Fall gardening season is here and the garden is already producing!
How has your fall gardening been?
Have you tried any new varieties this season?
Have the pests and diseases been manageable?
This month I’ll be sharing with you what we’ve learned, some valuable resources, and new plants and foods you can grow.
Garden Journal
Saturday, October 3rd – “Weekend Gardener” Syndrome
With both of us working full time jobs and the daylight hours getting shorter, we tend to push many gardening tasks to the weekend. This Saturday was one of those busy days.
First, we pulled up about two-thirds of the Japanese sweet potato vines and dug out the potatoes. There were only about three pounds. This was our second digging from these vines and they were much younger, so I hadn’t expected many potatoes. Like the previous batch, we didn’t wash them, just dusted off the soil and laid them in a cardboard box in a warm corner of our house for a month to cure.
Our plan is to grow a cover crop over the winter in this section of garden to add nutrients to the soil. We hadn’t amended this area and the soil is 99% sand. I’ll probably plant climbing peas or beans in the spring and make use of the existing trellis.
Other tasks for the day included:
- Weeded several areas of the garden and flower bed in front of the house
- Planted radish and rutabaga seeds
- Mike attached a chain to the shed door to keep it from closing
- Planted 2 pineapple tops by the south fence
- Cut lawn and spread a light layer of grass clippings over newly planted seeds as mulch
- Updated the garden planner maps
- Updated harvested produce spreadsheet
Monday, October 5th – Happy Tomatoes
Today we found the first blossoms on our Brickyard and Homestead varieties of tomatoes. Looking back in my journal, it’s been exactly 30 days since we transplanted them into the garden. The plants are a beautiful dark green with strong stems and leaves. I found white flies under a few of the leaves. Hopefully, by plucking the leaves, I can avoid spraying Neem Oil this season to get rid of the pests.
Tuesday, October 6th – New Growth
The green bush beans have blossoms!
The radishes are up!
Wednesday, October 7th – Is This a Drought?
It’s been very dry lately. We used some of our saved rainwater to water the younger plants. High of mid-nineties today with a feel-like temperature of 102 degrees!
All this heat in mid-October is making me re-think when to plant cabbages and other cool-weather plants. Our summers seem to be longer and hotter, and our planting guide might be slightly outdated. I’m logging my own spreadsheet data to create our year-round gardening season planner. I’ll use this in addition to our local Extension Service guidelines.
Thursday, October 8th – Still feels like Summer
Another HOT day! Hot, dry, mid-nineties, full sun.
I got out of work early today and came home to see a wilted garden. In the evening, I gave everything a good watering with an added dose of “blue juice,” – using a brand of chemical fertilizer similar to Miracle Grow. I try to garden organically, but with such a sandy soil, I’ll occasionally add some extra nutrients. I’m researching the best way to create compost tea as an alternative to the blue juice. We just can’t create enough compost for the whole garden at this time.
Saturday, October 10th – Beautyberries!
Beautyberries are a beautiful magenta fruit that grow on a shrub in the Southeast United States. They grow wild or you can purchase several types from a nursery as a decorative plant.
About a week ago, we saw a beautyberry bush in a neighbor’s yard during one of our evening walks. We didn’t know at the time what kind of plant it was, so I did some online research. I learned that it was edible and also a great mosquito repellent.
We had also seen the same plant on one of our weekend trail hikes. When I found a recipe for beautyberry jelly, I immediately planned a foraging trip. We gathered what I hoped would be enough berries. I ended up with only 1 ½ pints of jelly. Actually, it turned into syrup. Either my recipe or my process wasn’t quite right, and the jelly didn’t thicken. I had to reprocess the jelly. It ended up too thick this time around, but tasted delicious!
I wanted to grow beautyberries like my neighbor does, so we selectively cut a few branches from the wild plants, stuck them in some potting soil in a pot, and set them outside. I’ve read that they propagate easily. I’ll keep you updated as the months go by and will soon create a blog post devoted to them.
Sunday, October 11th – Garden to-do List
Every morning and evening I try to do a garden walk. I check up on growth, look for pests and diseases and consider what to plant next. The weekends take up more of the action.
Today we did the following:
- Planted a peppermint plant I bought at Lowes
- Started some beautyberry seeds in a pot
- Prepped a seed pot for dragon fruit
- Trimmed tomato and bean leaves with flea beetle damage
- Tied up the taller tomatoes that were starting to lean
- Picked 3 jalapenos
- Watered potted plants
- Stirred the compost pile and added shreds from the office paper shredder
- Started watching a YouTube series about Permaculture
Monday, October 12th – Hot Weather, Hot Mustard, Hot Fruit
Hot Weather
Our heat-wave continues. We’re watering the garden almost every night. The beans on the bush bean plants are starting to grow. I’ve found several over an inch long. The lima beans are getting pods. The garden is blossoming!
