I have kale and lettuce going already, and I plan on adding a bunch of chard here soon. Somehow with my winter squash plants taking over, I have no room for leafy fall and winter greens yet.... I have never had luck with radishes in my gardens and I would love to know why.

But, that being said, kale is my go-to in the fall and winter. At one point a few years, I had about 15 rows of kale, just covered the entire garden in it. We had enough frozen kale in the freezer to last a year at one point.

Almost all my summer plants are still producing heavily and I just hate to remove them, so right now my fall garden is just exactly the same as my spring/summer garden. We're still getting a harvest from all the summer plants that are left---tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, okra, southern peas, watermelons, muskmelons, cucumbers, Armenian cucumbers, winter squash, tons of herbs, and we're just now starting to get a harvest from the hibiscus sabdariffa (you use the red flower calyxes to put the zing in Red Zinger tea). I haven't dug sweet potatoes yet and our highs are still in the 90s and upper 80s so I'll let them keep growing for a while.

I do have Swiss chard that grew all summer (I had it in the shade of the tomato plants) and it is putting out a lot of new growth in the somewhat cooler weather, so it likely will produce until spring if I keep it watered.

Some years I have a huge winter garden, but I think that the last time I had a really big winter one was in 2012. I'll probably sow lettuce seed soon and maybe kale, spinach and collards, but I am tired and not much in a planting mood. This winter we are going to dig up more beds and remove the soil from them so we can line the beds below ground with hardware cloth to keep the voles from eating our plants. I decided I wouldn't plant much for fall because I'd like to get as many beds lined with hardware cloth as possible, and it is a long slow process to remove that much soil. Most of my raised beds are 4' wide and raised 4-8" above grade level and range from 8' long to almost 50' long, so with the beds we've lined with hardware cloth so far, we've dug down pretty deeply so we could grow root crops in them without the root crops growing down into the hardware cloth. This year, the winter garden will be more about digging soil and fixing beds than raising crops, unfortunately.

kfrinkle, When radishes refuse to "radish up" (not a term I created, by the way), it usually is because the seeds were sown too close together and not thinned quickly enough. If you wait until the seedlings have been up out of the ground and growing for, let's say, a week before you thin them, that may be too late. After a week of growth, the radishes already understand they are competing for space with plants on either side of them and this seems to keep them more vegetative. I thin my radishes to their final spacing on the day they sprout from the ground---just as quickly as there is enough plant matter growing above ground for me to be able to grasp it with my fingers and pull it out. That's with standard radishes. If you are growing the big Chinese radishes that make round globes, you can get away with thinning them a little more slowly as they take a lot longer to radish up.

I cannot tell you why a failure to thin radishes very soon after they sprout can lead to them never radishing up well, but I know that it does.

Dawn

Yeah, I think i need to thin faster now that you write that out. I am really bad at taking too long to thin out...

I let some radishes go to seed, these things (white icicle) are gigantic. But none that I picked at "edible" stage had a root. I probably didn't thin properly either, who knew? I like the green seed pods, though. I cut some of these monsters off, not wanting to disturb the roots of other plants in the soil. They just sent up new shoots and flowered again.

Squash bugs and squash vine borer larvae, fer sure.

Between the blight, the grasshoppers and the deer, we have very little left in the garden from summer. A few blighty tomatoes, the sweet potatoes that were eaten so heavily they never made much vines at all, and the peppers which the deer have been eating since everything else is gone. Glenn did dig up a 4x25 ft bed that I planted greens in, Bok Choy, lettuce, spinach, radishes, and beets. I didn't thin the radishes early enough either so don't know how they will do. I bought a 30 ft length of tulle from the fabric dept at WM because Lowe's didn't have any frost fabric yet and laid it over the bed loosely to foil the grasshoppers. My winter garden will get planted in October in the greenhouse to eat from December on. Swiss Chard will join the other winter greens. And will plant some carrots again mostly because the granddaughters like to go in the greenhouse and pull carrots in the middle of the winter.

hehe Harvesting carrots is my kids' favorite, too. Just something magical about it.

