The Fall Garden Check-In

Normally, I'd be posting an update on Labor Day and Halloween, but this being an unusual year, I've opted for just one in between.

A summer of consistently foggy mornings has wreaked havoc on everything susceptible to fungus, namely my tomatoes and squash.  But while cucumbers are also fungus prone, thanks to a disease-resistant variety and overplanting, I am still up to my ears in cucumbers.

Oxhearts from Territorial

The General Cucumbers from Johnny's

Small Wonder Spaghetti Squash by Territoral Seeds

It felt like everything was producing later than normal, and indeed, a check of prior years proved out that most plants were a good 2-3 weeks behind the normal schedule.  I'm also feeling like everything is wrapping up early.  So this may go on the record as one of my shortest summer growing seasons.

The exception was peppers.  I've learned I either have disastrous pepper years, or exceptional pepper years.  Rarely anything in between.  Thankfully, this was an exceptional pepper year.  I have garlic I'll need to plant where these peppers are, and if they aren't done producing by November, I'll have to do some rearranging of my 2027 summer garden plan.

Frodo from Johnny's, Big Jim from Baker Creek and Jalapeno from Territorial all did amazing this year.

Other good producers were my Cherokee Purples from Baker Creek and Sungold yellow cherry tomatoes from Territorial.  Years ago, I stopped growing Sungold because it produces too much, the plants get too big, I can't keep up with picking them, and I worry the over-ripe fruit will bring the rodents around.  All those things have happened again, so I think I'll need to take another break from SunGold.  Even in retirement, I just don't want that much work.

Cherokee Purple from Baker Creek

Sungold from Territorial

In other strangeness, my worst producing tomato this year was the one that has, in almost 2 decades of growing it, always been my best:  Big Beef from Johnny's.  This year's plant way under-performed, up until the moment I pulled out the pumpkins I'd been growing next to them.  I've now concluded that pumpkins need to be in their own squash bed, and not grown adjacent to anything I really care about.  Though the cucumbers growing near the pumpkins had no problem sharing the space, most other things performed poorly if planted too close.  I know pumpkins are big and heavy feeders (takers), and while they're fun to grow, they aren't worth losing my precious tomatoes!

This is the time of year where I get itching to pull everything out, and I'm fighting that urge.  There are still plenty green tomatoes out there, and while the extreme temperature fluctuations of fall usually mottle them, I'm still not ready to go back to store-bought.  I have started lopping off stems with flowers, hoping the plant will focus on ripening what's there.  I still have pole beans producing from my June planting, more spaghetti squash ripening and even a few melons.  And, of course, cucumbers and peppers.  So I need to not be in a rush to close the season down.  A few weeks after the plants are gone, I always regret not letting them go a little longer.  So that's what I'll do this year!