Fall gardening

About this time of the year, it seems like the grass and weeds just take over the gardens. I spent one day a week or so ago getting the weeds and grass out of our rhubarb plants. I started about 20 new rhubarb plants last spring from seeds. Probably 15 or so of these plants made it to planting time in our hill garden. I think all of them are still alive with one exception. One simply dried up and died.

We had planted the rhubarb plants in plastic mulch, but about halfway through summer, the plants looked like they were getting too hot, so we removed the plastic mulch. This left the ground bare so the weeds took advantage and just went wild. I used my short-handled rogue hoe, which made short work of the weeds and grass. We'll keep them damp till frost this fall and then mulch them with straw. This should help protect them till they get another year older. Some of these are red rhubarb, which I think is better tasting.

Our row of zucchini bit the dust a couple weeks ago. The bugs finally sucked the life out of the plants, and they dried up and died. Our plans are to plant some new zucchini plants in one of our 24-by-48-foot tunnels. This tunnel had tomatoes in it, but they are through producing tomatoes, which lets us plant other veggies in it. We've had good luck planting zucchini in the tunnels, especially in the fall when we can normally leave the ends and sides open. The only issue we had was needing to have the ends shut up and the sides shut in the spring because of the weather. This didn't allow pollinators in the tunnels.

Our plans are to plant at least one row of Jade green beans in this tunnel. We might plant two if we have enough bean seeds. They should have time to produce some green beans. Normally the temp has to get down to about 25 degrees to freeze in the tunnels. We are also going to plant a row of purple-top turnips and a row of white miniature turnips. These turnips grow to about 2 inches. We would like to plant a couple rows of beets in the other 24-by-48 tunnel. They won't get real big, but they should be good this fall or even into the new year.

One other crop I like to plant in the fall is rainbow chard. We plant several seeds per hill with the hills being about 12 inches apart. These chard plants will remain green the entire winter and should make some great eating in the spring as well. I like to pick some small leaves off the chard and then either steam it or boil it. Pretty good with a touch of vinegar and butter.

We have had a time growing okra because of the weeds and grass, so this year I started a tray of okra plants indoors. Most of the tray of 48 slots grew, so we transplanted them into plastic mulch. I think we have had three or four messes off them so far. We really enjoy a good mess of okra. We experimented on how to cook the okra and finally tried browning the okra in a little shortening in a cast iron skillet. When the okra pieces are getting tender, we then sprinkle corn meal on the okra. Sure is good.

A friend of ours gave us about a dozen sweet potato starts earlier this summer. We hilled up a short row for the starts and planted them. Marge and I drove by the sweet potatoes about a week or two later and I thought, "What is wrong with the sweet potato starts?" They were gone! The starts were gone, but the deer tracks showed who had taken them. We figured we were out of the sweet potato business.

But a week later, there were new starts growing in eight different spots. So now we have eight sweet potato plants that are starting to spread out and grow. Pretty darn neat how they spread and put down roots and then spread some more. Hopefully, they will produce some sweet potatoes this fall.

We planted a bunch of sweet bell peppers this spring as well as some jalapeños, anchos and some pepperoncini peppers. I commented to Marge the other day that almost everything she cooks starts out with onions and peppers. When she cooks me some scrambled eggs, she starts out with peppers and onions. So Marge cuts up gallons of bags of bell peppers and freezes them for winter cooking. She also freezes a couple bags of whole jalapeño peppers to make jalapeño jelly. Most of this she makes with the whole jalapeño, including the seeds, so it's a little on the warm side.

We've never grown the pepperoncini peppers before, so this is a first. One recipe Marge uses calls for pepperoncini peppers. She puts a 4- to 5-pound beef roast in her insta-pot along with a few pickled pepperoncini peppers. I think she is going to pickle what we are growing and store them in the fridge.

One other veggie we have to make room for is some fall or winter cucumbers. We usually plant some plants that put off the short stubby cucumbers like one uses for pickles.

Hope you have had a rewarding summer filled with veggies and if possible maybe a few later on this fall.