Canada September Garden Updates

It's time for your garden updates for September. I'm afraid, I can't give an update on my garden for you today. Unfortunately, I'm nursing a 2 1/2 year old with a fever.

I would love to hear about all of your gardens though! What have you planted for fall? What have you harvested recently? We would all love to see some pictures!

Awww, I am sorry your little one is sick. Hope it is not too serious.

So far I have planted garlic, two varieties.....basic supermarket variety and some that I harvested this fall that I got from a friend last year. I have also planted radishes again, so this should be my third crop this year. Just for fun I am trying a fall planting of carrots because I have read in Lois Hole's Gardening for Northerners that you can plant them in the fall and will get a crop about two or three weeks earlier next summer. I still have to plant onions, both seeds and sets, but I am going away this weekend so they will have to wait until I get home around the 15th of this month.

The tomatoes are producing beautifully and we are eating them in toasted BLT's, salads, homemade tomato soup, etc. The bush beans are done but the pole beans are still producing. Peppers didn't amount to much at all this year. I have six ears of corn but I don't know if they are going to have time to fill out. They got too much afternoon shade in the place I planted them so have to put them somewhere else next year and try again. It is a very short season variety, so if I get it started soon enough next spring and in a place that gets full sun all day, I might be a bit more successful. We have dug some potatoes the ones that the tops died on, but anything that is still looking green, we left to let them get a bit bigger. It doesn't look like the beets are doing much but the carrots are looking good. I pulled up the lettuce as it was past it's prime and will have to plant some in the garden as well as in the cold frame as an experiment. I have never tried fall or winter gardening before but am getting excited about trying different things.

We'll see how things go.

All the best to you and your little one.

GK

My DD is feeling much better today. No fever. Fingers crossed.

Sounds like you have had a great year in your garden. Mine didn't do so well this year, but I'm going to chalk it up to inexperience as this is my first SFG. My first vegetable garden actually. So, that's double inexperience!

I have pulled my bush beans as they stopped producing, added some more compost to the soil and planted a lettuce mix. I actually now have 4 squares of lettuce mix going right now. I'm hoping to get a decent salad before winter sets in. I also planted a square of beets and a square of radish. I'm not sure if they'll do anything. My last planting of beets and radish was a total wash. The leafminers loved my beet greens last time. I have planted them in a different spot, so I'm hoping they won't find them this time. Irrational thought at work here.

I'm hoping my broccoli that has been just hanging on and munched on by cabbage worms will pick up as the cooler weather comes. I pulled one that was really small, but I left the other as an experiment to see if it does anything.

My best producers were my Little Muncher cukes, bell peppers and eggplant. The bush beans produced very well too, although not enough at one time to actually use in a meal. I harvested 4 Little Munchers from one plant. So far, I've harvested 2 bell peppers and have 2 more getting ready for harvest. I have harvested 1 eggplant so far. There is one more eggplant growing right now and 3 more blooms that I hope will turn into eggplants. I'm not sure if there will be enough heat left in the year for them to grow, but I'm hoping.

The carrots have nice greens on them, but I'm not sure how the roots are doing. I'm going to leave them until after the first frost. A little birdie told me they get sweeter that way (thanks boffer!).

I'm going to completely change up my SFG next year. I'm going to search really hard for more different types of compost, move the SFG (it's a tabletop, easy to move with a couple of strong men) to a sunnier spot in the yard and expand to 2 or 3 more boxes. I will not use the Topsy Turvey's again! I may use containers again for my extra plants that won't fit in the SFG.

Well, that's my garden update! I apologize for the length of it.

Any other Canadians have some updates for us??

Well congratulations to you on your first garden. So it may not have turned out the way you had hoped but it wasn't a total bust. And you learned a lot too. How awesome!!

Do you compost at all? That is a great way to improve your soil and saves money you would have spent on compost for more seeds, plants or other garden stuff. You can start now by taking compostable stuff and digging a hole in one of your squares and burying it. Earthworms will show up within days to gobble it all up. Or you can blend it up in the blender first and pour it in a hole in your SFG. It will break down really fast. So besides the decomposing plant matter you will also have the worm castings!! Double bonus.

Glad your little one is feeling better. Sucks when they are sick.

GK

That's a good idea! I would have to find some worms to put in the SFG though. It's a tabletop. I doubt they would be able to get up to it.

LOL! Well, if you have a flower bed or something in the ground, try putting compost in there and the worms will come. Then you can just move them to make it easier for them to get up to your table top garden. A garden needs earthworms, after all!

GK

I'd really like to try some little muncher cukes next year, where did you find the seed for them BlackRose?

My SFGs were hit & miss too.

Poor root production in radishes and beets; ok tops but no roots. Had several great heads of romaine lettuce. Carrots grow great, we have already eaten a couple squares of those and several still growing. Also have 2 squares of parsnips but I won't know if they did anything until after frost; they have tops so there is hope. White globe turnips grew great leaves but few roots too. They shaded out the rutabagas in the next square so I don't expect much there either.

