Our fall garden is doing pretty good. We’ve been eating kale and radishes for the last week. My turnips aren’t doing as good as they usually do and I’m not sure why. Germination was really poor, although the recent rain we had from the hurricane turned tropical storm has brought a few more out of the earth.
Watch my latest video to take a peek at our fall garden.
We’ve had two hard frosts since I made the video and my malabar spinach finally bit the dust.
Hope you enjoyed the tour!
Help me celebrate Appalachia by subscribing to my YouTube channel!
Subscribe for FREE and get a daily dose of Appalachia in your inbox
I was wondering about your garden! My cucumbers did fantastic this year but my tomatoes struggled. Most of my “gardening” is with trees and shrubs, but I’ve grown malabar spinach before and it’s both pretty and delicious, isn’t it?
Thanks for sharing the end of the season with us. You’ve gotten me excited about next year.
I sowed a package of mixed greens and radishes in one raised bed and the radishes done well. The pok choy also looks good as well and the endive lettuce. I had never sowed endive lettuce before and it was so bitter I thought I would never raise it again. Well I’ve changed my mind after we have had several frost and it is not as bitter now. We will have some lettuce and onions wilted with hot grease. Just as an experiment I planted a few malabar spinach seeds late in the season. It came up but only grew to about 3 inches, it couldn’t withstand the cool nights and died. I raised Egyptian spinach this summer and I’m not impressed with it although it is not bad and does survive the summer heat well.
Tipper I’m impressed with your cattle panels and may get some in the spring and I really liked your malabar spinach. I have 2 packages of seed to plant next year. I watched a video of a man juicing those purple berries and drinking it, but somewhere along the way of watching other videos someone said the juice was somewhat toxic.
My turnips didn’t do well either and my salad peas have been blooming for a week, don’t know if they are going to make it or not.
We did not plant a fall garden this year. It was just too hot and wet to try to do anything. In the past, we have planted kale and collards in the fall and they would come back in the spring. Nothing like fresh food from the garden. One year in the spring, we were able to freeze enough kale and collards to last all winter. I enjoyed your video, especially hearing the leaves crunch under your feet.
Tipper, I really enjoyed your Fall garden tour. I, too, am already planning and thinking about next year’s garden. It’s amazing how much gardening orders my life. In the spring I’m planting, in the summer I’m working in the garden, the autumn I’m harvesting and saving seed, and in the winter I’m planning what I’ll plant next year. I can’t imagine a life not spent not working in the earth and governed by the seasons.
I planted turnips in the garden and I a 1/4 arce power line rightaway that the electric company cleared out in September. They are almost k,we high now. We have been eating them for the last e weeks, but they taste better after we had a frost. I put the word out the neighbors were welcome to them which they have been several picking them this week.
Also put out Kale and Georgia collards for the first time. They seem to be doing well, just not familiar with fixin ether.
Our fall turnips are doing wonderful. Last night I fried some, just as you would potatoes. They were delicious. I seasoned them with bacon grease, salt, pepper and a scant teaspoon of sugar.
The fall lettuce is growing but not big enough to harvest. I pulled up all the tomatoes and have a cookie sheet plus of green ones. Some I’ll store in the dark with newspapers over the top. Maybe even fry a few green ones for the blacksmith.
Stay well you all
I also had problems with my turnip greens this year. They did not want to come up and the ones that did got ate up with insects. The bugs have been bad this fall, when cutting grass they are flying up in your face. We have had frost the last two nights. I posted last week about having some crowder peas that came back up voluntarily. They are loaded with blooms and have a few pods on them. The patch is small enough for me to cover up, so far they still look ok. The forecast is for warmer weather during the next week or so, so we will see what happens. I should have put sometime on my turnip greens.
There is really no seasonal end to gardening, especially since I started growing a fall garden. I have celery, summer squash, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce, radishs, mustard, turnip and kale growing that I fall planted. The summer squash was an experiment to see if it would have time to make. I have picked about six squash, all small, so it is kinda marginal. The lettuce is growing very slowly and is still too small to pick any. I’m mystified by that.
I still have jalapeno and bell pepper from the summer garden but of course their days are numbered. I planted spinach but the germination was almost zero. I have found that fall planted spinach is just at its best when it is time to pull it up for summer garden space. I think this fall my seed was too old. I also cut off sprigs from the Better Boy tomatoes and rooted them back about August, also as an experiment. As I expected, they aren’t going to make anything before the cold gets them. I am having such a terrible problem with leaf-footed bugs sucking on the tomatoes that I am really discouraged about tomatoes altogether.
I have self-sown cilantro and it will last all winter. The broccoli is looking like bushes it is so big, as happy as any I’ve ever grown. It has small heads now, about 3 inches across.
I pulled up a clump of the ‘artichoke’ (sunchoke) the other day and got a bunch of the little tubers. Have not eaten any of them yet. They have multiplied well. The big yellow daisy-like blooms were pretty but are gone now. I trimmed some of the yard trees so the blooms could be seen from the kitchen.
Ron, sunchokes is something I’ve eaten but never grown. I’m going to look for some in the store and plant them. If I can’t find any I’ll order on line. I’ve read they are very low in starch and would be a good food for my wife who has diabetes two.
Are they an invasive plant you have trouble keeping in check?
I think Sow True seed may have them. I suspect if you find them they will be the tubers rather than seed. I think you could still plant them now but it would be safer I guess to wait. As best I recall, I planted mine 2 years ago about Sept. 1.
I don’t consider them at all invasive. What they do is just multiply in place much more than they extend into new area. They would be easily corraled, I think, with a shallow barrier. If you have deer they like to eat the leaves even though they feel like sandpaper.
I’ve never seen anything produce like that Malabar Spinach did, but we all made the best of it while it was here…which was all summer and fall! When I was at your house yesterday at lunch time I noticed you went to a different bed to get the greens for your lunch salad. I noticed but I didn’t think…you got fall kale for your salad because the spinach was killed by the frost.
The garden tour was fun but a little sad. It’s always sad when fall comes and the gardens end!