How did our October stack up compared to our 2022 October growth? Good in some areas and lacking in others. No surprise there.

There was definitely a difference in the weather from October 2022 to October 2023. The temperature was quite a bit warmer with a lot more days of sunshine. This October was quite cloudy and gloomy, so there was less opportunity to stretch the season. I think we were also paranoid because despite the beautiful weather in October last year, winter hit with no warning so the garden was full of frozen plants. We didn’t want that again this year, so I think we may have pulled a touch earlier than necessary.

We were able to harvest some more beet greens right at the end of the season for a few last salads with the greens. Last year we had a carrot crazed dog that buried out beets in September, bringing an early end to the harvesting of those. This year she couldn’t get into this bed so there were no issues with that.

Also, having the landscaping fabric down really minimized the bug activity on the leaves this year. Normally there are quite a few chomped leaves that we don’t end up getting to enjoy.

As with the greens, keeping Basil out of the neighbouring carrot patch resulted in a good fall harvest. I did do a second planting in the summer, specifically for the opportunity to do a bigger harvest in the fall. We enjoyed some tasty beets last night with dinner thanks to that second planting. I will definitely be doing that again next year.

The broccoli was pretty close in harvest between this year and last for the month of October. All the large heads are harvested earlier during the summer months, but the little side florets that continue producing right through the fall is great. It makes for a nice addition to fall dishes.

Oh the cantaloupe, the sweet, delicious cantaloupe! I am so happy that this plant actually produced this year, and what a treat it was! I was pleasantly surprised to have cantaloupe growing right into the fall.

Technically cantaloupe is ready when it is golden on the outside and it easily separates from the vine. The fall cantaloupes were still with a hint of green and definitely needed some encouragement to come off the vine. Unlike many fruits, it will not continue to ripen once off the vine, but we lucked out and they were still delicious and sweet, despite the slightly green colouring. I dehydrated an entire melon for some preserved treats. It turned out really nice, and perhaps will be added into some oats this winter.

It was not a great year overall for the celery, and the fall was no exception. We did notice that it grew a lot more when not covered by the cucumber though, so next year we are going to just grow the celery out in the open and not shaded by the cucumbers. I may try my hand at some kale or lettuce under the cucumbers since they will need a little shade from the laser beam of a sun that we have here during the summer months.

When pulling the corn we did find a few smaller cobs that had grown since the main harvest. We popped them open to check, assuming they would be dried out little nuggets, but to our surprise they were nice and juicy. So I brought them in and was able to make a batch of soup with them. It was a pleasant surprise.

Will we do corn next year though? That is still a no. I think will be taking a break from the corn next year and see what else we can grow in the space we would normally leave for corn.

These were a pleasant surprise and definitely something that will be going back in the garden next year. They are a very easy plant to grow, though slightly tedious to harvest and process, but worth it. The jams that I made with these berries are delicious and versatile. I made some tasty chicken apple brie sandwiches for dinner the other night and smeared a bit of this jam on them. Mmm-Mmm. So very tasty.

I still have a bowl in the fridge that are solid and juicy, so I have to make a cake soon. I added them some to pies this summer and enjoyed that but never got around to a cake. I think I will do a ground cherry coffee cake.

The herbs were very happy in their new little planter, and I found I used them much more being so much closer to the house. I was constantly popping out the back door to clip a few herbs to add to whatever I was cooking. I actually did harvest a bit more thyme and oregano the other night from the garden because they weren’t hit by any frost yet. Or not enough to cause them to start dying.

The rosemary are now on my coffee table in some pots. They are large and happy and I get the enjoyment of taking 10 steps from the kitchen to add fresh rosemary into my meals. I’m hoping that they continue to grow and I end up with some small rosemary bushes that I put out next year. If they do get that big, they may have to go into pots that go on either side of the herb planter so that I can bring them in every fall.

As with the rest of the year, the onion harvest was not great. They got buried under the potato vines and survived. They didn’t thrive, they just survived. When we cleared the potatoes, we did find a few onions that had held on, but they weren’t very big. Still tasty, but pretty small. Next year we will make sure they are in a better location.

