As we move toward October, the garden is winding down. I picked the last of the cucumbers last week, and the vines are all dead. I gave Katy about 7 or 8 lemon cucumber last weekend when they were here, which was my total harvest. The tomato vines are dying from the bottom up but are still loaded with green tomatoes, I am hoping some of them ripen before the first frost. The pepper plants are vigorous. I still have lots of Shishitos, jalapenos and poblanos. The green peppers took a break after the first enormous flush of peppers over a month ago. I think letting some turn red so early stopped the plants from bearing. There are a lot of small ones now, hope they will mature before the frost comes.

Temperatures will be in the 80s for the next five days and there is no frost in the foreseeable future. I need to make sure next year that I get the varieties that I want in the garden and get them planted on time. This summer was terribly dry, and I don’t think I got enough water on the plants. I think I only fertilized the pots once, which is not acceptable. Since I won’t be in the construction business next spring, I should be able to do a better job. Mice or other rodents damaged a lot of tomatoes on the vine. Next year, I need to make sure that plants next to the beds don’t provide a ladder for them and also sagging tomato vines reaching the ground from the planter. I can try mint oil repellant also.
I will replace the current bed where I plant peas with raised beds that won’t need to be fenced. The two planters where the Shishitos are will be replaced with a metal raised bed like the ones that will be flanking it. I’ll get the beds in this fall. I haven’t thought about when I will fill them with soil.
I sat on the deck for lunch today and the air was filled with Stinkbugs landing on the porch screens. There were a couple of token Box Elder beetles, also.
All in all, it was a good year for the garden despite the drought, late plantings and missing some of the varieties I really wanted.