Garden Update for 10/22/12

Its nearing the end of October, and the garden overall is doing very well.  I now have spinach, turnips, cabbage, lettuce, collards, broccoli, and some radishes (all cool weather crops) growing at various stages of developments.

Here is a picture of some of my cabbages. I think they are very cool looking.

As you can see , I am growing it with my lettuce. The lettuce has started to bolt, since it has been rather warm, in the mid-80s recently, but we have been picking lots of lettuce leaves and getting lots of fresh salads about 2-3 times a week.  Lettuce is so easy to grow, I highly  recommend it for any beginner gardener.   I will probably pull out these lettuce plants soon. I have some newer ones that should be ready to take their place soon.  That should give the cabbage plants a bit more space to expand, as they are getting quite big.  The inner leaves are starting to curl in, so hopefully they will start to form some heads,  maybe more so as the weather cools down later in Nov.  These are supposed to be very cold hardy, so well see if they can survive December/January, where we often get down into the 20s.    Unfortunately the plants seem to take a lot of space, and I might not have given them enough spacing.


My turnips are still doing very well.  My first patch is starting to form some nice roots.

  I've been picking many of the greens for some time now, and we've been enjoying them, and have started pulling out some of the larger turnips now, to thin them out and start using them too. I have a newer small patch growing next to this one.  

Now my pumpkin patch is doing OK for the most part. I have picked 6 pumpkins now, and there are about 5 other ones still developing.  Unfortunately a lot  of the original vine is now dead, I think mainly since that area its in hardly gets any sun anymore.  That shaded area has succumbed to powdery mildew very badly too.  But the part of the vine that still gets sun has expanded out into the tomatoes, which have not produced much at all lately, so I am not bothered by it:

So the area in the right side of this pic is the only area that gets sun, and the plants are doing well there, and still growing.

I have not seen any SVBs or any eggs in about a month now, so I am glad that is over!!

So some lessons for next year, is to avoid this part of the yard for a late pumpkin planting, as it gets very little sun in the fall. It would be OK for a spring planting of pumpkins or squash since they would mature in summer, where it would definitely get good sun.

Here is the best pumpkin so far.  Its the biggest once we have growing and should be a beauty when its ready.