The summer garden is still alive and kicking. I was able to harvest my first cucumber and there is at least one more to harvest and 4 more tiny ones. If the weather holds out, those might grow big enough to harvest.
(If you remember, the cucumber plant was one of the things that I threw a packet of old seeds on the garden to see if anything took. One cucumber seed took!)
The tomato plants are still growing and the fruit is growing bigger. So far, none are turning red. There is a local blogger near me that posted what to watch for as the summer ends to know when to pull all the green tomatoes off the plants and bring them inside. As of now, my plants aren’t showing any signs of late blight. I’ll leave them in place until I start seeing that they’re telling me it’s time to do something else.
The asparagus shot up two new stalks this past month. I’m not picking any this year because it needs to all go to seed and nourish the crown underground. Having thought I had killed it, we have thankfully had 15 stalks come up. Hopefully next year will be a great year for asparagus.
The beets and kale are coming along in that part of the garden as well. The one cabbage that is still green seems to have stopped growing. I’ll have to read up on how to grow cabbage as what I’ve planted is obviously missing something it needs.
The peas seem to be a bust. I’ll get some supports set up for them next year. They started out well, but are puny and also seem to have stopped growing.
The black beans are slowly drying in their pods. Once the pods feel papery, I pluck them. All of the dried beans are being saved to be used as seed for next year. (Although, yesterday I saw that a 50lb bag of black beans at the business Costco is $20.69 – I’m pretty sure I can’t grow enough black beans in our backyard to supply us for the year and certainly don’t think I can do it for less than $21.) Gardening right now isn’t about supplying all of our needs. Maybe someday I’ll grow a crop large enough to supply us for the year, but that isn’t this year.
I harvested the potatoes from this part of the garden. All total between the garden and the pot, I got a bit over10 lbs. of potatoes from 2 lbs. of seed potatoes. There are some little potatoes from this batch that I’ll see if I can save to use for seed potatoes next year. And I’ll also try cutting the potatoes to have more to plant.
The onions are tiny, but still alive. I’ll need to read up on them as well to ensure I put them to bed properly for the winter.
Some of berries in the yard are still coming along. The alpine strawberries are still blossoming and growing berries. That’s a very pleasant surprise! I love everbearing!!
The huckleberries are continuing to ripen. I’ll probably harvest them a couple more times before I leave the rest for the birds.
The raspberries are producing their fall crop. We have everbearing raspberries. That means that the spring crop is coming in on second year canes and they die off. The fall crop is coming in on first year canes. I got into the patch a bit this afternoon and cleaned up some of the old, dead canes. Hopefully that’ll open it up slightly for more light and air to get into the whole patch.
The lingonberries are producing a second crop this fall as well. These also seem to be everbearing. Our lingonberries bushes are still very small, and we’re only getting about 5-6 berries per plant right now. I expect that to increase quite a bit in the coming years!
For the fall garden on the side of the house, things are doing fairly well. Slugs are a problem, but I’ll use some anti-slug measures to try to get them to stop. The few beans that are growing are getting eaten alive. The radishes are doing well and most of the ones I transplanted after thinning seem to have taken. They’re a bit smaller but, are upright and still green. The beets are small but coming along. The spinach and kale both seem rather small and slow, but I’m hopeful those will both take off.
The Delicata Squash is doing well and there are several squashes that are growing. It seems I’ll get a couple of those if they ripen before the first frost. Since they are a winter squash, I’m sure I still have time.
We have harvested a few apples, but have decided to cut out two of our three trees. One of the trees has never produced good apples. (See the picture below of the ugly, bug bitten apples.) And the other tree didn’t produce anything at all this year. We’ll keep the columnar apple tree unless we start seeing issues with apple maggots on that one.
Lastly, the sweet potato is going strong. As least I assume by the foliage that what is below ground is doing well. I’ll wait to harvest that until first front.
All told, so far, we’ve harvested a little over 103 lbs. in the backyard with more to come!!