Thursday, September 30, 2021

September's Garden (2021)


This month we began clearing out the finished summer vegetables and planting seeds for the winter garden. Fall arrived early. The heat normally breaks around the middle of September but instead, it broke the first of this month. It has been cooler than in the past. October 15th is our first average frost date which means the peppers, beans, tomatoes, sweet potatoes and squash will probably die soon.


In the potato then squash patch, the Tahitian Butternut Squash has produced its crop and is winding down.


Since the squash was planted late in the season after the potatoes were mostly dug they will not be harvested until the day after the first killing frost to give them a chance to fully develop their sweet flavor. The many undug missed potatoes are now sprouting beside the squash.


No one has touched this bed since Reese and I were covered in fire ants while digging the potatoes.  Brave Bill retrieved the abandoned shovel left in the middle because I wouldn't step back inside. There are two fire ant colonies and they keep getting bigger. After the squash dies, I will deal with them somehow.


The sweet potatoes planted in horse manure inside the big blue tubs beside the potato/squash bed will be dug up (or dumped out) this month. I am looking forward to discovering if growing them in big buckets will make digging easier. 


The peppers are loaded and ready to harvest. That will be a major chore right before the first frost since I want as many to ripen as possible.


This was the tomato rows one week ago before Bill pulled the fences up.  I had given up on them producing anything before frost. Twelve inches of rain in one day was more than they could handle.


Their area will become two hoop houses. The carrots that had been planted under the left row are still growing and winter vegetable seeds have been slipped in between them.


To the left of the tomato rows were the two rows of corn. The first fence will stay up to be used again next year. It held the Black Futsu squash that had twined between the stalks.


I cut the corn stalks, left the roots in the ground since they would be hard to dig, and untwined the Black Futsu Squash. We have eaten them and they taste like a mild pumpkin. There is only one left on the spindly vine but every squash bug hiding in the garden has managed to find it. It is covered.


Radishes won't make it through the winters here, even under a hoop house so assorted saved seeds from last year's crop were scattered between the corn stalk stumps. They will be eaten before the bitter cold of winter arrives.


The fence for the second corn row has been removed and it was planted with saved seeds from the bag of assorted unknowns. It will be another winter hoop house.


The next row over was the Swiss Chard and melon patch.  All that remains is the celery plants. The Conquistador Celery is bitter during hot weather but the flavor improves during cold weather. This too will become a winter hoop house. Collard seeds are just now sprouting.


The beans in the back of the garden are a disappointment. They are growing great, have plenty of blooms but haven't had time to produce more than a handful. I doubt if the pods will swell enough before frost. I keep telling myself, it was the best I could do in the spring so get over it. It was a gamble - sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.  At least the ground was covered so it didn't erode.


The green beans on the corral fence are finally producing. I'm harvesting every day and should have enough canned for winter.


Putting sweet potatoes below the beans worked wonderfully. The beans went up the fence and the potatoes spread below keeping the weeds down. 


The second corral fence located in the back of the garden toward the woods held the late-planted tomatoes. They came from rooted suckers and a few clearance rack plants. They were small when the big rainstorm hit and fared a bit better.


At least there are a few tomatoes left for us to enjoy. We are really missing the summer abundance. (I want to say we are suffering but that would be melodramatic.)


This is the back of the garden one week ago before we pulled up the Yuxi Jiang Bing Gua Squash monster plant. There were two positives. First, they tasted absolutely delicious, mild, juicy, and unique. Secondly, the dreaded squash vine borers did not bother it.  I let it grow as long as possible hoping it would eventually produce a bumper crop since it had swallowed up the back of the garden.  It didn't.


This was all it produced! No more prime real estate for this slacker! It will be planted again next year since only one seed from the package was used but it will be stuck somewhere else where it can run wild without wasting valuable garden space.


After removing the vines, this is how much garden space it had occupied. 


The Calico Lima Beans look lush but they have been a big disappointment. They are just now blooming so there is no way they will produce before frost. 



I finally worked up the courage to try a bitter melon after three of them ripened, then rotted and fell to the ground.  I expected them to be so bitter they would burn my mouth like a hot pepper but they didn't.  It was a surprise. They aren't bad but aren't good either - they are edible.  I am experimenting with recipes and will share my findings in another post after this garden season ends.


The same will be true for the Chinese Python Snake Bean.  I have learned too much to share here.  Next year it will receive a prime spot in the garden along with a taller trellis. More than one seed will be planted.