I came back here to add that there are other reasons that radish plants fail to bulb up, including excessive nitrogen and hot weather. The excessive nitrogen simply keeps them focused too much on making vegetative growth and hot weather sends them a signal to hurry up and make seed instead of growing bulbs.

Dorothy, Sometimes I have waited at least a week after they sprouted to thin them, and most of the radishes did bulb up. The really early thinning to proper spacing is most important with the radishes that produce a crop in 20-30 days. The radishes with longer DTMs probably tolerate a later thinning.

I have a garden full of grasshoppers still, and saw newly hatched ones earlier this week. When is this grasshopper nightmare going to end? The drought drags on and this week the rain missed us, so the grasshoppers are fat and happy and not in much of a hurry to go away. The drought and hoppers also played a role in my decision to skip planting a big fall garden. It seemed pointless, given our lack of rainfall and heavy hopper population, to plant stuff that I was going to have to water heavily and protect from grasshoppers. I only have so much "fight" in me in a given year and the drought and the months-long grasshopper infestation has used up pretty much all of it already.

Peas, broccoli, basil, catnip, and a cucumber that struggled all summer and has now decided to get with it and produce.

Zinnias are sad and will pulled out soon, but the impatiens look great. The Autumn Joy is ridiculous. It just spreads and lives through all kinds of insults. I pulled up a huge armfuls of it, threw it in a corner of the backyard and it's still living and blooming. Didn't plant it, just tossed it in a corner. Not sure I like Autumn Joy--it came with the house and I'm still trying to decide.

mystery squash plants, okra, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes that never did anything, chard, fennel and lots of flowers,
And is too late to plant greens? sickness and canning really altered my schedule this year and I wanted beets and carrots too, I could make a hoop house for them if I needed to.
kim

No, it's not too late if you plan to cover them with a hoop house or low tunnel. Spinach is very cold hardy, lettuce fairly so. Swiss chard should do too although it takes it longer to reach picking size.

My carrots germinated like crazy. Lettuce is doing well. Kale and chard coming up, beets could have done better. Broccoli, collards and brussels sprouts growing. I love this time best, when things are just starting!

Oh, the peas are just breaking through, too.

Amy, Yay! I am glad it all is doing so well.

Kim: Re: your comment that canning altered your schedule. I can relate. In a year when everything is producing well, I spend most of my time from June onward harvesting and then using various methods to put up the harvest---mostly canning, but freezing, dehydrating and fermenting as well. Sometimes the gardener in me resents all the hours in the kitchen necessary to process the harvest (even though I do enjoy putting up the harvest too) because I'd still rather be outside in the garden with the plants.

Dawn

I also love doing both.
My garden didn't produce enough to can, except cucumbers, but I was gifted tomatoes, apples, and pears and my pear tree is loaded. Very busy.
I am really going to focus next years garden on food I can preserve. I have been making lists and a lot of the food we eat regularly is not even in my garden.
oh and the mystery squash plants...zuchetta and spaghetti yay They survived hail and squash bugs. So far I have seen 10 zuchetta but since I saw a little snake I am not going too deep into the jungle!
kim

I'm now up to 7 days without a snake sighting, and I am excited about that, although I suspect it mainly is because I've been painting the house and rarely have snakes get too close to the house since we have free-ranging chickens and kitty cats. This is the worst time of the year for me to reach too deeply into any bed filled with plants in the big garden because so many snakes are loitering there in the shade waiting for food of some sort to show up. I guess snakes are, in fact, one of the reasons that I don't get into too much of a hurry to clean out the garden while plants are still green.

Our biggest crop right now consists of the biggest mosquitoes I've ever seen, and plenty of them. It is hard to paint the house in a neat and tidy manner when you're spending half your painting time slapping at mosquitoes.

I often am gifted with peaches and apples from friends here who grow them but who don't can them. This year was a poor fruit year in our county because we had freezing temperatures in May after the trees all had bloomed and set fruit. Even the native plums froze. When I am gifted with fruit, I always return some of it, in the canned version, to the folks who gave the fresh fruit to me in the first place, so it is a win-win situation for them and us.

