Fall Garden

I was thrilled earlier this year when I learned that North Carolina had two growing seasons. I always thought that you planted in the Spring, harvested in the Summer, and that was it, you were done.

But no, I learned that here you can also plant in the late Summer and harvest in the Fall. Some veggies will even overwinter and produce long past the normal growing season. What a great way to continue getting fresh produce to supplement your groceries.

In our side of the world, the Fall Garden starts in late August, early September. I think it was the last week in August that Joshua planted carrots, onions, sweet peas, green beans (two flavors) and cucumbers. And voila! Our green beans and cucumbers are flowering...

...and our sweet peas are now taller than Daniel!

Won't be long and we'll be eating good!

The tomato plants had kind of stalled out thanks in part to the heat of Summer, but now they are covered in little green tomatoes. Joshua came close to pulling them all up, thinking they were done, but decided to hold on and wait. Good thing, too, because they were rejuvenated with the cooler weather that September brought us.

We still have a ton of bell peppers, jalapenos, and egg plants growing. Those have done really well. Our watermelon plant surprised us and has one or two little melons growing. We thought that it was done, but it too proved us wrong.

Rather than pull it up, Joshua just pushed the watermelon plant to the side to make room for some transplants--broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and 3 kinds of lettuce. We kind of missed the window for planting these by seeds. Just didn't have the time to do it, but Lowe's is definitely stocked up with Fall garden transplants, so Joshua helped himself and brought home a whole bunch. I can't believe how much lettuce he planted. That will be coming out of our years before we know it!

Above: lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower & broccoli growing alongside a really pathetic-looking watermelon plant. You can see the last large watermelon at the bottom of the pic. I need to harvest it. Up towards the top of the picture is the baby watermelon.

Below: More lettuce and carrots and onions (hard to see, they are up at the top of the pic) growing next to jalapenos, egg plants and bell peppers.

P.S.: Pay no attention to that squash plant down in the bottom of the above picture. It had a couple flowers and looked like it was going to produce more squash, but ended up just teasing us. It doesn't look too pretty, so unless it starts producing, it too will get pulled up. The cucumber plant growing along the left has given us a couple cukes, but the dogs took off the most recent cuke that was ready for harvesting...grrrr! They kept trying to poke their snouts through the fence to grab the cucumber until finally getting it just enough that they bit off part of the end and it was unusuable. Ggrrrr!!!! I don't understand their fascination with cucumbers. It is what it is. :)