Winding Down and Ramping Up

      For many things in the garden, the five plus inches of rain from Hurricane Sandy was the final straw.  Some tomato plants that were hanging in late in the season have wilted from too much water.  The sweet potato tops that survived the frost have now collapsed.  I pulled the zucchini plants shown in the following picture because the fruits have just stopped growing. 

Pulled the zucchini,  November 2nd,  2012

      The squash needed to come out to be able to refurbish that bed for getting the cold frames back in action.  In the back yard garden, I cleaned up a frame that had also had squash plants, to plant some starts that have been waiting in six packs.

      This frame has Four Seasons Lettuce, volunteer Frisee, Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, and a few shallot starts that might give me some bulbs in the spring to divide and regrow.  That big empty space in the front beckons to be a seed bed for some new cold weather crops to sprout for later transplanting.  Even as the summer garden needs to be pulled, the winter garden activity is just beginning.

Goings and Comings

      Early October is a time of transition for gardens here in Delaware.  While some tomato plants and cukes and peppers are still hanging on, they certainly are not thriving in these shorter days of fall.  There just isn't enough solar power to keep them going.  But as they peter out, the salad greens and cole crops should come into their glory in the cooler temperatures.

Unnamed small cherry tomato still thriving,  October 8,  2012

Even the tomato foliage is still thriving

While some tomatoes may ripen, these plants have given up

Summer flowers still look pretty good, summer veggies fading fast

Pick me and pull me

      Most of the tomatoes that were put out early in May are done, having run out of gas even if they were indeterminate plants.  However, some of the plants that were started from cuttings in June or early July are still looking alright, particularly two Chocolate Cherry plants over at the park.

Still going, and going.....

        The most productive single plant this season was a volunteer squash plant that I hoped might be a white Caspar pumpkin from where it popped up.  So against the advice of garden writers (squash plants are notorious cross breeders), I left it alone.  Turned out to be a true Patty Pan squash, and it produced over 40 squash during the season.  The plant is looking pretty beat up now, though there are still baby squash setting!

Single Patty Pan squash plant,  October 8,  2012

Malabar,  October 8,  2012

      This is the one malabar spinach plant that I put out this summer.  I had started some cuttings last September, and after giving away three starts, this is the single one I had left.  It is a tropical plant, and will melt into a mess with the first frost.  I will be taking some cuttings soon to root for the beginnings of a new crop for next year.  So although this vine looks fine at the moment, its end is soon in sight.
       So as the summer crops are going, the fall crops are coming in stronger and stronger.

Four Seasons lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson, Arugula

Purple Top Turnip

Fedco Tendergreens, and kale to the right

      The cold frames will soon need to be put back together, and repaired where necessary.  I scavenged wood and glass over the last few months, so I expect there will even be newer and better cold frames in the near future.  I am potting up any volunteers that I find to develop good roots for transplant to one of the many cold frames.
      From one season to the next, with no big pause in sight.

Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce

       Sustainable Seed Company writes of this lettuce:

Lactuca Sativa
Black Seeded Simpson (45 days)

An old reliable lettuce that is heat resistant, slow to bolt and very dependable. Leaves are large, but lightly crispy and ruffled.  Excellent for spring, early summer and fall planting.  I remember my grandmother growing this variety.  She was a practical German woman, so it was one of her favorite for its consistent yields...when the rabbits didn't find it!

1885 James J.H. Seed Co. says..
"An improvement on the Simpson, being finer in many respects."


      Luckily for me, it is Lou Gallo's favorite lettuce, so he often over plants when starting his fall crop.  And I often benefit, as Lou is quite willing to share.

Lou's Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce,  September 20,  2012

      This is a picture of Lou's seed bed of Black Seeded Simpson.  He seeded it heavily in August, and transplants it to other areas of his garden.  I dug out some plants this morning, leaving some space between the newly created rows.  The left side of this picture illustrates the current stocking of his bed.

My box of transplants

      I had started some Black Seeded Simpson earlier, but only a few came up in the middle of this bed.  The arugula to the right did much better, and the Four Seasons Lettuce with the coppery color to the left did passably.  I took some of the new transplants, and filled in the Black Seeded Simpson swath.