More pumpkins! But even more squash bugs. Seems the bottle gourds are taking off again, too.

And I have compost. WOOT!

And I've cleared out about 200 square foot of bed in prep for next year.

More squash bugs.

Grasshoppers, ants, aphids and vine borers. Those svbs have really been a plague on my gardens this year. My fall lettuce got totally tossed about in the wind and rain tonight, but we did get rain!

Ditto on the squash bugs. I just flick them to the ground and step on them and squash them with my foot. Appropriate death, right? I haven't been in the garden much lately because we've been painting the house when the weather allows. I guess the squash bugs have been missing me because they are coming to the house and crawling around on the siding near me while I paint. It is so bizarre. I think they probably are trying to figure out if they can get into the house somehow to overwinter.

We got rain too. And tiny hail fell for just a minute or so. We got lots more wind and thunder than rain/hail, but still, with a half-inch of rain in the rain gauge, at least October rainfall is off to a good start.

I can't paint the house tomorrow because the overnight temperatures will be too low, so I get to spend tomorrow harvesting, and will be harvesting the first bunch of Roselle calyxes.

More pumpkins!

thanks, Dawn. I feel better. Really. Nothing to compare with. That being said, I've considered growing the patches closer to the house so I can monitor the squash bugs easier. But, then, they'd be closer to the house !!

We got between 1.5 and 2 " of rain, small hale and strong winds. Most of my broccoli is lying down, some stems may be broken. Its too wet to go in and check the plants now, the cabbage and greens look fine.

Larry

Bon, I really think the squash bugs do try to come inside in the winter, so keep an eye on them. I always find a couple, usually hanging out right by a door, at this time of the year. I can assure you that there's no squash plants growing by the door, so I think the little brats are looking for a warm place to overwinter. I try to take it with a grain of salt and tell myself to appreciate that they traveled from the garden to the house so that I could easily find them and kill them. We just caulked the exterior walls before we started painting so I am thinking they won't be able to find their way inside. I've never found a squash bug indoors, except when I've carried in a bucket, bowl or basket of just-harvested squash and a squash bug or two hitched a ride. Stink bugs, especially the brown marmorated ones, do invade homes (in the NE especially, by the thousands) in the fall. That's a problem we don't have here yet.

Larry, I cannot believe your horrible luck with the weather this year. I'm sorry to hear about the damage. I hope the plants bounce back.

The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex was especially hard hit by yesterday's storms, with some places recording wind gusts in the 60-90 mph range. In Lake Highlands, an area with very old and very large trees, a lot of trees came down and crushed whatever they fell upon. This morning at least 200,000 people remain without power. Tim was at work and said it was pretty bad down there for a while, but it wasn't until I watched the evening news that I realized how bad it was.

At our place, we were sort of just barely brushed by weather like what they had down there, so our winds weren't very high at all compared to theirs and our hail was teeny-tiny. Maybe not even quite as large as peas. By the time I heard the hail hitting the windows and went to the back door to look out at it, the hail was ending. It was that brief

I am glad the hail here was small because I still have cucumbers, pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes and watermelons producing, and I would have hated to lose them to hail. Actually, southern peas are still producing but they're pretty tough and hail usually doesn't harm them.

We rarely get hail here in fall, but yesterday's hot, humid air ahead of the cold front was a classic spring set-up so I felt like the thunderstorms were likely to be severe wherever the cold front collided with the hotter weather. We had a Severe Thunderstorm Warning here, but I don't think that the storm was at severe levels at our house. It might have (and probably was) hitting harder a bit east and north of us.

I'm looking forward to the cooler temperatures forecast for tonight and tomorrow morning. It might even feel cold tomorrow morning when we wake up. I'd like that. It's been a long time since we have awakened to weather that is cool enough to be considered cold.

Dawn

Glad to hear Dawn got rain. I was looking at the mesonet wondering if anything fell on your place. Sorry about the damage at your place, Larry. Kfrinkle, I feel you on the bugs. Found aphids on my okra! They were broken over anyway (wind? Beans growing up were too heavy?) And SVBs...grrrr. Bon, glad you are still getting pumpkins, squash bugs did mine in a couple of weeks ago.