What I am interested to see is how the fall planting goes. I figured I would try it garlic style, where I planted at the end of September to give the bulbs a few weeks to form some decent roots, then I covered them with straw to tuck them in for the winter. We had a few accidental onions last year because we had missed harvesting them, and they grew beautifully in the spring. Hopefully trying this style of planting will give us a few rows of onions that are ready a little earlier because of the head start. If it works out how I hope it will, then this will become our annual planting style. A few rows in the fall and some more in the spring.

Well these were a huge disappointment this year. I can’t believe we actually managed to harvest a few of them. The plant was just tiny all summer. While all the plants thrived, the cayenne pepper plants just existed. They didn’t grow, nor did they flower. In September they finally threw out a few flowers and by October, I had a few peppers that I could harvest.

I will be getting new seeds and making sure I have good potting soil to get them started next year. Though all our other pepper plants did well, so I think it must have been the seeds. So I will go with a new batch and see how it goes. I need these for all the salsa I make!

Our sweet peppers did well overall for the year, but were definitely behind last years growth almost every month. Maybe it just wasn’t the year of the pepper. We enjoyed all the ones we grew and never wanted for peppers, so I consider it a successful year. A few more would have made it possible to share with others. So my goal for next year is for larger harvests so that we can add them to the boxes and bags of goodies that we give away.

So this is a hard comparison because we didn’t actually grow any last year. The potato towers were in rough shape so we didn’t bother and took a year off. So I will give you a quick comparison to all our other years.

In 2019, our first year growing potatoes, we grew 29.46 lbs.
In 2020, we grew 33.2 lbs.
In 2021, we grew 3.48 lbs (ouch, bad year)

So, we have had some great years, but this year was by far the best, both in harvest and in the way we grew it. The towers though easier to contain the potato plant, weren’t as easy to harvest from month to month. Mounding in the garden allowed us to do little harvests here and there to enjoy the potatoes throughout the late summer and fall. It was nice to just go pluck a few potatoes when needed. I look forward to improving our potato patch for next year and add some extra supports into the area so that we can do a better job of mounding the plants.

So happy with our new and improved strawberry patch. It just kept delivering! In fact, this final harvest number could have been higher still, but I decided to stop harvesting even though there were still a few strawberries that we could have at least enjoyed half of. But that was the problem, due to the lack of sun, the bottom halves were going ripe while the tops were staying white. We did harvest a few and enjoyed the ripe bits, but it wasn’t worth it towards the end of October.

I look forward to seeing how the plants do next year now that they have had a year to get settled into the ground. If they were this good in their first year, I am hoping for a very stellar 2nd year.

I DID IT! Finally, we were able to get some decent butternut squash. I managed a small one last year, just barely. This year, I was able to get 4 nice size squash. Next year will hopefully be even better! We have already enjoyed a cajun butternut squash soup, which I loved. I like the curry based ones, but the cajun one is now my favourite. I will have to make another batch and note everything I put into it so that I can share it on this site!

Our big beefs were definitely a smaller harvest year as compared to last year for a couple reasons. The main reason being that we didn’t have as many big beef tomato plants this year. We ended up with a lot more romas, which was fine because I prefer them for sauces.

We also found that the big beef plants grew tomatoes quickly and early in the season but it took a long time for them to get ripe. It felt like we were waiting for most of the summer for them to go red. Oh well, we will grow them again next year, and likely the same number of plants.

The cherry tomato plants had issues this year. Watering perhaps, which I already have a plan for. The fall harvest was definitely small, and somewhat surprising that I got the single cherry tomato that I did. It was nestled in the leaves of the neighbouring big beef plant, so it was picked and enjoyed.

I definitely need to sort out the cherry tomatoes for next year. We love them and didn’t get nearly enough of them for salads this year.

Though our October was a smaller harvest, our year overall for the romas knocked the socks off all other years. Which is why I have so many jars of salsa and so many bags of frozen spaghetti sauce in the freezer. Plus we ate a lot of them, and I gave a ton of them away. I like tomatoes, but prefer tomatoes that are more meat and less juice, so my go-to of often the roma. The big beefs are good, but I find them sooooo juicy…too juicy sometimes. Romas are good for quite a while before becoming that over-ripe pulpy consistency unlike many other tomatoes.

Other than the blossom end rot we had on a couple of the plants, it was a very good year. I have some ideas to make sure we don’t have the same blossom end rot issue next year, so we will be set!

Overall it was another great end of season harvest, well into October. Now I just sit and plan for the 2024 season. I can’t wait!