Another great start to fall harvesting. Numbers on some plants are dwindling as usual, while others are just starting to really start producing. The temperature averages have been on par with 2022, though we saw a lot more sunny days in 2022, which always helps with garden items becomming ready to harvest.

We are still classified as drought 5, though we did have a bit of rain in September. None of it was enough to give a good soak though. As we move into October, I certainly don’t mind rainy days this time of year. We have been doing a few drives in the woods, and although the sun lights up the coloured leaves as the trees change, there is also something very cozy about sipping a hot chocolate while rain lightly falls on the windshield. It still has to be a nice dirt road with the colours of fall, but either drive is as good as the other. The rainy weather also helps encourage me to get processing some of the food that we are still pulling from the garden. Other than a beautiful drive and a day of rainy fishing, I was able to make another large batch of spaghetti sauce, a parsley & garlic marinade and I dehydrated a full rack of parsley to add to the spice drawer. Let’s see how things stacked up this year.

This is a great year for beets. Not only are they happy in their location, but the second planting that I was able to remember to do this year is clearly paying off. I still have beets growing and will be harvesting late into October!

I love the gold and the red, so those are what I will focus on next year. The beet blend we did this year also had some white beets, which taste just fine, but aren’t my favourite. I am guilty of eating with my eyes, and they just don’t look overly appetizing. I like the vibrancy of the golden and red beets.

I have still been enjoying beet greens, however not as much in the salads. Some days, I want a salad, but on the days where there is a bit of a chill, we are sautéing the beet greens and adding them to some rice bowls or stir fry’s. I will definitely be harvesting these more regularly in the future. They didn’t get overly eaten or rough looking, so I have been able to enjoy them more than in the past.

The broccoli is still producing away with the little off-shoot heads. Overall, the broccoli didn’t do quite as well as last year, so I think I will need to change up the program a bit for next year. We will try them in a new location that they will hopefully thrive in. Maybe we will even be able to get away from the pesky cabbage worms! We will see.

I am tempted to put them up where the cabbage started this year, but am worried about the ants. I feel I almost need to plant something there that will not be an ant attraction. We will figure out our plan as we dismantle the garden this year.

Nothing to compare this to since I have not had luck with Cantaloupe before. Let me tell you though, this has been a fantastic year for them! It will be interesting to see if we have as good of years in the future. I sure hope so.

We have 3 more that are just waiting to finish getting ripe. The forecast as we come into October is not overly promising, but they are sooooo close. If I have to pull them early, then I will let them sit for a few days indoors so that they hopefully change a bit more. They unfortunately don’t ripen much off the vine, but I just need it good enough that I can slice it and dehydrate it. That should also help bring out the flavour a bit more if it doesn’t get a chance to get fully ripe outside.

The carrots have been ok. They have been producing, but not a lot of big carrots. They are all a medium size, which is fine, but I like the large carrots that we usually get. I’ll change up the type again next year as I wasn’t impressed with this variety. We will also plant a larger patch because we have officially finished picking our carrots. Usually I like to have a final larger harvest in October and be able to store carrots for part of the winter. I’ll unfortunately be back to buying them in no time.

This is a win! It’s not a big win, but a win none the less. Our cabbage wasn’t exceptionally large or plentiful, but we finally got some! It was delicious and we did enjoy it. All of the plants that we managed to get to the growing phase managed to produce a head, so that was also a bonus. We will have to fix the early growth issues, and then hopefully we will be enjoying cauliflower every year moving forward.

We planted less celery this year in the hopes that less crowding would result in bigger stalks. So far it hasn’t worked in our favour. So, we will do a few more plants next year and have decided not to plant it under the cucumbers. We will plant them in full sun, in their own spot. Hopefully that will bring us back up in harvest numbers. We use a lot of celery, so it would be good to have a constant stock throughout the summer and especially into the fall when we are processing so many items into salsa and soups.

This will be the last year for corn. We like it, but don’t love it enough to utilize space for it. That being said, it was an initial good harvest. Nothing in September even though it seemed to be seeding some new cobs. Not worth the time and space for it, so we will move on to something we do use lots of.

Another item that we won’t be moving forward with. Based on description and other people’s social media posts, I thought the cucamelons would be more different than a regular cucumber in flavour. I don’t notice any difference, so I would rather provide the space and energy on full size cucumbers. The cucamelons are a fun novelty but too much work to be worthwhile.

