Vegetable Garden Status - The Harvest Begins

marciaz3 Tropical 3 Northwestern Ontario

12 years ago

The temperature is heading down to +3 tonight, so it's time for the harvest to begin.

I just picked all of my tomatoes. The Beefsteaks were awful. Most of them split or were misshapen, and were going rotten as they ripened. The Early Cascades were very good, though. I think grasshoppers have been chewing on tomatoes, because many had little holes in them.

Last weekend i picked and froze the rest of the beans. They were excellent this year.

As mentioned before, i got one - count it! - cucumber, but there's another one on one plant so that and a zucchini that's still producing will get covered tonight. Amazingly enough, we got maybe about 6 zucchini this year! LOL Better than 60, i guess!

Dh has been digging a few of his potatoes at a time, just for meals. We'll need to get the onions out soon, but after tonight, the night temps will be okay for another week, so maybe next weekend.

The deer have managed to overcome their fear of the orange snowfencing and had gone in to harvest the swiss chard for me. Oh, too bad.... I like it fresh, but i'm sure i've told everyone how much i hate to have to can the stuff (which is how Dh likes it).

Carrots and beets are still in the ground and there are a couple of cabbages that i'll pick at some point this week so that i can make some cabbage soup. Our leeks look great but i don't know when to harvest them - pretty sure i read that they can take frost. Kale can as well, so our daughter can pick at her leisure - she doesn't have her own garden, and i'd like to remedy that! LOL

Dh picked several ears of corn this week. It's not coming that well - i guess the month of fall we had this summer didn't help! I forgot about it - will have to go and pick the rest now.

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Comments (3)

Slimy_Okra
12 years ago
I could kick myself right now. Forecast last night was +4, so I thought things would be okay. Nope, it FROSTED this morning! I lost most of the remaining tomatoes and zucchini. The peppers, eggplants and others were partially damaged. I think the surviving plants will still produce if we get more warm weather, so I'm going to keep them covered from now on until at least early October.
donna_in_sask
12 years ago
^Where are you? I'm in the same zone (in Saskatoon), and there isn't any sign we had frost.

I've been picking my regular tomatoes as they blush rather than when they are fully ripe. This might be a good idea if you have critter/disease issues with tomatoes ripening on the vine. The cherry tomatoes are copious and I've given a lot away. I must remember to only plant one or two next year, but how do I decide which varieties? Hmmm. I guess if I had to choose, it would be Sunsugar and Isis Candy. Those ones had the most flavour; the IC were in good shape long after picking.

My beans are having a second flush, although not as heavily as the first. Grew a few yardlong beans this year and I don't think I'll do that again. The cukes are still producing - Sweet Slice being the best of the bunch. My beets are very good. Carrots and potatoes were just so-so, had a crop but certainly nothing spectacular.

I usually have great peppers in the garden, but this year they were too shaded by other stuff. They haven't produced much. I have some in pots on the deck, including a Thai chili pepper that I grew from a grocery store pepper. These are doing better than the ones in the garden. Even when green, those suckers pack heat! My husband discovered this the hard way as he was sampling peppers for me when I made salsa last week. He bit a tiny corner of this pepper and needed a cup of yogurt to sooth the burn. Said he wasn't going near those for a while, lol.
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Slimy_Okra
12 years ago
Hi Donna, my garden is located just outside the city. It gets really frigid there at night.

There was also a frost in my garden on June 2 (a very light one that just singed a few leaves) but Saskatoon's last frost was on May 11th.

I should have seen it coming but I got too complacent.

This post was edited by Slimy_Okra on Mon, Sep 16, 13 at 14:43