| The Gardens Throughout October we were still harvesting fairy tale eggplant, lots of peppers, turnips, carrots, arugula, radishes, Diakon radishes, beets, lots of kale and some chard from the gardens. We dug all the potatoes and picked all the kohlrabi. The last two weeks we pulled a lot of black plastic and tilled all the bare ground. Gregg is finishing the garlic planting for next year right now as I am typing. We had a good year for cut flowers. We were picking flowers until last week, the third week of October. That was a good run! We had a hard frost on Friday, October 23 and Saturday, October 24. That ended most of the tender things. We collected a lot of peppers before the frost so we should have peppers until the end of the markets. The Tunnels We are cutting spinach now every other day. We have a lot of lettuce in tunnel two and we are still picking cherry tomatoes every Wednesday and Friday. They are still very sweet. The bok choi is looking good and selling well. All the big tomatoes have been picked and we were selling them throughout October. Now we are down to just a hand full of green tomatoes. It was a good year! The Greenhouse The greenhouse is bare. All the fans have been turned off and the door is shut. Fruit and Berries We are still picking red raspberries. The black raspberries were frosted on Friday night, but they had a very good year as well. We are still picking the Fall Gold raspberries. They are even sweeter after the frost. We are picking a lot of figs in October. Now we are beginning to prune the blackberries for the year. The blueberries and gooseberries have been cleaned out and mulched for the winter. Farm Stands and Markets East Columbia Library Farm Stand-Every Thursday from 12 noon – until 6:00 pm. The last day for the East Columbia Library farm stand will be Thursday, November 19 Fairfax Community Market-Every Saturday from 8am – until 1pm. The last day for the Fairfax Community Market will be Saturday, October 31 CSA The CSA is on week 25. We had a good month with a lot of greens, kale, collards, beets, and brassicas. Of course there are many winter squash to pick from. My favorite this year has been honeynut butternut squash. As you can see from the picture at the top of the page, the marigolds have been very brilliant this October. They are beginning to look a bit frosted now. The cosmos, straw-flowers, lobelia, and gomphrenia are still looking very nice. On the south facing side of our house I have a hedge of lilacs and several rose bushes. I have two planters with violas and lobelia that have bloomed all year since May when I planted them. In another planter I have nasturtium which was not effected by the frost and the orange flowers look absolutely stunning against the brown background of bare lilacs. In a corner on this same side of the house I planted a couple of foxglove and celosia. Would you believe it! They are blooming as if there was no frost or cold weather yet! We have been eating a lot of potatoes because of the cut ones or otherwise non-sellable ones. We eat them mashed, fried, baked, boiled and last week I made potato soup. Right now I have some left over mashed potatoes so I am thinking about potato cakes. My mother made them a lot because at home we ate a lot of mashed potatoes – my dad’s favorite. Even now at almost 96 he eats mashed potatoes every day. I have been making zucchini bread for market every week since the first week of July, but today I made pumpkin bread! Yea! Fall is really here! Enjoy the lovely leaves while they are still on the trees. They are just beginning to fall here. Enjoy the shorter days. We sure will – more sleep. |
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