Still picking green beans, eggplants, and zucchini on Oct 7th in southwestern Ontario, which is unusual. I have a few very small eggplants still on the plants. I will pick them if we have a frost warning.
Things will slow down this week. The lows have been 16 ⁰C at night recently, which keeps plants growing, but the forecast suggests it may drop to 3⁰C on Thu night, which while slow most veg down to a stop. My one green bean patch went post mature this week, but I have another patch with 3 or 4 plants that are relatively young, that are producing well this week.
Yams, the true yams (Dioscorea), were more popular before sweet potatoes were discovered. I’ve eaten a few types and they’re usually more bland or, in some cases, very sweet. The flesh is most commonly white and some types have a rough, scaly skin. Others are kind of slimy (e.g.: D. polystachya); I’ve seen this one in Asian markets. The more massive, rough-skinned yams(e.g: D rotundata) are more likely to be found in African markets. That yam is very popular in Africa and one of the better tasting. There are many different edible species of yam, scattered across the globe There are toxic members, and even the culinary ones often need cooking or protection to keep irritants off of skin.
When potatoes and sweet potatoes were brought from South America, they quickly replaced yams. People, especially in English, tend to use a word they know for a plant they don’t know, creating, at times, confusion. An example of this is “pepper”. Before Capsicum were exported from South America, western folks knew Black Pepper as a hot-spicy seasoning. The word pepper was applied to Capsicum peppers because those speaking English had no other word for the new spice. We still use the word pepper interchangeably between the two.
The word yam is also applied to Amorphophallus corms (tubers). In Southeast Asia and India, the Elephant foot yam (A. paeoniifolius) is eaten after special preparation to inactivate stinging Calcium oxalate needles, found in the corms.
You can see the advantages of sweet potatoes, along with more agreeable flavors. The lack of toxins is a big plus!
Yes. - thank you! We built it this year to replace the cardboard box which we would leave on the sidewalk with our excess garden produce. This keeps the deer out, and the neighborhood seems to be getting accustomed to it - things disappear pretty quickly.
Anyone else start to feel a bit tired of the garden around this time of year?
I just went out to harvest some stuff and decided to go ahead and call it on one of my tomato plants that’s been creeping toward the abyss anyway. No big deal there. But as I was ripping it out I looked over at my insanely-productive shishito plants, noticing even more pods ready to harvest today. We just had a large number of freshly-harvested shishitos with dinner last night, for the Nth time this year, not to mention the five or so pounds I have chopped and frozen. No clue why they did so well, but in any case at that moment I couldn’t imagine stomaching another. So I clipped off the ready pods (to be frozen), ripped the plants from the ground (thoroughly covered in blossoms, new growth, and mini shishitos), and stuffed them into the compost bin.
And now…I feel a little bit bad? But also kind of freed of weighty obligation. So I thought I’d come here and get it off my chest. Have I sinned in the eyes of the gardening gods? Should I have kept growing them and tried to give them away? Or is enough sometimes actually enough?
I’m more than a bit tired of the warm season garden, but looking forward to cooler weather, and the cool season stuff.
Several things (peppers, tomatoes) shut down in the summer until it cools off a bit, and my smaller peppers have lots of flowers, but I started yanking tomato plants last week!
Not for everyone, but for me, low key and fewer irrigation concerns.
What kinds of stuff? I did sow a few supposedly cold-tolerant mustard greens a couple of weeks ago after ripping out my cucumbers. That’s my first try with planting anything not in spring, so we’ll see!
I think I have an exceptionally long growing season but for me shallots, garlic , chard, collards, kale, arugula, other leafy greens, sugar snap peas (and also sweet peas, but those aren’t edible), and in Feb or so, potatoes. Probably things many people grow in the summer but it’s too hot (and dry) here.
These were seedlings started last year around this time, to be planted out in November. Or December. And what things look like in January
We always plant more than we think we need, as we never know what obstacles we might incur during the growing season. Without a doubt, we end up with too much of some things (but not all things). I put up for our own use, and grow-to-give-away, until I’ve made/just had enough and it no longer brings me satisfaction or pleasure, and then the steely (and wierdly satisfying!) process of ripping stuff out begins. Don’t worry about it; it’s all good, man. Spring is right around the corner.
Cucumber plant long gone (i have 1.5 cucumbers to eat still, in the fridge.) Shishito and bell pepper plants very reserved this year. I still have a couple small poblanos growing; hoping they’ll get bigger before first frost.
2 slicer tomato plants, 1 Roma-style plant and 1 cherry tomato still have fruit, but def slowing down. The Roma was much more productive in the early fall than the other varieties.
I don’t plant any brassica-style plants because they get decimated by bugs.
I’m pretty ready for the garden to be done for the year.
Or December. And what things look like in 
