Fall In The Garden

The weather is changing here!! It seems a little early compared to last year, but I welcome it.  I've been trying to clean up my psycho garden.  I've chopped down a lot of my squash plants and finally pulled out my melon plants.  All but one tomato plant have been pulled out.

I've planted hairy vetch seeds in the watermelon/melon bed and in half of the flower bed as a cover crop this year. 

PVC hoops are up in preparation for plastic sheeting to extend my growing season. 

The seeds and seedlings that I planted in late summer had a rough start but are thriving now (caterpillars went loco in mid August and almost devestated my cole crops).

This is my bed with the cole crops.  Caterpillars ate up my napa cabbages first but they're starting to sprout leaves again.  From right to left are dinosaur kale, napa cabbages, and collards.  In between, I've planted dwarf bok choy, but they got chewed up, too.  The collard in the back by the perilla (the tall plants in the back left corner) was completely eaten, but I think the bunny did that. The stalk at least still looks healthy so hopefully, the leaves will grow back.

My very large Upper Ground Sweet Potato squash has turned completely tannish orange.  I'm giving it another week before cutting it off the vine. 

These are my Kyoto Red Carrots.  They did very well in the wine barrels. These should be ready to harvest next month. 

In this bed, I have daikon radishes, Korean radishes and Giant Asian radishes, scallions, and Kuroda carrots. 

This bed had the most issues.  The Swiss chards were chewed up, spat out and chewed up again.  I planted 4 and the squirrels dug up one, the caterpillars and slugs ate the others.  Under the row cover are lettuce seeds that I kept throwing in but realized that the ants were stealing them.  I'm waiting now to see what actually pops up before I plant lettuce seedlings that I've been growing indoors. To the right are Korean mustards and Komatsuna.  I'm totally in love with mustards.  These grow so well in cooler temps. Next spring, I'm planning on growing giant Southern mustards since they can take a little more hot weather.

The Korean peppers are all turning bright red and beautiful.  I've been drying peppers for the last 2 months.  I'm hoping this year, I'll be able to grind my own Korean pepper flakes! And of course, at the base of the pepper plants, my weird strawberry plants that won't die.  I don't think I've actually watered them since July. :-P