Tuesday, September 7, 2010

September in the Garden

The weather is changing.  Don't get me wrong -- it's still ridiculously warm, but the humidity is starting to break and the weather is now in the 60s at night.  I snapped a few pics this evening because I recently started transitioning the raised beds to fall production by planting seeds.  Carrots, swiss chard, kale, lettuce, onions.  Many seeds have already germinated!  But still no luck with the lettuce.  I think the recent temps in the upper 80s and low 90s combined with very little rain may be the problem(s).

Swiss chard seedlings.  This is my first year growing chard.  Got my fingers crossed.
Kale.  Perfect greens for soup and holds up well even in frost.
Carrots.  I planted six different varieties.  This is only my second attempt at carrots.  I failed two winters ago for a variety of reasons.  Not this year!

While these pictures suggest fall, the figs and basil are still producing as if it is mid- to late-summer.  This will be my second huge harvest of basil (I've got pesto coming out of my ears) and I'm pretty sure these figs will ripen before it's too late.  The Heritage raspberries have also done pretty well despite my neglect, and of course those tasty gems get eaten well before any thought of a picture.

I planted basil down the sides of my tomato beds for a companion crop.  Still going strong.
Peter's Honey figs peaking out from the dark green foliage.

2 comments:

VeggiePAK said...

The carrots look great! Have you had a soil analysis done? I tried to grow carrots for two years, with no luck at all. You could hardly tell any had germinated, let alone get this big. Is there a particulat fertilizer mix that you use to achieve these results?

Keep up the good works! It looks really good!

.09 Acres said...

Good question. I have not done soil analysis yet. But I do have quite a bit of compost in each bed. I also avoided fertilizers high in nitrogen prior to planting because I wanted each carrot to focus on growing good roots instead of only good greens/tops.