October Garden Report

Maintenance has gotten easier. I haven't needed to water much this month at all. The garden isn't exactly still going strong, but it is still going.

I recently picked squash and zucchini, and made bread with them. I picked some peas and beans too.

I am having a hard time deciding if I should pick the lettuce. It's not very big, but it's been holding at this size for a few days now. It may not get any bigger.

The tomatoes will ripen. I was guiding the branches on one of the plants, and one hard green tomato fell off. I thought it was too green for putting it on the counter to work, but it did. If that one can ripen, all of these can. I still have it in mind that it is superior for them to ripen on the vine, but every day that I leave them out there is one more day that they can fall and be eaten by slugs. I thought I would gather everything at the first sign of frost, but I think it will happen before that.

The last few zucchini may not ripen, and that's okay. If they do I will use them, and if they don't, it's still part of this thing that inspires me, in that the plants will keep going for as long as they can.

With the tomatoes, everyone has a lot of tomatoes still green or ripening, but the strawberries are still putting out new fruits. I thought they were done, but I picked two strawberries two days ago that were ripe! In October! It's not like you can make jam from it, but it's still kind of cool, this drive to produce and to choose life.

Also, I had no idea how long-lasting marigolds were.

So that's where I'm at now. I am deciding when to pick what is left, based on the progress that I'm observing.

I also need to make decisions about next year. Do I want to keep the plot? If I do, do I want to grow the same things?

That sounds like I don't need to decide right away, but there are winterizing things I can do, and if I am going to do them, we are getting into the right time.

Therefore, there will be a November garden report. It will be partially a post mortem, but it will still have an eye to the future.