing with their harvest each Monday.

Happy September Harvest

It's been a very long two weeks for me here, including one week vacation in Vermont at the end of August, which was fabulously relaxing in a really beautiful mountain settings. While I was away most of the harvesting was done by my sister but most of it was also not measured so no pictures of those harvests. She did help me dug up a bed of potatoes from the large garden, so one of these days I'll try to weight it together with remaining onions but it won't be for a while longer. When we came back I did pick few items for eating with pictures below.

For now I'm taking few weeks off gardening to take care of some health issues so won't be posting any updates for a bit. Maybe closer to October if my fall garden decides to grow this time and bunnies will leave anything growing - there are leftover peppers that still producing, seeded new carrot bed, turnips and greens. And of course there will be late-fall planting of garlic and brassicas for spring. Happy gardening in the meanwhile!