Wrapping up and planning our garden

Kind of hard to believe, but fall is here, and winter just around the corner. We have red, yellow and orange peppers in our outside garden, so we've been picking them every few days. Then in our high tunnels, we have a few tomatoes still producing. We had a number of small tomatoes, so Marge cut the stem end out and put them under the broiler until the skins were loose and easy to remove. I've been enjoying them with a little salt.

Marge has some carrots that she'll dig or pull little by little. Some are pretty decent-sized. We love baked carrots. We're getting a few small-sized eggplants that we are enjoying. Our most interesting experiment is two rows of small potatoes that are about ready to bloom. The plants are right at 2 feet tall right now. We have some bush green beans that are blooming up a storm, so we'll maybe get some green bush beans. We planted several rows of turnips in one high tunnel that have grown into some beautiful turnip tops but no bulbs.

The other morning as we shut the sides up on the three high tunnels, it was kind of sad. We open them up when the temp gets hot, so they are open all summer, but then when it cools down in the fall we shut the sides down. But even as we shut down this year's garden, we have plans for next year's. Things we want to improve on or change or even delete.

One thing I did several months ago was order most of the seed I want to use next summer in 2024. The other day I went back and checked on the availability of seeds, and one is now unavailable. Wood's Famous Brimmer tomato, which I definitely want to try next summer, is now unavailable. I had a feeling that might happen. It sounds like a pink tomato that averages around a pound, but some grow to 2 pounds. Another tomato we grew last summer was Gold Medal. It was by far the best tomato we grew with fruits around a pound or so. Delicious! Three others that we will definitely grow are Dad's Sunset, Chef's Choice and Stupice.

My brother, Mick, grew Cougar Red Tomatoes, which were developed at Washington State University where Mick's wife had gone to college. Linda passed away several years ago. Mick said that the Cougar Red tomatoes were similar to Stupice but maybe didn't last as long in the fall. I thought it would be interesting to grow them next summer.

One pepper that I grew this year was Big Jim Peppers. They are a red pepper with a base around 3 inches in diameter and from 8 to 9 inches long. They are pretty much round and slope down to a blunt point. Good flavor and fairly thick walls. Sweet. Another slightly spicy pepper is Maxibell. They will warm up your mouth but not scorch it. They are about the size of a goose egg.

A Facebook friend up in Canada grew some really nice looking pickling cucumbers so I ordered some for next summer. National Pickling cucumbers are a perfect size for pickling or about 3 to 5 inches long and just over an inch in diameter. Should be interesting. My friend raises Percheron work horses.

So any revelation's from this year's garden that stand out? One for Marge and I is to select potato sets with care. Just because they are advertised as potato sets doesn't mean they are worth a flip. Another revelation is to plant a few zucchini plants. We seem to plant too many up front and not string the planting out. Feast or famine! Purely by accident we ended up planting a single Carbon Tomato about the end of July. It has excelled as a fall tomato. I think we planted it about July 1.

Email me your success stories. Love to hear them. May even share some in a future article. I was thinking of a garden friend who passed away, Mr. Blackman. Some of the nicest people have dirt under their fingernails.