The squash bugs have killed my melon plant. It was the last cucurbit left because after the squash they went for the cukes and finally the melon. I tried DE, but it didn't phase them. Earlier in the year I felt lucky because they hadn't found me yet when everyone else was complaining. They certainly made up for their late start. I am sure they will over winter and be here early next year.

Green beans have been producing again. I would have a fresh crop of tomatoes if it would stay warm for awhile. We had a brief episode of little hail, maybe pea sized, but I don't think it hurt any thing. The fall beds look good.

I really am not ready for fall. Cold weather and I don't get along. I get S.A.D. I forget what it stands for, but it is from lack of light in winter. Sigh. I guess I will get busy planning a spring garden, maybe that will chase away the blues.

S.A.D. = Seasonal Affective Disorder. They have special lights you can get and, supposedly (I haven't tried it), if you sit under or near those lights for a specific period of time every day, it will cure the S.A.D. I just try to go outside, or at least open the curtains and blinds and let the sunshine in in winter, whenever the sun is shining.

We've had so little rain the last couple of winters that I have felt like I had plenty of sunlight (which isn't good if you need rain).

Okay, Dawn, what do you do with the Roselle calyxes? Tea?

Okay, Dawn, what do you do with the Roselle calyxes? Tea?

Cochise, Yes, it is the roselle calyxes that put the 'zing' in Red Zinger tea.

There are so many flowers on this year's plants that I am hoping to make roselle jelly and roselle jam too.

Dawn

Amy, I'm so sorry they got your melon vines. I kept expecting them to do so in my garden but they seem perfectly continent to be at war with the eternally growing pumpkin vines and what they can tolerate of the bottle gourds.

Dawn, does it do any good to abstain from their certain plants for a season? Like bring down their numbers .... maybe let a neighbor suffer.. how sad. ha I'm not real certain I can abstain but if it does any good, I might try. I certainly have little experience and lots of other plants to mess with next year.

Do they like roses if there's nothing else to eat? My neighbor has roses and she's pretty mean. She might even like them.

Too funny, Bon, don't you wish they ate bindweed and poison ivy?

Bon, The answer with most pests generally is no. If you don't have their most favorite plant available to eat, they'll just find something else. This is especially true if there are other gardens (or farms) fairly close by with plants that will attract them or if you're in a rural area where some native plants are very attractive to some specific pests.

Every now and then I have a year in which I don't see a single squash bug or squash vine borer (usually in separate years, so that even if I don't have one, I still have the other), but there isn't any rhyme or reason to it---I cannot say I've ever found a connection between the weather or anything else and the absence of a specific pest in a specific year. Once the squash pests have found your garden, they're pretty much a constant problem, which is so unfortunate.

I've never had them on roses or heard of them being on roses, but you never know....if they get hungry enough they might eat some odd things.

Amy, There are bindweed mites that eat/damage bindweed. I know that at least one insectary (Palisade) sells them, or did sell them in the past. I have no idea how effective they are.

And, just to remind us all that a weed is just a plant that is in the wrong place.....even though field bindweed makes us crazy, there is at least one major anti-cancer drug that includes some component made of or derived from bindweed. That brings to mind another old saying "one man's trash is another man's treasure".

Dawn

Amy, every time I read that post above about your icicle radishes, I cannot help but wonder if your seeds were switched out for Daikon radishes, instead. I just bought some last week, in fact, after searching for a long time for something bigger than a tiny seed pack. Kinda late to plant them, but Daikons are famous for growing large and deep breaking up heavy soils. I've never grown the icicles so I don't know how big they get. The internet suggests icicles are large but smaller than Daikon.

I don't know, Bon. The ones that got really big were in 8" deep beds with weed cloth in the bottom. They went down to the cloth and spread out width wise, so might have been 6" in diameter, but they weren't any longer than 8". Some were taller than my husband and he's 6'.

Wow!