Today's harvest

[pepperhead212]

Beets grow very well for us, but I don't thin and mostly use them as greens. Not a fan of beets really, but some nice cooked veet greens are devine.

Funny you should mention that - a friend that was over today saw my Swiss chard growing in the front, and thought that was beets - same species, but grown for greens! I also don't like beets, but grow chard all the time.

I pulled a lot of things out today, since Monday is lawn trash day here. All of the eggplants, and all but 2 of the tomatoes - ended up with 4 trash cans of trash. I got a few small EPs, a number of small tomatoes, and a bunch of grape and cherry tomatoes. I also harvested a number of peppers, turning ripe.
Some of the last peppers ripening, 10-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

A few tomatoes and eggplants, from the plants removed from the garden today, 10-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And early in the week, one variety of pepper -Superchili - was triggered into putting out a bunch of blossoms, probably by some very warm days, after very cool days. And now, there are small peppers all over them! Not sure if they will mature, but you never know, with this weather.
One side of the Superchili, showing a few of the flowers left, and a lot of baby peppers. 10-18 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[taxlady]

I'm reminded of talking to someone who grew beets and chard. She didn't know they were the same species. She saved the seeds from the chard. She was very upset when those seeds produced chard with fewer greens and small beets at their bottoms. I think that sounds marvellous, since I like both beets and chard.

 

[larry_stewart]

And just to rub my nose in it, the carrots in the fridge are growing better than the ones in my garden (My wife pointed that out to me , with a smirk )

 

[GotGarlic]

Yesterday's harvest: lots of tomatillos, a couple of okra that will go in the freezer for soup and a nice green bell pepper.

 

[Kathleen]

And just to rub my nose in it, the carrots in the fridge are growing better than the ones in my garden (My wife pointed that out to me , with a smirk )

I'm reading with interest. I've never had much luck with root crops or spring onions. No idea why. If they sprout, they don't do anything else.

 

[pepperhead212]

Kathleen If you are interested in spring onions, ideally the seeds should be planted now, to get them growing in the spring, or in the spring, to get them in the fall, so it wasn't you - you just have to wait a long time, just like with leeks! However, for fast scallions, either save the bottom 3/4" or so of your store-bought scallions, and plant them root down about 2" in the ground, about 4" apart, and you will have free scallions, much sooner! You can also buy some cheap onion sets, and plant them for scallions, but eventually they will get larger, and you'll have onions - not bad, but they don't remain as "green onions" forever, like the scallions do. I just harvested 2 recently, that looked like leaks, and with all of the white and greens cut up, it was over 8 scallions worth each. I also cut off the root ends of shallots, and other onions, when using them in dishes, getting enough of the core to form a plant, and plant these, to get some green onions out of them. With all the oriental foods I cook, this is why I am always trying to grow more scallions! And the roots I stick in the ground at this time of year will be like garlic - they'll die back, if they pop up a little now, then next spring I'll have a large number of green onions!

I've never been one for growing carrots - too cheap here, and not one of the things with the most chemicals in, when grown commercially, and not much better, like tomatoes. And potatoes are something that attracted a severe number of insects, the one year I grew them.

 

[larry_stewart]

Kathleen If you are interested in spring onions, ideally the seeds should be planted now, to get them growing in the spring, or in the spring, to get them in the fall, so it wasn't you - you just have to wait a long time, just like with leeks! However, for fast scallions, either save the bottom 3/4" or so of your store-bought scallions, and plant them root down about 2" in the ground, about 4" apart, and you will have free scallions, much sooner! Y

Ive also done this with the bottoms of the store bought scallions, with very good success. Some I let go to seed, so I could collect the seeds and have the same varieties that they use. Ive also tossed a few root bottoms into the aquaponics system and they did very well too.

Carrots Ive all but given up. I dont want to waste space in the garden for more predictable productive crops. I may plant them in containers again ( in the spring), but doubt Ill grant them any garden real estate next year .

The only reason why I may keep trying beets, is because worst case scenario, I still have the leaves. I just made a Saag Paneer type dish, using beet greens and it came out great. So if the roots develop, its a win win, if not, at least I dont feel like I've wasted space.

 

[pepperhead212]

More squash blossoms today; no more harvesting, just removing all those labels from the tressels - lost count at 43, most of which were tomatoes, but many other vegetables, as well. 39 blossoms this time. A bunch more squash out there, but there are definitely going to be some immature ones, when the frost comes, though it's very warm here, for the season.
39 more squash blossoms, 10-21 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[bbqcoder]

@pepperhead212 @vinylhanger. You might want to try Avalanche beets. I love beets and tried these for the first time. They are very sweet and are fast growing.

Here is the catalog description for them.

55 days. These AAS award-winning, snow white roots have all the sweetness of ordinary beets without any bitterness or strong, beety flavor that some folks find too potent to enjoy. At 2-3 inches in diameter, the roots are sized nicely for slicing and roasting, can be grated raw into salad, or juiced into the most lip-smacking juice. Avalanche is here to convert even the pickiest eater into a beet enthusiast!

For scallions greens one might want to consider Egyptian walking onions. They are very easy to grow and will self seed. You can harvest them for their onions but they are quite pungent.

