GRO4US

Though the official date is twenty days away yet, the season has arrived. Sunday afternoon I could feel the difference in just a few short hours: the humidity was gone, and the temperature had lowered. I have always loved Fall! The last few days of early Fall have been wonderful.

In keeping with the time of year, I’ve planted my first bed of fall crops. In my top bed I’ve planted 21 beets, 12 “Russian Red” Kale (the ragged sort you might find in a store), and have started Broccoli and another Cucumber in pots. Depending on what goes on with my tomato bed I may wind up with a whole other bed to use.

My oddball roma/cherry tomato plant has produced, seemingly by a miracle, some two pounds of fruit over the last week and a half. Yes, virtually all the tomatoes on the plant ripened at the exact same time. Err, I take that back (since I just weighed them to see)… the basket I gathered yesterday was 1lb 5oz in weight, and we had over 10oz already indoors. I think there are several pounds of ripening tomatoes still on the plant!

It’s getting late enough that I’m hoping that my lone pepper plant will fruit; it is almost the size for flowers. Out of nearly six attempts to start the plants from seeds, only one bore a tiny sprout and that was almost by accident. So, it’s been a very slow two months while I await peppers; it would seem that most other gardeners, and farmers here, have had trouble with peppers this year.

What have you planted in your garden for your autumn planting?

Well, it’s that time of year when we need to plant indoors, fix up the beds, and remove the dead and dying plants from the garden. Even my little garden is thinning out and needing a good once-over before I plant again. Most my cucumber plants have yellowed and slowed their production, the tomato plants look like they’re dying, and I’ve got to rip out the rest of my much-too-old lettuce.

And yet things are still going well.

The three bush beans that I planted have furnished nearly a full serving for six adults over a week’s time. The carrots that have been ever so doubtful are growing decently, and even my beets have thrived.

The last month or so feels like it has flown. All of a sudden my well maintained garden looks like a nightmare, and the weeds on the border have crept in nearly three or more inches. What doesn’t help is that the last cucumber that I planted has grown to massive proportions, with some four vines almost five feet long. (And they claim you can put a cucumber plant in a three-foot by three-foot space, hah!)

Of course, while I do have to work I also have to start things like broccoli indoors while I prepare my garden for the next plantings. I feel almost like Damocles, except that it feels like a big sack of flour is dangling over my head. It would help if I didn’t have to amend my soil and add more compost thanks to the hefty rains this year (by the account of one long-time gardener, this wasn’t a good year for a new gardener) but such is life.

At least I’ve seen the worst water can do in my region!

One plant that is positively thriving in my soil is the cucumber. I chose to grow Boston Pickling cucumbers, a variety from back in the 1880’s. This is one cucumber which I do enjoy, in spite of my dislike for cucumbers.

Here are a few tips and tricks I’ve learned with them during this season.

Trick: Rub Ends, No Soapy Flavor

Sometimes cucumbers taste soapy near its ends; it can be a bad enough taste to slow even the most cucumber-loving vegan. But the trick to get rid of this problem is simplest of all: cut the ends off, one by one, and rub them in a circular pattern. You know you’ve got it right when the cut seam begins to look soapy—so lather up, rinse, discard, then enjoy.  Thanks to my mom for this one.

Tip: “Careful with the water, pal.”

Cucumbers are 95% water. That’s a lot! But, how much water should you give during the bearing cycle of the plant?

I’ve found that the plant will take almost as much water as you will give it. But, depending upon your variety you may not want to drench it with a half-gallon daily. Instead, try giving about a quarter gallon daily and observe the results. If your cucumber is no longer mostly round, and is like a triangle with bulging sides, you’re giving a little too much water; if it is very skinny or oddly shaped, try adding a little more water. I’ve found it to be quite hit-and-miss in getting the optimum growing size, but still gives decent “cukes” in the meantime.

Tip: Pick Early, Pick Often

The objective of a fruiting plant is to produce a mature fruit, once that is done the seeds can propagate the plant. In other words, its job is done when it produces a mature fruit. This is pretty common, but well exemplified in the cucumber. Find the size that tastes best to you and pick it; when in doubt, pick it; when near maturity, pick it. The production of fruits will accelerate as the plant tries to reach its goal.

Last year I made a token attempt at gardening around this time of the year, or a little later. Yes, I know that isn’t the time to make a garden but we were starting even smaller than this year. That year’s work wasn’t much success at all. But this year we’ve got a bed with potential problems, which I decided to use as extra space.

It didn’t work.

Cucumbers and zucchini are large plants that take 3′ x 3′ worth of space each—neither of which I like. Because I wasn’t sure how this bed’s soil conditions were, it caused severe blossom-end rot that prevented any harvest of big beef tomatoes, I figured it could serve as a backup bed. So, I planted two rows of carrots, none of which sprouted, and two zucchini plants; I started some cucumbers in planters and then moved them out to the same bed.

The result was a dismal failure of slow death from pH imbalance. The plants paled, wouldn’t grow, and produced nary a blossom.

Or so I thought.

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I know little about both gardening and plants. What I do know I have learned from books, from experience, and from mistakes. That knowledge hasn’t covered most the signs of maturity among my plants; some were obvious, such as the wax bean. The intricacies of lettuce have been harder to learn than it has been to grow.

Anyone can grow lettuce. Throw out some seeds, lightly water at dawn and dusk, wait two or three weeks, and presto! you have baby lettuce. But, now what? Like many, I harvested individual leaves early, before the lettuce qualified as a “head”. This leaf lettuce only amounted to a single serving at first picking, but that picking stimulated rapid growth. For the past month I’ve had nice heads of lettuce in my garden that provide biweekly salads.

Yet, last week I noticed that my lettuce aged almost over night. I looked a little closer and found the signs that I’d missed, so that I will harvest my heads in time from now on.

Maybe one day I won’t commit these mistakes as frequently.

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