Hot Mustard
Over the months, I’ve been researching ways to get rid of root-knot nematodes, one of the banes of Southern gardening, especially my garden! I’ve listened to podcasts, read other blogs, and did occasional searches online.
I’ve learned from the HOSS Tools YouTube channel the basics of how to use a cover crop. When I watched an episode discussing how to use cover crops to deter pests such as nematodes, I got excited! After a little more research, we decided to purchase some Kodiak Brown Mustard seeds for our winter cover crop. We’ll keep you updated on the results later in 2021.
Hot Pink Fruit
Tonight, we had our first taste of a Dragon Fruit! It was a mild flavor, not too sweet. It reminds me of a kiwi, but not as tart. I had kept it in the refrigerator, so it was cool and refreshing.
With longer hot weather seasons, I’m looking for perennial foods to grow that tolerate the heat. Dragon fruit is a tropical succulent that is easy to grow here in Central Florida. I saved some of the seed and was able to sprout it using the methods I learned from Urban Gardening’s YouTube channel.
Friday, October 16th – The Dragons are Awake!
The dragon fruit seeds have sprouted! Now, I need to select pots for replanting. I plan to keep them in the same pots for the next two years, so the correct size pot and soil type are crucial for successful fruit growth in 4-5 years. Thankfully, the “University of YouTube” has plenty of advice, especially Mark from Self Sufficient Me.
Today we picked our first meal of green beans. It is always so satisfying to eat straight from the garden. We’re enjoying the Contender bush beans right now. The Blue Lake Pole beans are about a week behind and have grown all the way up the trellises.
Sunday, October 25th Picking our Battles – with bugs!
It was another busy weekend in the garden. We’ve continued the evening watering throughout the week. Most of our saved rain water is gone.
The cabbage worms finally found our cabbages. When necessary, we use a vegetable garden dust to keep them under control. It will work for tomato worms too if they get too bothersome. We’ve been able to keep them under control with daily picking, on average, finding one to three worms a day.
The white flies and flea beetles have been enjoying our garden almost more than us! We’re doing our best to keep them under control too. We’re still searching for companion plants to attract predators or add confusing scents to the garden. We need to mix things up, like planting lima beans between the cabbages. Having only one crop in one area makes it too easy for the pests to find and devour our plants.
One positive thing about all the dry heat has been no powdery mildew or similar diseases affecting our garden. I don’t feel as overwhelmed as I did earlier this year, trying to keep everything growing strong.
Monday, October 26th – No pumpkins this Halloween
We finally gave in and pulled out all of the pumpkin vines. Two of them had grown over 20 feet, plus put out several blossoms. However, they never set fruit. Eventually, they started getting eaten by bugs and dying off. My suspicions of their cause of decline proved correct when I examined their roots. Once again, the nematodes had infested my plants.
If there’s any goal I want to achieve in 2021, it will be learning how to garden in the Florida soil. I’ll either find nematode-resistant varieties of the foods I love, or find a way to eliminate nematodes from the garden.
We don’t want to invest in raised beds or purchase garden soil. We want to live naturally with the land. We are still learning how.
Tuesday, October 27th – Finally, some measurable rain!
It was only about 1/8th of an inch, but that small amount of rain helped. Today was a high of 82 degrees – a much welcome change in the weather!
Saturday, October 31st –Tricks and Treats
Treats of the day:
- Cool weather, high 70’s, sunny.
- Picked our first 4 radishes!
- Another meal of green beans
- Planted hot mustard cover crop -hope it chases away those nasty nematodes -the trick will be on them!
- Pods are plumping on the lima beans
- Second batch of cabbage seeds were up this morning
Tricks of the day:
- Pulled out the last of the Japanese sweet potato vines – no potatoes large enough to eat
- Flea beetles ate a lot of the bean leaves
- Nematodes found some of the bush bean plants – had to pull 4 plants
Sometimes I think every day is Halloween in the garden – there’s always tricks and treats waiting for you!
Looking Ahead
The cabbages are forming heads and I just bought a fermenting kit. It won’t be long until I make some sauerkraut again. It’s been a little over 20 years since I last made some. It should be interesting!
Seed potatoes will be available for purchase mid-November. We’re growing them in a raised bed we built from found materials. Hopefully, this will protect them from the nematodes.
The small green tomatoes on the vines will soon ripen. I expect fresh tomatoes on our Thanksgiving table.
Will any of your fall garden harvest be on your holiday table?
Have you planned anything for your cool-weather garden?
Gardening is a life-long learning experience. I hope we’ve helped in some way, or inspired you to grow more!
Happy gardening!
Alisa