 

[pepperhead212]

bbqcoder I tried Avalanche beets, as well as Rainbow, some yellow variety, and and a couple others, way back in the 90s, and every one of them tasted like dirt to me. I only tried so many of them because a lady I knew back then loved beets, and I gave them to her, so they weren't wasted. I found a few others, years later, that also got that same taste from beets, and I figured that maybe it is a genetic thing, like people who get that soap flavor from cilantro.

 

[GotGarlic]

More peppers and tomatillos from the garden today. Hoping the weather will cool down soon so I can make and can tomatillo salsa.

 

[larry_stewart]

Looks like your garden year is going out with a bang GG!

Today was the day my wife and I look forward to each year. Peanut and Sweet potato harvest day. Starting to get in the 40's at night, so its just a matter of when before the plants die. Usually we travel around this time of year, and when we get back, we do the peanut / sweet potato harvest. Its almost become tradition. This year, no traveling, so just coordinated it to the same week as in the past. Both did better than expected. The Peanuts go in the same spot each year. I though they would do well, cause my cats decided that they liked laying and sleeping on top of the plants. Turns out, whatever they did, it actually helped. We probably doubled out harvest in the same amount of space . I think what really did it was I planted the rows towards the center of the raised beds , allowing the plants to be able to expand within the raised bed ( and not hanging over). The way peanuts grow, then need exposed soil under all of the plant to allow the peanuts to extend into the ground.
The sweet potatoes I changed spots again. 2 years ago they did well, but they are a vine, and kinda took over the area. The next year I moved them, but they were in such a poor location, they had no chance. I dont even like sweet potatoes much, but I love harvesting things the you just dont know what you're going to get until you dig them up. I almost didnt plant them, but I had one row , that was on the edge of the bed, left. I figured why not. All I got to lose is a few bucks if they do poorly. Turns out I got at least 10 pounds worth, and most the ones I got are same size as store bought and no real funky shapes.

 

[pepperhead212]

I got more peppers today, plus froze some of the last batch, which was totally ripened. Those Pepperdew (not pappadew) peppers, which are something I found about the same flavor as Fresno, but milder, about 5k, and I used them in a couple of Indonesian dishes, calling for fresno. They are quite late - the only bad thing I found - as I am getting a large number from just the one plant, with many more on the plant, as well as flowers! I think that I'll start it earlier next season, as I have done in the past with habanero types, and have much larger plants, by final transplant day.
Still getting peppers! 10-28 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Ripe pepperdews, ready to go into the freezer. 10-28 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I got a lot more done outside. I ground a bunch of leaves up, and mowed my lawn - since it is supposed to rain heavily tomorrow, I wanted to get these done now! I also got in all of my water filters, pressure regulators, quick connect fittings, and all of the short hose sections, leaving just my main hose, with the one hose sprayer, which is the only one I use in the off season. It's only supposed to get down to 36° in the 10 day forecast - originally, there was a 32° day. Still, no timer watering will be needed, and freezing will be soon.

 

[pepperhead212]

It only got down to 34 last night, with no frost, but the squash are getting fairly wilted, though by the time I started pulling them around 2 pm, many had perked up again. Still, I pulled the two yuxi, and some of the South Anna Butternut vines, but I left all of the vines that had immature squash on them - hopefully, they will mature, before the freeze. I ended up with 2 trash cans of vines, with still half left. I got over 40 blossoms, and a few baby squash, from all those vines. One good thing - most of the bugs are gone from the blossoms, due to the cold!

I was surprised when I saw the epazote this morning - the cold had not bothered it at all! I figured would be like basil, and be affected long before the frost came around, since the red epazote's seeds don't even make it through the winter, like the green's seeds. The green epazote used to go to seed, and die back long before this, yet it re-seeded. The red has even better flavor, though, so I just take cuttings, in the spring and fall.
Red Epazote, after 34° night. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Red Epazote, growing as weeds in the okra earthbox. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Epazote in the hydro, 10-31 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[blissful]

Pepperhead, you are the chef's gardener. I'm so envious! Love the pictures!

 

[Souschef]

It is crazy, but it is November and I am still harvesting tomatoes off our 4 bushes.

 

[Kathleen]

I'm covering the fall green beans nightly. The plants have oodles of little baby beans all over them. It's getting into the 30s but no hard frost yet. So am covering them each night in hopes that I can get the beans to decent size before it's all over.

 

[GotGarlic]

It is crazy, but it is November and I am still harvesting tomatoes off our 4 bushes.

It's good to see you, Souschef. I've been thinking we haven't seen you and Kayelle around for a while. I hope everything is going well for you [emoji813]

 

[GotGarlic]

More peppers and tomatillos! I'm beginning to feel overrun [emoji38] The tomatillos from the hod are in one of the baskets on the right. This is about 11 pounds of tomatillos [emoji39]

 

[larry_stewart]

I had one of those years last year with tomatillos, thats why I didn't grow any this year.
I picked the last of my peppers. Truly an outstanding pepper year for me.

Ill roast and freeze the red ones, dice up the larger green ones. Stuff the medium sized green ones, and snack on the yellow.