The squash harvest is curing on the front porch beside the growing winter garden seedlings.  It never seems to stop or even slow down.


13 comments:

  1. Wow, your porch harvest and seedlings are impressive! We had the worst winter squash year ever, ending up with just a few tiny butternuts. Those fire ants are a bear. One thing that seemed to help with ours was adding biochar to the garden. I have definitely got to look up Chinese Python Snake beans. How interesting!

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    1. I intentionally planted more winter squash than usual this year in hopes of canning some to add to my pantry. After our drought two years ago, I fear another bad garden year. We really rely on the garden for food and I feel the need to be better prepared. Rising grocery prices are making me apprehensive.

      I have never heard of biochar but have been reading about it after I read your comment. I will be buying a bag giving it a try this month. Thanks for the information.

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  2. Lovely taking a wander around your productive garden. I just don't know how you have time to keep it all going and preserving and using all your vegetables. I love reading about your experiments with different vegetables! Those Chinese pythan snake beans looks incredible what do they taste like? Sarah x

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    1. I have managed to do the vegetable garden this year because I didn't work in my flower garden. Next year that will change. I am going to scale back on something because I miss my flowers.

      The flavor of the Snake Bean depends on who you ask. Each person who has tried it has expressed a different opinion. It tastes either like a cucumber, an asparagus, or a mild gourd, or a green bean. No one has agreed. I will be sharing my experiments but first I want to see how it handles frost.

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  3. Such an amazing variety of veggies from your garden all year.

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    1. I believe the old axiom, "Variety is the spice of life." In my garden, I try to grow different vegetables so my diet can be varied. I have many food allergies so eating out or even stopping by a convenience mart for something to eat is almost impossible. I do this to keep from going crazy with boredom at the dinner table.

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  4. Wow, I loved all your squash and those giant beans are amazing. My beans and courgettes have finished now thanks to the very high winds of late. B x

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    1. This year I managed to grow only one courgette (zucchini). Be glad you don't have squash vine borers to kill your summer squash. One of these days I will beat them!

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  5. I like the squashes on your porch. So many different shapes! Are all of them eatable or are they used for decorative purposes?

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    1. The squash are all edible and have different flavors for different recipes.
      Spaghetti squash - use anyway you would use spaghetti pasta
      Butternut - sweet potato flavor and is used caramelized or with butter and cinnamon.
      New England Sugar Pie Pumpkin - pumpkin pie and pumpkin muffins
      The immature ones that won't store for long are either breaded and deep fried or used in cheesy casseroles.
      I don't grow any that don't have a good flavor no matter how wonderful they look.

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  6. Good grief! I'm not sure whether to start running or hide behind my chair when looking at that ant's nest. That looks awful. I'm so glad we don't get those in our garden!!!!!

    I love to see your experiments. I've never heard of the Snake Beans before or see the kind of squash that only took 1 seed to grow that big of a plant!

    This would have been the year to grow watermelon, but I didn't even try since it's so rare to get any ripe ones here and I had no idea it was going to be the hottest summer ever. On record. In the whole time since records have been kept. It was a super hot summer. Now, the fall rains have come and things are winding down. We had one frost, but it didn't kill much of anything.

    We did get the most peppers I've grown here at this house, plenty of tomatoes, more cucumbers than I've ever grown in my life before and lots of other crops. Onions did not do well, but we got what we got. My pole beans are still giving me a few beans now and then and I'm still getting a few zucchini. We've pulled about 1/2 the tomatoes after picking off the green ones and any ripe ones that are not cracked beyond repair. Rob dried some of those and we are saving the green ones in the garage to hopefully ripen.

    It's always a pleasure to see your garden, even from so far away!

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    1. When you see a fire ants nest, you do both: run and hide behind a chair and then begin swatting them off before they bite. A commenter suggested trying biochar to repel them and I am experimenting with it right now. It isn't toxic but is pricey.

      We have spent the day working on the hoop houses. Only half are up because I have more so it is harder. Last year I had 10 and thought that was ridiculous; however, we ended up eating or sharing all of the food. This year I have 14 and am needing to piece the row covers together to have enough fabric (is ok, I know how to quilt.)

      This evening will be spent canning green beans and pickling okra to fry later. It is my new recipe to try canning this year. You pickle it so it remains crisp and then batter it to fry.

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