Fall Garden Guilt Assuaged

We got over to the garden today and finally got some more things planted for fall. Good thing because I was really starting to feel guilty that my fall garden plan flew out the window. (I know, why did I think we would have an awesome fall garden when we have a brand new infant...crazy, right?! But we had baby help this weekend so we were able to make time to garden). We are planting super late we realize, but we hope that the row cover will extend our season. Supposedly it protects the plants down to 28 degrees. Then we will switch it out for a plastic cover. Our average first frost is October 15th but may come a bit later, so we will see how things go.

We planted more cylindra beets since our lack of watering has yielded only 4 seeds that germinated. Sadly I'm out of Golden Beet seeds which I only realized when we got to the garden. :sigh: We filled in the lettuce with some romaine and bibb, planted a row of butterhead lettuce, a row of Japanese red mustard, a row of regular mustard, a row of kohlrabi, a few wax bean seeds, and assorted radishes. We also planted one brussels sprout as an experiment since it is our first time growing it, and we are beyond late in getting the seed in the ground.  We'll see what happens. At least we can try again with them in spring.

The canola cover crop that we planted in the big bed last week is popping up. At first I always think they are weeds. We need to fill it in in some places, but it should keep the erosion under control this winter.

Our peppers are still going strong and the bees are definitely enjoying the basil seed stalk flowers as you can see in the picture at the top. Our neighbors all have amazing peppers right now too, so I think the conditions may just have been right this year.

Our blackberry is beyond out of control and is trying to assimilate the fence. Once the berries are ripened and picked this is getting whacked back.

We also got some more compost going and for once we remembered to bring some brown matter (shredded newspaper) and not just our green matter kitchen scraps. I'm trying harder since I don't want to attract any more critters.