October marks the season’s closing and prepping for putting the garden to sleep. Yet there is still much to harvest and plan to grow indoors for the winter. Set traps, set traps, set traps. As the weather turns so do the varment. They attacked the row of carrots planted out side of the hoop house.

Last Harvest – prepping for the winter.

Well, this is not necessarily true, as the Brussels can be picked frozen under snow till the deer step in.

Cauliflower

The Brassicas that were planted in early August (65 days to maturity) are ready for harvest. The Rober variety of cauliflower from rareseeds.com were a great success. They were able to withstand the heat of the summer using a shade cloth. The flavor was noted to everyone who had a bite. The coming year I will plan to set 6 plants every 2 weeks. at 18-20″ and a row.

Revised Plant

Starting mid-may with frost cover.

6 plants at 2 week intervals = 18 plants

leaving a space on each end for cabbage, herbs, or companions

Figs

Revised Fig Plan

A section of this plant was removed (by root) and placed in a sunnier location well protected from winter wind. This will become the permanent location and the shaded plant will be propagated and removed.

What going on in the Hoop House

Celery was planted mid-season and garlic has been growing in the hoops house for several years. I set in some cauliflower, not as successful as NH, probably due to the soil amendments, though we harvested a small head and left anoth to see if it would set seeds.

A zucchini plant was grown in a container – much too late. Should have been started mid season – check days to maturity.

Revised plan for hoop house.

Through the season the hoop house has traditionally been used to grow container cannabis. It helps to shield it from rain and thus mold. Any cannabis in the garden should be harvested early and dried completely. Budding topps should be minimized and an insect shield will need to be used.

Looking ahead: Start zucchini earlier, grow more parsely – perhaps in pots. Maximum use of rows to single crop – i.e. all cauliflower. Thinking about growing an artichoke in the hoop house or other exotic variety for this area.

Covered raised bed.

Time to put the frost cover on the raised bed. Last year Bloomdale spinach and St. Vallery (from saved seeds) carrots overwintered with success. I tried starting 2 varieties of spinach this year, carrots and transplanted lettuce. There’s also some onions in there.

This bed was previously used for tomatoes, which should have been pulled a bit earlier, perhaps early September. The carrots didn;t seem to sprout and the spinach got “disappeared” might be a vole at work. However, the transplanted lettuce did fairly well.

 

 

Indoors – firing up the grow box