This morning I started my garden clean up for my fall planting. It was perfect since we had a storm last night that really soaked the garden. I really want to plan ahead so I don't have to do so much in the spring. I feel planting now will give me veggies throughout the winter AND get me ahead of the game for spring!!
My list of things to do is fairly long: I need to pull out spent marigold plants, add more compost, figure out storage of veggies for the winter, direct sow fall crops, start seeds indoors to plant out before September... yep, long!!
This summer was so freak'n hot that I think all of my vegetables were a little late. My zucchinis finally started to produce when the temperatures became a little cooler. The same for the tomatoes. All of a sudden my Cream Sausage tomato plants began to fruit like crazy!!
Speaking of tomatoes, I am totally NOT impressed by the felt pots. The tomato plants were fine but compared to the plastic pots, they didn't do as well in terms of producing tomatoes. All of the tomato plants in the plastic pots grew bigger and produced fruits earlier.
My Amish paste tomato plant in the felt pot still hasn't produced a tomato. Pretty disappointing. I feel differently about the peppers, though. The peppers in plastic pots did well at first, but then later in the season, the peppers in the felt pots caught up.
These are the sweet paprika peppers. The ones in the plastic pots produced fruits earlier but in the end the plant in the felt pot appears to be greener and healthier. The same goes for the Korean peppers.
I'm assuming since the roots of pepper plants don't like to be soggy, the air pruning of the felt pots kept the plants drier and happier. That's all I can figure.
Anyway, going back to fall planting.... this morning I started to go down the list of things to do. First on the list was to pull out any sad looking marigold plants and add compost. I also decided to pull out the one and only corn stalk since it wasn't doing well anyway.
This is the sad looking 3 Sisters bed. In the top pic, the corn is in between the first 2 pole bean plants. You can't even see it. The beans really took over and crowded out the lone corn plant. Sad. I pulled the poor thing out and the roots were super shallow; not the way corn should be apparently.
The winter squash plants along the perimeter of the mound are doing really well, though and I'm excited for the plants to start producing squash. And I have pole beans!!
Once I pulled most of the marigolds out and I added more compost to my second bed. I direct sowed carrots, spinach, daikon radishes, and more collards.
I'm hoping the eggplant will produce something, but if not, I'll pull it out and start my rapini in that area. If the Italian basil doesn't go to seed soon, I'll pull the plant out and make pesto to freeze. As for the zucchini and cucumber plants, I'm waiting for the last of the zucchini and cukes to ripen (probably the end of this week) and I'll pull those plants out to start the swiss chard, lettuces, napa cabbage and kale.
My "To Do" list for this month is to build hoops for my fall beds and make ollas for next spring!! So much to do, so little time!
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