What we are harvesting in the mid-October edible

Tomatoes and peppers with zinnias in the background

Sunday, October 18, 2026

The garden continues to produce well; more than we can eat fresh.  We are harvesting tomatoes, onions, sweet and hot peppers, lettuce, zucchini, cucumbers, Red Malabar spinach, New Zealand spinach, eggplant, chard, sorrel, mustard greens, yard long beans and many herbs.  I am freezing about a pint of peppers, and 1-2 quarts of tomatoes a week as well as drying the herbs we need for the winter.  I have more okra, zucchini and eggplant than we can eat.

Our tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, zucchini, okra and yard long beans are still yielding decent.  The 6 week drought and late heat wave we had were hard on the tomato vines this year.  For tomatoes, be sure to take all the tomatoes off the vine before it frosts.  You can either wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper and store in a cool place to ripen, make them into relish, or eat them as fried.  For fried green tomatoes, we like a Cajun batter.  Gives them a nice, spicy flavor.  A late fall tradition-fried green tomatoes!

The year, my cucumbers produced until the end of September; I am still getting a few small fruits.  My Trombetta zucchini is only giving an occasional fruit now.  In years past, it would produce well until the first hard freeze.   

As you straighten up your garden beds as the summer crops wind down, be sure to compost!  Any plant that has a disease, do not add to your compost pile.  Throw away!  Composting may not kill all spores and you could be spreading the disease next season wherever you use the compost.  For more tips on composting (even indoors),  Composting basics and troubleshooting tips

Peppers love this time of year.  They are native to the mountains so October is perfect for them.  They will continue to produce even after frost.  My peppers did well this year.  I had a couple of California bell pepper plants in the ground and they did very well.  The sweet chocolate pepper that I saved from seed did okay this year.  The sweet Jalpapeno hybrids did well.  The Doe mini bells did great.  The hot Jigsaw pepper plants just kept producing their pretty purple peppers all season long. My Tunisian Baklouti hot pepper plant that I had had a couple of years died for some reason.  I harvest my peppers when they start to get some color in them and let them finish ripening on the counter.  Removing the fruits encourages the plant to replace them, giving you more peppers.  Peppers get sweeter when they ripen, but are good to eat even when green.  

I will bring in the Jigsaw pepper plant and the two Chipetlin pepper plants for the winter.  It seems like the hot peppers overwinter well inside.

Basil is doing pretty decent right now.  Basil are very tender annuals and will turn black with the first frost.  Make sure to harvest all the leaves prior to the first frost.  You can dry basil, make it into pesto or freeze it in water.  My favorite is to make pesto.  I have plenty of pesto in the freezer so I probably won't make any this fall.

Stevia in bloom, covered in butterflies

You can also dig them up and bring them in for the winter.  Place them in a full sun spot.  You can put them back outside again in the spring after all danger of frost has passed.  I typically have volunteers that pop up in my tropicals so I don't need to start any others.

Bay, chives, thyme, marjoram, oregano, papalo and tarragon are all robust.  Tarragon smells wonderful.  Even if you can't eat all that you can harvest fresh and dried, it makes a wonderful potpourri.  I just use dried, whole stems in a vase to freshen an entire room.  I bring the bay tree in for the winter every year.

The greens are doing just okay that I seeded in early September.  They love this time of year, cool with plenty of rain so I hope they start popping. As soon as they are a bit bigger, I will put in the permanent spot for the winter.

Fall is a bountiful time for gardening.  I have planted many winter hardy varieties of lettuce, broccoli, mustards, and cabbage to keep the garden producing into December and hopefully beyond.  With the portable greenhouse, we should have greens all winter.