After the garlic I planted bush beans, swiss chard, okra and carrots. Also transplanted a tomato plant that was still in a container.

I think in a week or two I will start some cool season things indoors under the lights. Last year I tried direct sowing and had poor results probably due to warm soil conditions.

Tell me about chard ... Swiss or otherwise ...

How does it transplant?

A sowing of green beans followed the peas. I have some room from the on-going (& slow-paced) harvest of the potatoes. Some of the plants that will go in that potato bed can go into the greenhouse in October. It would be nice to have chard in there this winter.

This was the first year I have transplanted beets. It went well. I have tried sowing beet seed in the summer. The beet seedlings that emerged shut down in the heat. The beet cousin, chard is supposed to do well in the summer.

Steve

who is all in favor of fall (& winter) gardens!

I have started chard and then transplanted with mixed results though good enough I would do some again. Seems easy enough to start direct sown and hasn't been bothered by bugs. My primary insect problems are cabbage aphids and flea beetles. So the plants that are attacked by those I avoid growing in summer. There might be something to growing trap crops though and letting their natural enemy populations build up.

Generally I like the chard stem. Moist and sweet enough though it can get tough. Not sure what the variables are.

After garlic this year we planted 3 kinds of bush beans - green, yellow, and burgundy. We've been pleased with the beans in the past. Last year we tried bush lima beans, but the growing season was too short for them. We also tried carrots and beets. The beets did well, but not the carrots.

Bok choy for stir-fry from the first sowing of seed in July.

With 3 sowing beginning in mid-July and including the last group, which will be moved into the greenhouse next month, I should have bok choy any 2016 day from here on out. Bok choy from the 2nd sowing were given more room in the continuing use of the bed used for early potatoes. The slow harvesting of the potatoes was completed about 3 weeks ago.

The topsy turvy 2nd sowing can be seen at the top and the newly transplanted at the bottom of the photo. In between are the tiny seedlings intended for transplanting to the greenhouse and a December harvest. I hope I wasn't too late getting the seed in. They are tiny!

Chard! Yeah!

In something like 6 weeks from sowing, the chard is plenty big enough for the kitchen. "Edible Amaranth" was last week! They beat out the bok choy with rapid growth through the heat of mid-summer. You can just see some of the Amaranth at the very top edge of the picture, beyond the 2nd sowing of bok choy.

Steve

The bok choy for the fall is getting to be a cinch. This is an early August sowing and most are ready to harvest. These are in the bed behind the greenhouse and some couldn't dodge the slugs but, most did!

Now, I'm still hoping for a few more nice days so my mid-August sowing of bok choy is big enuf to move into the greenhouse for the winter. I think it will be.

Seeing how orach would handle an August sowing didn't work out so well ... the photographic setting didn't work out so well, either but ...

Yeah, these are 3 small plants and wanting to bolt to seed. There were just a few more from all the seed I put out there. They didn't want to germinate in all the mid-summer heat. I won't show you what it did (or didn't do) for the spinach. And, I can show you the edible amaranth but I don't know what to think about it. I like the flavor, it held up well, but the plants are really quite tiny. I didn't expect them to be so small. The chard did great! I might have a picture somewhere but we have been eating off those few plants for some time.

Here's what I protected from the heat by sowing in the shade of the corn. I tried this last year and it may have worked better for the cilantro, and yes, there is some dill sown in with them.

Now, the earliest planting of corn has been cut down and they are in full sun. Only these plants have grown very much, however. They all had better hurry up! I'm only gonna have ripe tomatoes coming out of the garden for a few more days!

Steve

Begun, the first harvest of the cilantro.

DW makes a simple salsa, wilting onions, cilantro, peppers, and cherry tomatoes under the broiler. The cherry tomatoes are first halved and then peeled after a minute or two under the heat. Blended, it is an easily prepared, quick and good condiment. I say easily prepared but I have never done it ...

The tomato plants are on a serious downhill spiral. Here at home, they look better than in the open garden but the neighbor over the back fence reports that that there was frost on his lawn, Sunday morning. One of now many cold mornings, this time catching me off guard. I knew it was chilly when I finally stepped outside and quickly checked various weather station histories. Nope ... but I'll believe the neighbor and how the tomatoes looked when I saw them later in the day. There have been too many mornings like this and a hard frost would almost be a blessing ... .!. let me collect my green tomatoes and peppers first, please.

Steve

I hear you, Steve. Mother Nature is telling us to wrap it up. We've had mid 40's at night, one night dipped into the 30's last week and I did blanket the plants. The cherry tomatoes started ripening a month ago, but I ate my first ripe non cherry tomato off the vine Friday, September 30th! I'm not sure what went wrong this year. Mom and I picked 8 lbs of ripe tomatoes from the San Marzano plant Saturday and made a batch of ratatouille. I wasn't sure I was going to get to harvest tomatoes this year, but the plants are coming through, finally. There are a lot of green tomatoes still on the plants.

I see 31 degrees forecast for us Thursday night. It's decision time, pull the plants or blanket cover. I think I'll cover on the cold nights this week and pull the plants next weekend. This has been a season for the books.

Barb

Interestingly, the few orach plants survived the frost but they didn't germinate or grow very well during the hot weeks of summer.

The bok choy survived the frost. A few plants would be able to survive the winter but be fairly well torn to shreds by it. They didn't handle late summer transplanting and all very well, out there in the garden. By that I mean, quite a few of the plants stalled and weren't harvested. Perhaps, it was just too hot and dry. There's no hope for any more growth from them unless I move them a second time - into the greenhouse. I did that a couple of years ago, moved them twice. I was surprised that they didn't just bolt once they had some protection. They grew instead! This year, I have lots of tiny plants to transplant. They represent a good chance for a crop in there but, maybe I'll have some of both, younger and older ... in that greenhouse bed.

The edible amaranth can't take a frost!! Dead. Interesting how cousins in the same family are so different ... well, I suppose the beets and chard are not close cousins. The amaranth is a sure-fire summer crop but, as I said earlier, I'm disappointed in the size of the plants. Maybe, I'll try a different variety in 2017.

Escarole! I hadn't intend to grow it in the fall but one seed must have been buried too deep in the spring. A plant showed up long after the early escarole was harvested and, although it didn't get to any large size, it grew! We ate it tonight with beans and sausage in a nice "peasant" soup! I like how escarole holds up ... in July. One accidental plant doesn't make for much of a test but it did okay. Obviously, it prefers to grow in cool weather because it was almost unnoticeable earlier. It survived 2 "killing" frosts, lots of cold and now some very unpleasant wind and rain. Hey!

Steve