We have done ok with our cucumber plants. We have less plants than previous years, but they have kept us in cucumbers all summer. We have a few stragglers that are holding on in the fridge, however the plant got a lot of the fall mildew, so they had to be pulled last weekend. That’s ok though, we are starting to move away from salads and are focussing on quiche or soups.

My goal for next year, find a true long english cucumber. I am done with the ones that just end up fat and seedy. We are also going to stop climbing them and instead let them run along the landscaping fabric like everything else. Perhaps that will make a difference for us.

The ground cherries have been fun. I will definitely be growing them again next year, but will limit it to 2 plants rather than the 3 we had this year. I will get more than enough from 2 plants. They take up a lot of space, so 2 plants will fit a littl ebetter than 3.

I love the little herb planter that I made this spring. I am constantly harvesting little bits to throw into whatever I am cooking. In the past, there was a stupid amount of Basil and not much else. This year there is a nice balance in all the herbs. I am going to try to bring my rosemary inside because it is just so large and healthy.

I will also dehydrate some of my herbs. I did all the parsley over the last few days, I would like to do the thyme, oregano, sage and tarragon as well. I also hope that some of these items re-seed themselves next year. My thyme has done that in the past, so fingers crossed that they do again this year.

The onions would have done better but they were smothered with the potato greens. They just didn’t have a chance. We will place them somewhere else next year. I am actually going to try planting a few rows this fall to see if I can get an earlier harvest of some good size onions next year. I follow a few other gardeners, and a few of them do plant some early onions and swear by it. I guess time will tell.

Like the onions, the green onions have been very low because the potatoes smothered the onions. The greens were smooshed and mostly infested with spiders, so the enjoyment of them have been very little. We will fix this for next year!

The peppers turned out ok considering how rough a start they had and how little the plants have stayed. The peppers have been surprisingly good. We are going to do a change up next year and not put them with the tomatoes. They are going to go in their own area and free up some space for harvesting the tomatoes.

So far so good on the potatoes. We have just been harvesting small bits to test them out. Eventually we will harvest the big patch we have. I anticipate we will be giving quite a few away. So far the air fryer potato wedges with cajun seasoning are my favourite, Though I did make a herb mashed potato last night and it was soooo tasty. I am sure Kurt and I could find a way to eat all the potatoes, but I think it’s best if we don’t!

The rhubarb is very happy in it’s new home. Getting consistent water has also led to some extremely large stalks and leaves. We toss those because they are quite woody, but it is producing like crazy. I can’t keep up, but luckily there are a few people that like it when I bring some for them. It’s also nice to share what we are growing these days.

Oh the strawberries. These are the best we have eaten and the most we have every harvested. We definitely have a lot of plants, but the size and taste of these are so very good. We always have good strawberries, but these are especially sweet and flavourful.

They have made some delicious jams, and I still have a few bags frozen to enjoy this winter when I am craving some delicious fruit.

The romas are doing amazing despite some blossom end rot issues with a couple of plants. It doesn’t seem to slow down how many tomatoes are growing on each plant. We definitely planted more romas this year than anything else and it is paying off with what. we have made (salsa, spaghetti sauce, salads, BLT’s, etc.)

Romas are my go to because they don’t have nearly as much fluid in them. I find them much easier to process. And the skin is light, so you don’t have to peel them to use them as part of a delicious meal.

Unfortunately our cherry tomato plants suddenly weren’t happy. One dried up and died, while the other plucks along unhappily and gives off only the odd tomato. I think it is a watering issue, similar to those that are having end rot issues. We are 100% going back to drip irrigation for every plant. This year has shown us that we clearly had it better when we fed them all individually.

The big beef are doing well. We have less plants this year, so the harvest numbers look off, but I believe we are actually on par if we had 1 more plant to match last year. These are great for sandwiches or with a bit of salt. I tend. tonot use them too much for sauces as they can be quite watery.

The zucchini is also overall doing very well. I only did one plant this year compared to my 3 last year. We only need the 1 plant since zucchini is nearly impossible to give away. It just such an easy plant to grow that most people have a plant. All good though, I had enough to enjoy as needed, make some soup and a few loves with a bit to spare.

Overall we are very happy with the season so far and still have a bit of harvesting to do. Broccoli, beets, tomatoes, butternut squash, celery, strawberries and potatoes will continue to produce for me for a few more weeks. We will see what the final tally is, but I know for sure that this has been our best growing season based on our lovely tracking spreadsheet! Nerding it up is paying of.