Fall Garden Weigh-In

The shelling peas I planted mid-September suffered a little frost damage, but seem to be doing fine with it. After a few weeks of cold nights (lows in the 20's) the rain has come in and the nights have warmed up to the mid-40's. In case we get another cold spell, I've got some floating row covers coming from Johnny's and will try covering them.

I'm harvesting two of my 4 cabbage plants. The heads are rather small, and I'm not sure if the ones I left in the ground will get any bigger. One book I have says once the heads are "tight" don't leave them in the ground too long, but I'm not sure what that means in very literal terms. So I'm compromising by picking the two biggest heads and leaving the smaller ones there to see if they grow a little bigger. In the meantime, these two are headed for the minestrone soup pot!

The broccoli I planted mid October has barely moved an inch. I don't plan to plant this late in the future as I'm not sure if these will do anything. The frost might have stunted them permanently. I'm leaving them there to see, as the rains are watering for me so why not?

My snow peas were hit pretty hard by the cold. Most have some sort of frost damage, but they still taste good, and to tell you the truth, when they're cooked, you can't even see the discoloration from the frost. Again, I'll probably cover these if the temps go down again. For now, they're still flowering and fruiting, so I don't plan to pull them any time soon.

This is the broccoli I planted from nursery starts mid-September.  It got hit by the heat wave which stunted a few of them.  The ones planted on this side of the bed were shaded by the pole beans and fared much better.  The heads are still small, at a stage where I'm not certain whether or not they've buttoned.  In short, our hot heat followed by frigid cold didn't help my fall broccoli.  Jury's still out on whether or not I'll have anything to eat.

Tiny sprouts are just breaking through the ground from my double-triple pea experiment. The cold definitely slowed down germination, but they're growing nonetheless.

And finally, here's the bok choi I started from seed 3 weeks ago. They didn't seem to be growing at all until I moved my mini-greenhouse from the fence to the front of the shed where they'll benefit from the warm southern exposure. That was a good move, as since then I'm noticing they're making some progress.