Fall Calls for Cold & Wet Days

The last few days have been unseasonably cold with many nights dropping to around 3c (37f). Most of the outside activity has been spent doing everything but vegetable gardening. I prepared the warmth loving patio plants to come inside, I have made the mistake of not de-bugging them previously and its not pretty. They are all inside now and best of all are buggless. I have taken out the perennial bed that is in the center of the lawn out front. It had been kind of weedy looking since it was put in and always grew over the driveway restricting the walk way. I moved some of the plants to other beds and composted the plants I detested. That's right, if a plant crosses me it goes in the compost, hahaha. I then leveled the area and seeded for grass. Now we will have a larger grassy area which actually makes our postage stamp frontage look a little bigger. I also straightened up the shed which has been a wreck all summer. Now it is all organized and ready for the snowblower season ahead, oh how I love snowblowing! I even watch people snowblowing on YouTube.

The veggies have been holding up pretty well to the cold weather, not sure what will be left if we get a frost but they all seem to be doing okay so far. The peppers have finally start to turn which is nice. I don't know what I am going to do with then all, it seems like they are all going to turn at once. Maybe I will roast them and then freeze them. I think next year I am going to grow the peppers under plastic in the spring and early summer to get them growing faster.

I have yet to reseed the lettuce that was eaten by the slugs. I think it is probably way to late unless I put up a hoop cover over one of the beds. I'm am still contemplating whether to do a hoop cover or not.

The brussels sprouts are starting to produce lots of sprouts. They have grown so large they started to fall over so I had to stake them again. I used 2"x2" lumber which replaced the bamboo that I originally used. I think next year I will stake them with rebar sunk really deep in the ground to keep them up, I would have never imagined they would grow so big. By November I should be able to start picking them.

I forgot to weigh and give a total for my potato production on my last post so here we go. The fingerlings produced 2lbs 7oz which makes a total potato production of 19lbs 11oz . I haven't cooked any of the fingerlings yet, Parsec suggested I try gratin dauphinois with the fingerlings so I think I will give that a try, it sounds really good.

Lastly I will comment about the broccoli that I planted in late summer. The one row has really grown well and is about 1.5 feet tall and the other row is about the same height but they are really spindly. I think the bigger row will produce heads but I am not expecting much from the spindly ones, they wouldn't even hold up a flower head. If we have any frost warnings coming I will cover these with row cover in hopes it will extend the season.