Four Seasons, Black Seeded, and Arugula,  September 20,  2012

      Although the transplants looked great in the photo above, they had some major wilt by the time I left the park.  They should show pretty good recovery in two or three days.  With that wilt in mind, I took the rest of the transplants home to plant them in cell packs and put them in the shade.  They should develop a decent root system in a week.  Then they will go in the ground as needed.

Sitting in the shade

Cold Frame Clean Up

Before clean up, 12/27/11

      I was surprised that one cold frame had a lot of die off.  It was the Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce, which I think died of old age rather than cold weather.  When Simpson is ready to bolt or die, it is pretty quick to do so.  Luckily I had dug some of the lettuce from a bed from a fellow gardener who has given up gardening for the season.  What a blessing to have replacement plants on hand.
      Yesterday there was a married couple walking around the park looking at their garden and touring others.  They stopped by to chat about the cold frames.  They mentioned they had put in lettuce late that had not matured.  Of course I made the pitch to adopt it for a community garden down town with a new high tunnel that is begging for plant starts.  I must have done so well talking about winter salad greens, that instead of giving me permission to dig, they left in search of some garden fabric they had in the garage to make their own protection for the lettuce.  She seemed delighted by the outcome; he rolled his eyes, being quite happy to see the lettuce succumb to the cold.  Isn't that what usually happens?

After clean up, 12/27/11

      There, looks much better.  I left the frame open last night as it was supposed to rain and have a low of only 38 degrees.  Tonight is forecast to go to 23 degrees, so I need to remember to cover it again.  Note the Mizuna mustard at the top left that I dug from my park garden.  I wanted to have some of those pretty greens near at hand.

Fall Vegetable Gardening

      As per usual, a timely start to fall gardening has passed me by, so that I am now in the catch up mode.  It is difficult to get motivated in the hot, muggy and oftentimes miserable days of late August.  Planting seeds of lettuce, broccoli, kale and cabbage just don't make it onto the garden radar.  Which results in a mad scramble in September to try to find veggie starts or figure out what just make it if started from seed.  The cold frames that I intend to get built are the ace in the hole, protecting many of the plants that might be started too late.
      But there was at least one gardener on the ball over at the park.  Lou Gallo.  The robin man from spring posts.  Lou started his patch of Black Seeded Simpson on time.  Please note the infamous robin nesting chair in the background.  The lettuce patch is a beautiful sight to behold:

Lou's Black Seeded Simpson Patch

      Well maybe Lou has slightly overdone it.  A patch 20 feet long by 18 inches across.  I suspect that adds up to more than 10,000 lettuce plants, maybe quite a bit more!  Lou has been very generous to let me trowel some of his few extras out of the bed, giving the remainders just a teeny bit more room to grow.

Lettuce starts

      The green lettuce above are from two small trowel raids I made across Lou's bed, with his blessing of course.  I did give him a couple of tomatoes, his having met the fall reaper.  The red lettuce on the right are volunteers I found atop the park compost pile.  So I kinda fell into those too.

Transplanted to cell packs, taken 9/21/11

 

      The small lettuce plants from Lou's garden were transplanted to cell packs to have time to develop a better root system.  Moving them directly to my garden beds results in a very poor survival rate.  The serrated plants in the bottom right corner are kale volunteers from my garden.  They were growing in the paths, so will be transplanted back to the garden.  The taller plants in the upper left corner are Malabar Spinach.  Yep, volunteers from the compost piles at the park.  I will take cuttings from these plants to try to keep all alive in the house over the winter to be transplanted back to the gardens in June.  Malabar Spinach likes it hot, like 90 degree heat.  The more, the merrier.

      I have been driven to searching for volunteers and freebies because I was remiss in starting plants, and the local availability to buy starts is either minimal, or it is expensive to buy starts when found. 

