The fall/winter garden is up and growing strong at PAR Davies.

Hi Everyone,

Today's Harvest 20 lbs.       YTD 1356 lbs.

I believe fall is the perfect time for working in the garden, and today was no exception. Our gardeners today were G.A., Susan, Barbara, Steve, Cathy and myself. Our fall garden is now pretty much planted except for sowing the vetch when the sweet potatoes and few remaining rows of tomatoes and peppers come out. The beds are full of fall crops that we have been planting since the latter part of August.

Savoy cabbage bed with radishes planted on both sides.

The harvest consisted of tomatoes, peppers and okra, which was taken to the women's shelter by Cathy.

G.A. pulled out another row of tomatoes and planted turnip greens in their place. The turnip greens that he planted last week are coming up. Susan and Barbara planted what is to be our winter covered bed. They seeded in several varieties of lettuce, some carrots, beets and dwarf blue kale down the center. Steve hand watered most of the garden.

Cabbage on the left, turnip greens peeking on the right with some basil still hanging on.

We put in a whole bed of spinach, hoping it does as well as last winter; although I didn't have the seeds to soak last night to speed germination. Soaking ALWAYS helps with spinach germination.

There were no signs of the cole crops being eaten, and since time was short, we elected not to spray today but concentrate on other things. I will check Friday and spray if necessary.

Romaine down the center with broccoli and cabbage on either side.

There wasn't time to check the sweet taters since we really needed to get everything planted, as fall planting time is near an end. In fact, everything planted in the winter covered bed is about past time to get in the ground. But since it will be protected, we went ahead and put it in, with about 50 days to get up and going.

Late planted summer squash.

There are three summer squash that were transplanted out the end of August. Here you see a few little squash starting. The bugs have not bothered these as much so late in the season. I wonder if we will actually get any squash?! This is the end of our squash experiment, with results yet to be determined.

Sage

There is quite a bit of sage that has taken off, looking really nice in the cooler weather. I know it deters bugs and is good for Thanksgiving dressing, but does anyone have any good recipes using sage? Martha Payne gave us a recipe using butternut squash and sage made into kind of a tart that looks really good. Sage seems to be an underused herb.

All our workers have been extremely pleased with our fall crops so far and the looks of the garden, with most of our beds full. 

'Til later,

Dianne