When do I call the season over?

Well it's almost the end of September and I'm debating on when to call the season over and pull everything out. Timing is everything in order to maximize the results of the garden.

Two years ago was milder and I left the carrots and beets in until November because they were a second planting that I was trying to grow. These didn't develop enough for my liking but I did enjoy the beet greens. That year I ended up pulling the tomatoes in late October because I had them coming out my ears. My freezer was full of tomatoes for salsa and I had made batches also.

Last year was a completely different story. We had an early snowfall mid-October that killed a lot of my herbs so I didn't get to make as much pesto for the freezer as I'd like to have. I had covered the plants with sheets knowing there was a chance of a light frost but it turned out to be windy and a heavy wet snow. The tomatoes survived without being destroyed but I had to pull the plants because the leaves weren't going to make it. After that day the weather was milder again into November and I took a chance on the second seeding of carrots and beets again. This time I pushed my luck too much though. Mid-November we had a week of really cold weather and by the weekend when I had time to dig them up, the ground was frozen.

So the debate begins again.... When to call the garden done? I know for sure I'm going to harvest herbs and make the batches of pesto before mid-october, but when to pull everything else. For now I think I'll let time decide... or more aptly put, when I have time I'll decide.

the empty space

Now that the insects have had their way with the zucchini in my garden (and the zucchini lost), I have a large empty space and quite a bit of gardening season left. At the moment I'm researching if it's a good idea to seed something else after this insect has devasted that part of my garden. Initial readings are leading me to believe I'm ok with something simple like lettuces (always needed and never enough garden for this). I think I'll research this some more before the weekend in an attempt to not waste time... cause that would be a fun change of pace :)

In the meantime, my eggplant is really starting to thrive. I'm not sure if it's the weather change of the fact that there's more room and sunshine now that the zucchini is out of the way... I'm afraid I didn't allow enough space in my planting. Now that I've had a fill of zucchini, maybe I'll get to enjoy the rest of the season with a fill of eggplant.

Learned a new word today... frass :(

About a week ago my zucchini started losing leaves, this weekend there seemed to be some sort of disaster going on. After researching on the internet I found out that I have frass… the results of squash vine borer. So that’s the end of the zucchini. I’m not too upset though I’ve gotten more than the seed cost of harvest so far this year, I was just hoping for a few more.
Next year I’m going to look at some prevention techniques. I was reading about several methods from floating row covers to creative usage of women’s panty hose.

In the beginning...

In the beginning there was dirt, a big sunny backyard in the city and a desire to save money while enjoying fresh veggies. Ok, a bit dramatic, I know.

Over the years I’ve had several failed attempts to have a garden in the backyard, but in the last… oh about 4 years, I’ve been much more successful, well in relation to my failures it’s what I call successful.

It started with one small raised bed in the center back along the fence. Then a couple years later I talked the hubby into extending the raised bed on either side. Not long after we setup a compost bin, and then this year another raised bed. Slowly but surely I’m transforming the backyard into a vegetable garden…. albeit, not a pretty one.

This year’s tomato plants are sprawled all over. We were gone on vacation for a couple weeks during their major growth period and I wasn’t here to tie/stake them up. On top of that there were high winds. The result, sprawled tomato plants! Fortunately that hasn’t stopped them from producing and I’ve canned 6 quarts of sauce so far, and it’s still early in the season. Speaking of which, I need to go harvest them…