Into Fall

Days shorten, nights cool, & the garden shifts towards fall/winter mode.

We will get several nights in the 40s this week, so the remaining summer harvest is not long for the world.
Basically we are down to the 10-11 foot okra, wild tommy-toe tomatoes, mountains of basil and two bamboo towers of “Christmas” limas.
The basil is most at risk, as a few nights in the mid-40s will cause the leaves to spot up a bit (although the flavor is still pretty good).

But the good news is some fall plantings are doing well.

I have several successive plantings of both both rutabaga and purple kohlrabi that seem to be coming along on cue (now that I’m not drowning them).

A small patch of kohlrabi & rutabaga (kohlrabi is the purple stem plant in the front):

An earlier patch of kohlrabi shows the “Sputnik” ball forming mid stem; for scale these aren’t quite ping-pong ball sized yet:

What the heck does one do with this stuff? I don’t know, but I am hoping we’ll find something once the first are ready for harvest. More on Kohlrabi here

What else?

The middle boxwood beds are well on their way now with broccoli, cabbage & fava beans. I have both a shorter maturity mid-sized and a longer “full sized” cabbage variety planted; based on the size of the leaves, “full sized” seems to be a bit of an understatement.

The favas are a new crop for us; I decided to try them for 3 reasons:

1. They should grow all winter here without protection.
2. They are a legume and do a very good job fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil and can also be chopped / turned under the soil after the harvest as a “green manure”.
3. I have read that fresh favas harvested when small are much sweeter than anything one can find in the produce section or a farmers market.

Favas are also known as “Broad Beans” and look somewhat like limas when processed and cooked. However, they aren’t a bean really at all; they are a “vetch”, which around here is used as a cover crop/soil conditioner and for wildlife habitat improvement.
The Fava wiki is here if you are remotely curious….. and no, I did not realize that they have to be “shelled” twice when I ordered and planted them…..

Bottom line these will be an effective off-season soil conditioner that should carry the bonus of a tasty spring harvest.

Another angle shows the upright growth habit of the favas (I did not want to have to trellis anything over the winter; these grow tight without support.)

What else?

The tiny leek sprouts from early spring have been transplanted twice and a second level of soil was added to the “final” beds several weeks ago. The extra work is worth it with leeks; the “blanched” white stems of these will be much longer than they would otherwise be by a factor of 2x – 3x, ie more harvest in less space. Also, the incremental “hilling effect” of this method avoids much of the grit/dirt issue of leeks that are hilled up in one big dirt-fest as they are maturing. The cooler days/nights have been good for them and for the most part they are fattening up nicely. Once we get a freeze I’ll start harvesting them as needed; they will store well in ground / as planted (and add a little girth too) so we don’t need to go to the trouble of harvesting all at once…

Double-decker bed of leeks:

What else?

That’s it for now. My greens aren’t photogenic enough yet, but you can be sure I have several rows of almost every type coming up right now.