Though the tomatoes and peppers and melons are gone, and the gloriously abundant roots of summer are now stored in the mud room, there is still food in the garden.
At this time of year we’re harvesting the daikons, pak choi, mustard and mizuna we planted two months ago.
We’re also bringing in oregano and rosemary, as well as the African blue basil which somehow managed to dodge the first frost of the year.
We planted an assortment of brassicas in the two test beds we used to see if mimosa leaves could be used as a fertilizer, and those have been bringing us a consistent supply of greens. Some of them are rutabagas, which I didn’t even remember I had planted, so I’ll probably thin some of the greens around them to give them more space to grow. If the weather stays mild enough, we could have greens and radishes all winter, yet that rarely happens here. Though our winters aren’t harsh by northern standards, they do swing erratically in temperature. We’ll get 80-degree weather for a week followed by an overnight plunge into the low 20’s. That wreaks havoc on plants.
It’s rather akin to being on the beach in your bathing suit, then having a snowstorm whip through.
This is what AI thinks that would look like:
We can’t take that sort of a temperature swing, and neither can the plants.
This is why we buy thrift store sheets and blankets and cover our rows on frosty nights. Though some of these greens are known to handle cold weather, they often don’t adapt well to it since it’s usually warm before turning cool.
The greens and herbs we picked this morning will be sautéed with scrambled eggs and bacon. We’re also fermenting daikons and serving them as a side with breakfast.
In the summer, we enjoy endless cucumbers and melons. Now we enjoy rich and delicious greens.
The seasons are a blessing. Just about the time you get bored with something, it finishes and a new crop begins.
We only planted a few beds of greens, but they’re more than enough to keep us from buying any vegetables. We still have months of pumpkins and sweet potatoes to eat, not to mention all the yams we’ve not yet dug!
Rachel just texted to tell me breakfast is ready… but before I run, did anyone else plant a fall garden?
10 comments
It would be interesting to see if there is a noticable difference in flavors between the mimosa beds and regular beds. Like with the fertilizer experiments last year.
I planted a fall garden, but I got an infestation of crazy ants (Invasive) the wreaked havoc on everything. Fortunately the curly dock really kicked in after we got rain, and that has filled the void on greens, so far. Hopefully, with the cooler weather the ants will be more controllable and I can get some greens going before winter starts.
I did but the deer and rabbits want my food worse than I do. I have some cabbage growing close to the house in containers. It’s the only way to keep them out of it. I do have garlic and onions growing and so far they don’t like those. Hope it stays that way. The deer even ate my Mexican sunflower leaves. It’s bare!
I threw Roma beans on some dug over ground with some “out of date” seeds I had to make a winter ground cover that wasn’t weeds, and I was surprised I got a lot of green bush beans and greens out of the deal. Better than leaving the pigweed and bindweed to take over like usual.
I did! I do every year it’s my favorite time to garden. Not much to do but harvest!!! It makes me real grateful to live in the Pacific Northwest, every year I get jealous in February and March watching you southerners starting to get warm weather crops in the ground while I’m just getting things started under lights. But overtime I realized I live in one the most blessed climates, it never really gets too cold and it never really gets too hot. I can’t grow sweet potatoes but can pretty much grow everything else. With are gradual night time cooling temps that touch frost everything survives the winter if the rains don’t destroy them which usually they don’t. Plus we get a full winter of radicchio salads!
We did. There’s kale, collards, lettuce, broccoli, chard, cabbage, mixed winter greens, carrots and beets.
I live in California’s San Joaquin Valley and I’m still harvesting tomatoes. They should last until we get a bout of cold rainy or foggy weather. Snap and snow peas are coming in well and the volunteers are flowering. It stays very hot here until the end of September so had to wait a bit to plant the greens. They are just starting to come up, along with carrots and beets. I also have some crazy cucumber plants that decided to spout in mid October when it was still quite warm. Expect them to die off when we get a frost. Onions and scallions are up and looking good. I very much enjoy reading your posts as your gardening experience – climate wise – seems very different from mine. However, your tips are universal and I enjoy your advice. Congrats on the new young one.
Yes to a fall garden! We are currently harvesting pole beans, collards, kale, pigeon peas and sugar snap peas. With some cabbages, hulless oats, carrots, Brussels sprouts and broccoli growing for a later harvest.
The perennials are giving us raspberries, Jerusalem artichoke, and our fig trees are still pumping out figs in Zone 8b/9a. God is good!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family too David! May God bless you also!
David,
We planted a fall garden in a few raised beds here in Northwest Florida.
I covered the carrots but ran out of sheets and blankets for the wintergreen bed. The greens bed consists of collards, radishes, turnips, kale, swiss chard, and a few mustards we had left over from last years seed supply. I hope this lightfreeze last night didn’t kill them. I guess we can call it a science experiment
We also had two days of winterizing prep on the homestead. We covered all our 2 year old citrus trees and 1 year old bananas (ice cream and another variety, i forget the name) on our south facing wall. We also added some thermal mass to the cheap greenhouse we got two years ago to keep our small nursery going.
Well its getting to he daylight outside, time to go tend to the chickens and take a look at how the plants did last night.
Take care,
Cory