What's growing in the late October garden

Fall garden

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Well, we had our first frost over a week ago in our Zone 6 garden.  The temperature got down to 36 degrees F.  It wasn't quite cold enough to hart the summer veggies like tomatoes, peppers, or eggplants.  The shorter days are causing them to slow down in production, though.  

The pepper plants are still going strong.  The tomatoes, eggplant, and cucumber have really slowed down.  The basil and other herbs are enjoying the temps and sun we have been having.

The basil will be the first to let you know if there has been a good frost.  Any touch of frost turns the plant black.  You can take a cutting from your outdoor basil and root indoors to keep fresh basil at your fingertips.

 The next 15 days do not show any temperatures down to freezing so I will leave them growing.  The next time the forecast has the temperatures going into the 20’s, I will harvest all the peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant fruits and call it a season for these summer veggies.

You could bring the peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant indoors and they will continue fruiting for weeks and put them back out in the spring to get a head start on summer.  I get enough hot and sweet peppers off each of the plants to eat and freeze that I won’t do that this year.  I will need to grow Ancho peppers next year for more chili powder.

You could also put the potted tomatoes, eggplant and peppers in a greenhouse and lengthen the season for at least another 4 weeks. 

The cold season crops like lettuce, cabbage, kale, broccoli, collards, spinach, onions, mustard, sorrel are very happy.  The celery is still going strong.  It doesn’t seem to be affected by heat or cold.  We harvest from it year round.

The rest of the herbs are doing very well-thyme, savory, oregano, chives, dill, rosemary, sage, bay, parsley, lavender, mint.  

Don't forget your local Farmers Market if you want local and freshest produce in season.  Many are open all winter long!