It’s time to start putting away food for the winter. Last week I picked a colander full of small Early Girl II tomatoes and made tomato sauce. I used it on Stuffed Eggplant Parmesan with three beautiful eggplants from the garden. We used the remainder to make spaghetti. It passed the “Annabelle Test.” She was with us this past weekend and loved it.

I cleaned and packed four freezer bags of red Jalapeños over the weekend. There are still lots of Jalapeños in the garden and I will keep sharing and using them until the first frost when the remainder will go in the freezer.

Today I finished the second tray of chives for the freezer. A week ago, I chopped and froze chives, parsley, and basil in olive oil in and stored ice cube trays. That should supply us with fresh herbs throughout the winter. The rosemary and sage usually last until almost February in the garden.

I have a large amount of poblano peppers that I will start freezing. There are lots of smaller green peppers that I hope will grow a bit before I need to pick them. The zucchini is near the end, and the tomato plants are dying off, but we’ll have tomatoes until the first frost. At this point no frost is predicted through the end of October. Global warming isn’t all bad.

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.

The biggest problem in the garden now is that tomatoes and peppers are being eaten. I found a half-eaten tomato high up on the plant covered in mouse poop. AHA! The perpetrator (or at least one of them) has been identified! How are they climbing up there? First, unsupported tomato vines that have fallen into the paths. I need to tie these up or trim them off. Second, plants growing next to the planters. The horseradish garden for one, and the currant plant and gooseberry. Some of it might be insect damage as well. I researched mice in the garden, and it is a common problem with tomatoes.

One other problem is the peppers. I have been leaving the green peppers on the vine to ripen, but they rot before completely turning red, orange, or yellow. I need to research that one.

The varieties of cucumbers I grew this year were prolific but got big too fast. I need to make sure that I get the Summer Rain variety from Countryside next year and other English varieties.

My current thought is to replace the bed I use for peas with a raised bed, and the two planters where the Shishitos are should be replaced with a raised bed. I’ll move the two planters to replace the one that collapsed in the heavy rain and the other one that is falling apart.

In general, I need to be better about maintenance, fertilizing the pots, and watering next year. Also, I need to tie up plants and trim more.

I need to find a way to protect the new blackberry canes from rabbits in the winter.

The Gypsy peppers did very well. I’ll plant more of them next year.

Here are some notes about the garden for next year.

The planter beds are too shallow for plants that grow tall. They are better for spring greens and root vegetables like radishes and beets. I planted shishitos in one of the beds and they are producing very well, but the plants are falling over and the shallow soil won’t support stakes. I will likely replace the two planters on the south side with a large, raised bed. Four of the planters will be enough.

The Early Girl II tomatoes are very prolific, but small.

I planted several year old Slow-Bolting Cilantro and the germination rate was likely about 1%.

I will need larger tomato cages in the St. Anne’s bed. The Early Girl Tomatoes grow like weeds, and the red cages I bought at Countryside are too small.

I need to stay on top of getting the tomatoes and tomatillos to stay in their cages. I should probably do some pruning early on.

I need to do a better job of succession planting radishes and spring greens.

I planted the okra three plants across the bed. I think this is likely too dense. We’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.

This is probably the best garden that I have ever had. The raised beds and work that I put in this spring are paying big dividends in mid-summer. Other than the tops of one zucchini plant being trimmed and a couple bites out of tomatoes and zucchini; there has been little animal damage so far.

The cucumbers are producing well, even though they were the last vegetables to be planted. I’ve had the biggest green peppers that I’ve ever grown. I was able to give a few Tomatillos to Noah when he mowed this week. The okra was slow starting, but I should have enough to pick in the next day or so. Blackberry production has been amazing despite the rabbits stripping the bork off of many of the canes over the winter. I made pancakes for myself this morning and topped them with a pile of fresh blackberries. Benedicamus Domino!

I’ve had a hard time keeping up with watering, but better than i the past. Having the spigot in the garden and a light hose has made a big difference. I need to do some trimming and tieing up in the next few days. I was busy with St. Anne programs, then we had Toby for a week and then Kevin and the St. Louis gang was in for the weekend. Then cousin’s week and our trip to St. louis last weekend. I am slowly gettin back on track.

Weeds are not a problem with the raised beds and I pull out a godd portion of the weeds while I am watering. The only thing coming through the mulch is sedge, I am getting rid of most of it, but it takes several courses of Roundup to kill it.

I picked the House of Hope bed today, plus the tomatoes from my two Early Girl II plants and took over about temn pounds of tomatoes over to St. Anne’s.

The St. Louis Karney’s were her to drop off Evan for next week. They had been up in the Dells all week while we took care of Toby. I think Toby’s presence caused the groundhog to leave town as there has been no damage since.

The Cherokee Carbon tomatoes are slowly starting to ripen. The green peppers are extremely large and very prolific. The zucchini is extremely sneaky, and large ones appear from nowhere. They like to grow along the edge of the green metal bed and are exactly the same color as the bed.

While building the raised beds this spring, I also wanted to make the garden a place of beauty and maybe have some things for the grandchildren. I have often read Annabelle the poem “Fairies,” by Rose Fyleman, and some of the references there have shown up in the garden. So here’s a bit of a picture gallery.

I have a weathervane and a few more items to install. Hopefully soon!

It started a couple of days ago with the tops of my Zucchini plants chewed off and a couple of tomatoes-on-the-vine half eaten. The incisor marks on these zucchinis point to a large rodent, likely the infamous groundhog. He must not have liked the zucchini, as he bit through the skin and stopped.

I bought a Trail Cam but haven’t set it up, yet as I will need to install a post to mount it on. Did I really expect to get by just by foiling the rabbits.

I tool the first batch of tomatoes over to the Food Pantry at St. Anne’s today. I let Annabelle pick them this weekend and I told her the story of how they go to feed people that don’t have enough to eat. I planted a bed of tomatoes just for the food pantry. Produce from other gardeners in the parish is starting to arrive, too.