Fall is upon us and the garden is starting to slow down. The lettuce has bolted and strangely, so has
some of the swiss chard. The peas have
dried down, the beans have turned to something resembling a cross between baler
twine and super glue (not very palatable – ick) and the volunteer canola has
somehow turned the garden into a virtual honeybee haven overnight. I was keeping on top of the weeds until this
flush of canola hit. Today, I went out
with the express intent of attacking the canola with all the fury of a tornado,
but when I saw the plethora of bees frantically hauling loads of pollen off to
their hives, I lost all of my gusto.
This time of year the flowering plants have just about called it quits,
and with the numbers of honeybees declining, what’s the harm in letting them
collect some winter food from plants that aren’t doing any harm other than
damaging the aesthetics? Here’s to the
honeybees!
Aster’s yellows
have appeared with a vengeance in the carrots, effectively ruining the carrot
root all the enthusiasm that a disease can muster. Leafhoppers that arrive in April-May carry
the fungus and they transmit the disease when they start to feed. Carrots aren’t the only crop infected either-
canola, barley, wheat, and peas can all be infected, causing a great decrease
in yields. The below picture is an
example of an infected carrot. They send
out abnormal amounts of foliage and the root gets very hairy. The root doesn’t taste very good either.
I really hope that the corn will be ready before it freezes! I picked a
cob off last night to check and lo and behold! It was ready! Sadly, upon inspection of any other cobs… it
was the only one. What are the odds of
picking the Only Ripe Cob in a row 60’ long??? Talk about extreme excitement
quickly switching to morose disappointment. Fingers crossed that the rest of
the cobs will mature soon!
It's time to think about next year. That’s right – looking forward to it already! Let’s just skip the fact that there’s nine
months between now and June shall we? Seed catalogues will be arriving in December and I'm pretty excited about that. Just think, that means next years pepper crop will be seeded in six months and the
seed will be ordered in four! I won’t be
growing as many hot peppers next year, instead I’ll be focusing on the sweet
banana and bell peppers. As well, different varieties of your favorite garden
vegetables will appear to add a bit more spice and flavor to the oldies. If you have any special requests for
vegetables that weren’t grown this year, let me know and I will try to add them
to the repertoire for next year.
The weekly price will
see a small increase over this year, but until I see the seed catalogue and can
guess how much gas is going to cost, I can’t say for certain how much of an
increase it will be until next January or so.
Thank you all so very much
for supporting me in this venture. It
has been a wonderful experience getting to know everyone and do something that
I love. I’m very much looking forward to
next year already! Happy Harvest
everyone, and Happy Eating!
~Sarah
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