Welcome to the Garden!

We had a pleasant morning in the garden today.  It was sunny and cool and a great day to be outside.  Our weekly tasks included weeding, bed cleaning, pruning, trimming, harvesting, watering, and pest management.

Today is the official last day of summer and autumn is definitely just around the corner, but as you can see in the pictures the vegetables and flowers haven’t given up yet.  The Super Sweet cherry tomatoes on the arched trellis continue to be prolific , and we had to use a ladder to harvest most of them.  In addition to the cherry tomatoes, we harvested Centercut Squash, tomatoes (Black Brandywine, Aunt Lou’s and Harvest Moon), Shishito peppers, Early Wonder Beets, Bright Lights Swiss Chard and Purple Top White Globe Turnips. We should have at least a few more weeks of harvest before frost brings the warm season vegetables to an end.  The average first frost date for our area is late October, but that is only an average.  A frost could come sooner or later than the average date, so we’ll just have to keep an eye on the forecast and be ready to harvest the last of the vegetables on fairly short notice.

The cool weather crops, (broccoli, Pac Choi, collards, brussels sprouts) that we planted a couple of weeks ago are doing well, and we’ll be planting some kale in the next couple of weeks.  The row covers installed are helping to protect the young plants, and only a few Harlequin Bugs and cabbage worms found their way under the row covers.  The turnips, planted in the ‘Long Bed Section 1’ haven’t fared nearly as well.  They are being severely attacked by Harlequin Bugs, which demonstrates the benefit to row covers when these insects are active.  We have two types of row covers in use; a spun-bonded type of light cloth and a light woven screen type of cloth.  The screen type cloth installed on the NE raised bed is our favorite.  It has good light transmission and is much more tear resistant than the spun-bonded cloth.

See you next week in the garden.