Best & Worst of Fall Gardening

Zeke checks out the pea fence.



It's been a cool and rain filled September and much of my fall garden has been a bust.  The green beans were great despite the deer damage but only half the peas made anything and I had to plant them twice!  The lettuce has done very well and the pelleted seed I planted last weekend sprouted last night so I have hopes of lettuce into November. 

As of this morning however, all the broccoli and cabbage plants are gone.  What the worms didn't eat, the critters consumed. I was really  hoping for a good crop of fall cabbage and broccoli to freeze for the winter.  Ever since I read an article about a guy on Long Island who harvests big fields of broccoli in January I've been determined to have Cole crops in my fall garden.

Zeke looks for mice under the row covers. Little Joe waits patiently for some mouse action!

Next year (what a familiar refrain!)  I'll have to plant them under high hoops covered over with floating row cover if I want to remain organic. Otherwise I'll have to put up the electric fence around the garden - which is a pain to mow around, and dust the heck out of every thing with Sevin insecticide dust.  I keep Sevin around to dust the chickens for lice. It's the only time I use an insecticide and trust me, if you have ever been around a lice infested chicken house, you will loose all scruples against employing poison to kill the little blood suckers!

My three raspberry plants continue to give me a serving of luscious red raspberries every day. My brother gave me the plants last fall from his patch. I think they are the breed called Heritage. They are fall bearing on this year's canes and pretty easy care. So far the deer have left them alone. I'm placing an order this weekend for 25 more plants which I will split with my brother.  We both have visions of a raspberry cash crops in our futures.

Pipster is bored with the whole garden thing.

The sweet potatoes are coming along well. And the kale is looking super!! Now I have to decide how I'm going to eat the kale. I confess, I've never eaten kale in my life but it is suppose to be very, very good for you, so I'm going to learn to like it somehow.  Who knows, I might actually like it - I hope so anyway. I seem to remember kale in soup and something about fried kale crisps?  Any ideas out there?