The air is turning crisp, days are getting shorter, and the garden is entering a new season. With less daylight, the plants are slowing their growth, and veggies are taking longer to ripen. The sun has shifted in our yard, and without direct sunlight, my summer garden doesn’t have much time left. I will pick one final (small) harvest of the warm season, then begin preparing for the cold season. Here’s what’s happening in the garden this fall:
There are dozens of tomatoes still on the vine, but with no direct sunlight, they will stay green indefinitely. I’ve picked some and I’m attempting to ripen them on the windowsill, with a little success. I may try making fried green tomatoes with the remainders.
We did not have much luck with our peppers this summer. Ironically, they are now starting to set fruit (a couple months later than expected), and we have about half a dozen peppers on the plants. Unfortunately, these are supposed to be yellow and red peppers, but they won’t have time to fully ripen, and will remain green.
We’re also getting an abundance of butternut squash on the vines — one at every node. There are about fifteen baby butternuts on this plant, but alas, they too will not have time to fully ripen before the frost sets in. If we had more hours of direct sunlight hitting them, they might stand a chance, but given the position of the sun at this time of year, it’s not gonna happen.
There are a handful of mini cucumbers left on the dying vines, and we’ll pick those to get a few last bites into our salad.
Our grape vines are — well, I’m not really sure. I know next to nothing about growing grapes, but I wanted to give it a try, so this is an experiment for us. I do know that they’re supposed to take two years to set fruit, and this was year one — so as far as I can tell, so far so good. We’ll see what happens next year.
Next up: preparing the garden for cold season.
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