Not much is left to harvest except some of the Fall greens. We have had overnight temperatures in the low 40s °F (4 °C) which is shutting down most of the warm weather crops even without a frost or freeze. And given our latitude, the days are shortening and the sun is lower in the sky, so by afternoon it is below the woods to the west of the garden, casting the garden into shade. With these conditions, you can’t really expect to get anything growing at this time of year. Any fall crops you want to grow will have to be started and in the ground by at least August, when it is hot and dry, if you hope to have a Fall crop.
That said, above is what I managed to salvage from the garden. The bell pepper gave me enough to do a batch of stuffed peppers. The cilantro is a second growth from volunteer seeds, always nice to have. If I had planted seeds I guarantee they would refuse to germinate. All my parsley which poked along during this dry summer has perked up and is loving the cool weather. And all of the Trinidad Spice/Perfume peppers ripened so I picked all of them. I now have enough to try making a batch of fermented “hot” sauce. If I can find some yellow Hungarian wax peppers, I will include them, the small Poblano above, plus perhaps a single orange Habanero pepper, to make a yellow semi-hot sauce.
Garden cleanup continues. Next week the garlic gets planted, after a fairly heavy Saturday rain. The main bed for them is cleared but needs to be composted and fertilized.
That is what I rescued from my garden this week. To see what gardeners around the world are doing, visit Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.
I would call that a "harvest," not a "rescue." It looks great. I've really given up on fall gardening too. I planted spinach in late summer, which grew 2" and promptly bolted.
ReplyDeleteThat is a wonderful harvest - I have basically nothing left other than the fall greens. I'm hoping to get the garlic in the ground next week too but need to still move a bunch of soil & mulch off of my driveway before I can even think of getting a load of compost..ugh.
ReplyDeleteThat is a nice harvest! Our nighttime temperatures are also getting into the low 40s and the sun is also so low that things are definitely winding down. I am, however, looking forward to things calming down.
ReplyDeleteThat hot sauce sounds good. It is always fun to experiment and see how a batch turns out!
ReplyDeleteThat's a lovely harvest and it certainly doesn't have the bedraggled look that my "rescue" harvests usually have. I'm fortunate to have my garden on a south/southwest facing hillside with no trees to block the sun. Once the sun gets over the hill behind the garden it bathes the garden until it retreats behind the ridge across the valley. But even so, the days are shorter and sunset always seems to take me by surprise.
ReplyDeleteLovely harvest. My garden is in shade this time of year too. I always laugh at the packet directions that tell you to plant x number of weeks before the last frost (which for me is usually the end of October). If I followed their directions I'd never have a crop. I usually plant a month before they say.
ReplyDeleteIn my area fall crop needs to get started in mid-July early August, Started beets on 7/30, the greens are looking gorgeous but the roots are not yet sizing up need to start earlier next year..
ReplyDeleteYou may not have much left, but still some variety in colours - I'm all green, nothing but herbs and broccoli. I'm glad to hear you are just getting ready for your garlic as I was thinking I was a bit late. I'll try to get mine in next weekend as well. I'll be planting my old standby "Red Russian" but also picked up some Music Garlic at a local market.
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