Snap peas are always great but I never seem to get enough at any one time for a decent meal for four, I'll have to plant more at a time. I missed the planting time for a fall crop. Planted 4 spring broccoli plants grown from seed that I started in my table top grow op back in March. The plants grew great but the broccoli heads were pathetic...4 tiny bits that were barely 4 mouth fulls. Second year attempt, both failures. Not sure I'll try broccoli again, such a waste of space so far. My onion sets grew nice, I have been pulling and using them small throughout the season as needed for various dishes and for hamburgers.

I have several varieties of summer and winter squash that were doing well but I put a sprinkler on a timer to water them while we were away for a week and it caused the vine leaders and flowers to rot off. I ended up with 2 acorn squash ( 1 on each vine) and 1 buttercup squash. My sweet dumpling squash was slow to get growing and just started climbing and blooming recently.

My 4 summer squash plants are starting to flower and produce really well -- I have 2 white custard plants, 1 sunburst, and 1 yellow crookneck summer squash. The package said they would be bushes but they are actually short vines that can be wrapped around spiral supports to keep them up off the ground. I have already eaten 8 or so summer squash and have given some away; there are many more on the way. I am please with them and will definately grow some again next year.

I also planted 2 midget cantaloupe vines per square; they fit fine and are really small but only have one melon growing so far. Doesn't look like I'm going to get much off them. I think the 2 cherry tomato vines that I grew on the same trellis threw too much shade on them. The cherry tomato vines grew really well, they grew to the top of the 6 ft trellis and were reaching another foot or two into the maple tree branches behind. I didn't prune off the side shoots so there are many dense stems woven through the trellis. Lots of cherry tomatoes are ripening each day. Juliet tomatoes were also a success and very tasty. Lots of little tomatoes, they are ripening faster than we are eating them.

Also grew cucumbers -- 2 marketmore and 2 long green vines. Have had a few cukes but would have liked a few more. The marketmores were the nicest as they have nice white flesh and pleasant taste. The long green ones have greenish flesh and are a bit bitter. I started them in the house from seed, when I transplanted them outside I also planted another crop from seed but this second batch of vines are just starting to climb and flower so I don't know if they will do much before frost. Next year I'll just transplant them all. I'd like to know where to get seeds for those mini muncher cucumbers that the grocery stores are carrying -- what variety are they?

Great update bullfrogbabe!

I don't remember exactly where I got the Little Munchers. I picked up seeds in the early spring from all over the place. Walmart, Zellers, Home Depot, Lowes, Rona. LOL!

They were McKenzie Organic seeds: http://www.mckenzieseeds.com/products.aspx?productID=132596

Edit: I have some leftover. If you'd like me to mail you some, send me your address in PM. I could definitely spare a few and still have plenty to plant myself next year.

Little munchers... are they like the small pickling ones?

Well good day, yesterday was the first day that I have been able to get to my garden for a good couple of weeks!! It was a jungle in there... It is slowly getting cold here now and some plants are not too happy about that. Our first frost should be right around the corner.

For my garden update... I dug up the potatoes and I think a bit early they already finished flowering but did not die off like I usually wait. I am glad I did because of the lovely 'things' that were munching away on the tators. I only lost less than one quarter of the harvest but could they at least have chosen the smaller ones and not the large tators. I noticed that the plant still had many tiny tators to fill out so next year going to leave them longer. I had an excellent turn out though and for just six plants I think it turned out pretty good. I even have some potatoes 'berries' for next year!

The beets were chowed down the same way and they only left me one.

I finally pulled two squares of carrots The orange ones could have been left longer, but the purple ones I should have pulled sooner. One of the ones has gone to seed. :?: I am just letting it flower and do it's thing. I have one last square that is no way near being ready yet that I will pull later.

My one broc plant that was just left as a skeleton from the munchers grew a bunch of bite size pieces. Yeah! Cauliflower toast after the munching.

Turnips, parsnips, eggplant, Brussels, and asparagus failed miserably.

I had lots of snap peas, green bush beans, purple bush beans, and fava beans and have frozen them now for the winter. Pole beans not ready yet.

Tomatoes are doing quite well but all green still. Going to have to start covering at night. My tiny Tim's were plenty.

Zucchini not so good but managed one med zuc out of 3 plants. There are two small ones that I am going to pick soon I think. Pumpkins, patty pan squash and gourds did not work this year for me. I was really looking forward to tasting the patty pan this year.

Not too sure about the corn... have height, ears, and have tried the human pollination thing but not quite sure how it is going to turn out. I think not enough sun.

Cabbage... the green ones I think will be toast as the other insects are finding them super tasty. My purple ones are not at the head stage yet (fall planting) so will baby those - have a lovely stylish net around them.

And as for my Loofa sponge experiment... the vines are about 4 feet, some flowers but a no go and now showing signs of freezing. (or mildew?) Next year...

My melon and watermelon both mildew or freeze also. I only had one small watermelon that I am trying to recover.

Strawberries... the slugs have enjoyed them during the first harvest and are back for seconds again. I went straight for the pellets this time.

Cucumbers were a sad bunch and not many at all. They also look like they are freezing already too. Leaving them out to see if anything more happens as there are some small pickle like ones growing.

So there you go, my garden still looks like it has a lot of stuff going on so I am not giving up yet.

It is so wonderful to hear how everyone is doing!