October is coming and almost gone. Time to clean up and gather all the veggies at the end of their live cycle and maintaining the fall/winter harvesting veggies. Here's the list of what I have done:
1.Garlic: Planted garlic in early October. Planted them in 3-feet rows, leaving 6 in. between each garlic clove;
2. Picked all the fresh eating beans before the chilling rain that would ruin them. Beans left for harvesting seeds can still remain on the vine.
3. Harvested all the soybeans, picked all the peppers, eggplants, preserve as much as I could, giving away what I can not use...
4. Harvested all the corns (this was the second planting, sowed in July. Strip the corns off of the cob, add to corn bread, delicious!
5. Harvested all the basil leaves and dried them all before the cold rain arrived. Leaves will turn black once frosted and are no good. Parsley, on the other hand, will be fine, they are cold hardy.
Currently harvesting and eating: (Fall/Winter harvesting veggies):
1. Veggies planted in August: Cylindrical beets, Fordhook Swiss Chard, Lucallus Swiss Chard are ready to harvest. They will keep in the ground for another month or so;
2. Red Cloak Radish, Radiant Giant Radish sowed in August are about the size of softballs. Thin the rows and eating the harvested radishes;
3. Carrots planted in spring are ready to harvest and put away; carrot planted in summer are still small, they will keep growing and will be wintered over.
4. Parsley is doing great, I picked some leaves when I dried my basil leaves. They are still growing new leaves. If protected they will be good all winter.
**Other business in the garden:
1. Grapes are turning color and ready to harvest. Made grape jellies with the Concord grapes
2. Asian pears are ready to be harvested and put away for the winter.
3. This year apples did not do well, except the Fuji, which always does well.