Rose Hill Plantery

      A week ago I had to travel south a bit to babysit, so took the opportunity to visit the Rose Hill Plantery down on Route 9 near the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  Their six packs are $2.99, probably a fair price as I was soon to learn.  They did not have broccoli, as I believe a fellow Bellevue Park gardener bought out their supply.  I did buy one pack of Savoy Cabbage, and one of scotch kale.  A little later I stopped into Willey's Farm Market on Route 13 south of Odessa, where six packs were $3.49.   They had kohlrabi and collards, so I got one of each.  The mesclun was sown pretty heavily, so even at $3.49, I bought one of those.
      It wasn't until the next day that I thought about Olde Country Gardens here in Wilmington.  I scored two four packs of broccoli at $2.99, but careful selection found me a pack of six, and one with seven!  These starts were planted out in both gardens on 9/8/11.  This might be the end of my purchased starters.

Bellevue, Bed #1

      Following Lou's example, I figured I would start some seeds directly into the garden.  Would sew them thickly, hoping to have enough to move to other places, like my daughter's cold frames. Planted so far:

      9/12/11 Bed #8: One row White Globe Radish, one row Easter Egg Radish, 4 rows Purple Top Turnips

      9/19/11 Bed #5, from East to West: Planted in 6 or 8 inch swaths: Fedco Tatsoi, Livingston Arugula, Lake Valley Mizuna, and Bloomsdale long standing spinach.

      9/20/11 Bed #1 pictured above, in 8 inch swaths from East to West: Fedco Space spinach, Fedco thick stem Chinese mustard, Fedco Beedy's kale, Fedco giant winter spinach, Heirloom early wonder beet, Livingstone white globe radish, and GWD pak choi

      9/21/11 Bed #6 from East to West: two foot block GWD 2011 Arugula, then 8 inch swaths of Fedco winter marvel bibb lettuce, Fedco Rouge D'Hivre romaine lettuce, Livingsone baby romaine, GWD 2011 red sails lettuce, Fedco tango lettuce, GWD 2011 four seasons lettuce, and Phil's 2011 Lush Arugula

Volunteer Veggies

      This fall, like many, came too quickly, with many summer projects left undone.  Not surprisingly, planting seed for the fall garden was one of those projects gone awry.  To make it worse, none of the nurseries or box stores around here are carrying fall veggie starts.  In little more than an hour, I will drive down to Willey's Farmstore to see what they have.  But this morning I was over to the park garden to look for volunteers in my plot and in the three compost piles.
      The pickings were fairly slim.  Black Seeded Simpson lettuce that I got from Lou Gallo early this year was great fresh, then went to seed.  Some of the babies are just poking through the mulch.

Black Seeded Simpson starts, 9/7/11

      I saw Lou this morning over at the park.  He has a fat 20 foot row of Simpson coming up right now.  He offered me to thin out some.  Solves that problem.  Thank you Lou.  I forgot to take a photo of the nice little Frisee plants coming up at the park.  They look like I had put them in, as they are already in a bed, no transplanting required!  There is a nice batch of what looks to be Rainbow Lacinto Kale coming up.  It could also be Red Russian Kale, but no problem as either is great.

Kale, either Red Russian or Rainbow Lacinto

      Next it was on to a walk around the park compost piles to see if anything of interest was growing for transplant to my garden.  Whoopee, spotted at the top of one pile was a sole sprout of the red stemmed Malabar Spinach!  I had tried unsuccessfully to grow malabar from seed this spring, having planted 18 seeds to have only one sprout.  That one did not make it to size either. 

Malabar Spinach find, 9/7/11

      Malabar Spinach likes hot weather, as in the nineties.  It will not get that here in September, but it will grow to where I can get lots of cuttings.  I have at times successfully rooted them over the winter, to have plants to put in the ground in June.  I will try harder this winter to succeed with it, as it is difficult to even find the seed.
      Having scaled the compost pile to dig out the Malabar, I was rewarded with a bonus!

Red lettuce, 9/7/11

      A handful of red lettuce seedlings!  Oh how sweet it is.  I would not have even seen them at the top of the pile if it had not been for the malabar scavenge.  The lettuce was transplanted to cell packs to grow some better roots before going into their fall spots.  A total count of 11 nice little seedlings.  I love it when a plan comes together.  So between Lou's generous offer and my red lettuce find, I may not buy lettuce later this morning.  More to spend on broccoli and cabbage.