This is what is left of my growing season. I am ready to wrap it up and put everything away for the winter now. I have very few customers stopping now, so my last day to sell will be tomorrow. Then I will make salsa out of the rest and have one tomato left in another house so we have a few fresh ones coming on.. ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) Peppers have been my hardest sell this year. I still have about 1/2 bu. left from the high tunnel from cleaning it out today.Then I have two more rows in the greenhousse that I have been heating that still have a few on them. All three atlas butternut squash ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) This is my whole crop of butternut. I planted them a little late because I didn't want them ready in Sept and we got an early frost in Oct. On the 5th I think. WAAAA! The rest weren't ripe and got frosted. peas ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) I still have two rows of peas, but I don't think iwill get anything from as it has been down to 28f. the last couple nights. ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) My only head of purple cauliflower this year. It was just too hot and dry here this summer for a cole drop. mild/ sweet pepper. ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) I have no idea what this pepper is. I didn't have any other like it in my pepper plants any where. I am wondering if it is that new variety called "sweet heat". It has a little heat to it when it is red, but it is still a sweet pepper, I think. No clue. It must have come in a packet of pepper seeds from some one. ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) This is my one OSU Blue tomato plant that I didn't manage to kill with kindness. I see a couple more starting to color up. ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) ( photo / image / picture from carolyn keiper's Garden ) These last two are the small high tunnel with broccoli, lettuce and dill growing in it. It also had eggplant and a couple volunteer tomatoes in the back just until this week. I have no idea what the one was but it was very cold hardy. I kept the seeds and will try it again next year. The eggplant was the millionaire Hy, which I got next to nothing off of due to the spider mites most of the summer. I just couldn't control them. the other eggplant was black beauty and I got a few off of the ones that survived the mites. They just got frozen this week. After this next nice spell is over I will clean out the big greenhouse and try to grow lettuce in there over the winter. Maybe, maybe not will I get it to grow.
Well; C--I see that your season is winding down there as well. it is a shame , in a way...but its that time in the cycle, isn't it? I must say though, that we here did not really have much of a summer. Our season was just the opposite of yours, but none-the-less less productive generally speaking, than other seasons. Those squash look good. I surely do like eating those. Gad--only three! Well season before last that is the way it went for me and so last year and this year, I did not grow any of them at all. The last time that I harvested a sizeable amount they got frosted. I thought that they could have a little touch of frost, but about 2 weeks after harvesting, I saw that that was not the case. One by one they began showing signs of rotting. Well there has been way too much wetness and coolness lately to grow them, here...so i am not planting them for awhile. Your experience this year was sort of like a Murphy's Law type of thing, eh? My cauli's were all small this year too. They were so puny that I let the majority of them go to flowering (which the bees REALLY loved). That little pepper that you are showing in your hand could well be the "Sweet Heat" variety. I have not grown them, but I see them constantly being advertised. It is an interesting concept--bell pepper flavour,but then with a little hotness. The OSU Blue toms are looking like they will make it fine. What is "OSU"--Ohio State University, er somethin'? I really enjoyed this posting, C...and it was especially nice having a look in the poly tunnels. Thanks.
Very nice, carolyn keiper. Your crops always look so good. We, of course, have nothing left for quite a while now. Hopefully, this weekend we will give the gardens a last tilling for the season.
S, The butternut I squeezed into a flowerbed facing the east and by 2:00 it was in the shade. More sun would have been helpful. I had more but they all got touched by the frost. such a bummer. On the other hand my pumpkins were smashing! I planted pie pumpkins and they are delicious. I would bake and eat those anytime. OSU Blue are from oregon state University, I do believe. Bunky sent me the seeds. Thanks Barb, most of the stuff that is left is all in the high tunnels. So I do have an advantage on gardening that most others don't. They seem a little intimidating to put up and grow in if you don't have knowledge or the experience. I am amazed at how my husband jumped in not knowing a thing about them, he did it because I needed a greenhouse and he kind of exploded it into three greenhouses, two high tunnels and he ordered more arches and posts to put up another high tunnel yet this Fall. With doing the farmers markets I need them for the earlier produce rather than the later produce, but I can grow cold weather produce into the winter, too... I would love to have a "sun room" off of the kitchen with a hard surface floor that can get wet and be squeegeed so I can keep my ferns and orchids and such without heating a greenhouse for the winter. I really need my little greenhouse empty for seed starting in Jan. going forward.
