September Garden Ramblings

I am so excited that September is here. This is the month of  harvest, canning, dehydrating, and darned good eating. It is also the beginning of garden clean up, journaling, and planing for next year. 

I know one thing, for sure... I am so over this watering business! Trying to find the right balance to keep things surviving and others thriving...  through three heatwaves and no rain to speak of in months. Whew!   

Tomatoes

So much to do this month that I barely know where to start, but let's go with tomatoes first (as they really are my most favourite thing).  

We have about 110 plus tomato plants in the garden this year. Decided in spring, well last year actually, to grow less of things we do not eat (like kale) and plant lots of what we use to fill our pantry for winter. 

The cost of groceries has sky-rocketed so we need to save where we can. Plus, we noticed how quickly the shelves emptied out last year when people stock piled groceries and supplies at the beginning of Covid, with some items still in short supply now. This was a really big eye opener, a sign of what things might look like if we have some sort of catastrophic event here on the island. 

So, we grew tons of potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, garlic, onions, brussels, etc... things we eat, or freeze, or can. 

We have two beds of just paste tomatoes this year, 80 plants in all. The other 30 plus are beefsteaks, cherries, and slicers for fresh eating, roasting, and whatever else we want to do with them. Each paste tomato bed holds 40 plants and makes 200 to 300 plus lbs of fruits. One of these beds is just for our own use, for canning passata and pasta sauce. The other bed was grown for me trial some new varieties and sell them to make a few dollars on the side. As I love growing tomatoes more than anything else, this is no hardship ; )  

To make our ketchup, passata, and spaghetti sauce, we use paste tomatoes (Roma style) as they are less juicy and pulpy, very meaty and dry. This means a shorter cooking time for a thicker sauce.

You do not have to use paste tomatoes though, can use any kind from cherries to beefs, they will just take longer to cook down those juices. You can always add some canned tomato paste if it is not thickening up for you. Or.. slow roast some tomatoes in the oven for a few hours, they add depth of flavour to your sauce, and will help to thicken it up, too.

If the weather holds out, we have till the end of the month for the tomatoes to do their thing so I prefer to ripen them on the vine in the sunshine, if I can... mostly because I hate fruit flies in the kitchen ; )

Here are a few tips that will help your tomatoes along if they are straggling…

1. Nip the tops off of your vining tomato plants. This puts the energy into ripening the tomatoes rather than making more blossoms/tomatoes.

2. Remove any blossoms as they will not have time to become ripe tomatoes this late in the season. You can also remove any small fruits as they also will not have time to grow/ripen.

3. Remove some of the excess foliage to allow more sun at the tomatoes and hasten the ripening process.

4. You can also start to hold off on watering your tomatoes. This will let the plant know that it is end of season and they will begin to ripen those stragglers.

I have switched from watering every 3rd day to every 4th or 5th day now. Days are cooler and hoping it will hasten the ripening.

If the tomatoes fall off the vine before fully ripe, I plop them on this table to finish off in the sunshine. 

If they are not ripening by mid to late September, bring them inside to ripen on the counter or put them in the sunny warm greenhouse. Do not pick really hard, green tomatoes as they will just rot. To ripen tomatoes indoors, they must have a wee hint of colour to them.

If you are busy with back to school and other things, no time to process them right now, tomatoes can be tossed in a bag and frozen whole. These frozen tomatoes can be dropped into soups, stews, chilis, or take a couple of bags out of the freezer and make your sauces in winter, when you have more time.

Roasted tomatoes are fantastic, too. Toss them in the oven with some olive oil, salt and pepper, add peppers, onions, garlic, herbs, etc.. for more flavour, if you like. There is no right or wrong here, anything goes! Slow roast them at a low heat for several hours till they are nicely caramelised. They can then be added to your sauce to add more yummy flavour or burr them up to use as a spread. Tastes fantastic with goat cheese on bruschetta or in your panzanella (bread salad).

Cucumbers

Vines may start to yellow now and perhaps even have powdery mildew. At this stage of the game, just finish off the last of the cucumbers and then take down the plants, do not worry about trying to treat the mildew.

Powdery mildewed vines and leaves can be tossed into the compost, not to worry. The spores live on live hosts, plant material, so will not survive the composting process.

Winter Squash - As with the cukes, do not worry about the powdery mildew at this stage of the game. Allow your last fruits to fully ripen, which they will just do just fine despite the mildew, and then just discard the vines.

For fresh eating, you can grab the squash from the garden at pretty much any time. However, if you want them to keep well in storage, they need to be fully ripened and cured for a bit first. Leave them on the vine until they are fully ripened, they will grow just fine even if the vines look like heckadoodle. We still have loads of time for them to do their thing. My goal is always to have the garden clean up done by Thanksgiving, so still a good 4 weeks left.

Leave on a bit of a stem, place in a warm and sunny place to cure for 2 weeks time. I pop them on a table in the greenhouse or hoophouse so they don’t get rained on. They can stay in there until I have time to deal with them. Do not place them on concrete or they will begin to rot. Well cured squash will last for a year in the pantry!

Root Crops

Root crops like beets and potatoes can stay in till about Thanksgiving but do not overwinter in the garden, whereas carrots and parsnips can be left in the ground and harvested as needed, even through the snow!

For potatoes to store well, they also need to cure properly first. Leave them in the ground till the tops have yellowed and fallen over. Do not water for the last two weeks before harvest, once you see the tops beginning to yellow. This will allow them to make the thick skins that they need to keep in storage. Summer potatoes with thin skins, like in the picture above, will not store for long. Try to eat them up within a month or two.

Onions should be lifted as soon as the tops fold over and placed to cure in an airy, shaded, warm area for a week or two, till the tops are brown and papery. Not all onions keep really well, so in general, use up your whites first as they have the shortest storage time, the reds second as they last for about 3 months, leaving the yellow onions till last as they tend to keep the very longest. Sweet onions like Walla Wallas are not good keepers, however.

Celery - I take stalks from the outside as I need them but leave the plant itself in the garden. It stays crisp, green and healthy until a really hard frost knocks it down, even after that, the centre will begin to regrow new stalks when the weather warms up again.

Leeks - Leave them in, harvest as needed all winter long. They will be fine as long as you harvest before you plant new ones in 2022.

Cabbages, Kale - Leave them be, too. They can stay in the garden till needed. Kale can handle snow, frost, and anything else that Mother Nature throws at it. Leave it be, harvest as needed. Plant more, if you need more.

Spanish Mammoth sweet bell peppers. 

Peppers - Most all of the peppers will keep on producing till November, so if you can, leave them till then and harvest as needed. Homegrown peppers are amazing in your sauces and other canning, they also taste great pickled or dehydrated. Make your own paprika powder, cayenne powder, crushed chili flakes, or just a nice blend of medium hot or super hot peppers, depending on your tastes.

Some will bring their peppers into the house and overwinter them. While this does work just fine, they are very prone to aphids so I prefer to start with new plants each year instead. No less fruits but a whole lot less bugs to deal with.

Yams - Leave them in till end month! They need more time. Remember when I sold them to you in spring, I said that they have a really long growing season and so would be the last plants you harvest from your garden.

Fruit trees - The pears and Asian pears are just about ready to harvest. You may have Bartletts, in which case you have already been harvesting. I have Bosc pears, my absolute favourites, but they are a bit later than the other types.

Fun and weird fact… Pears do not ripen on the tree, oddly enough, they need to be harvested and then stored for up to a week at room temperature to finish and be edible. Left on the tree, they begin to rot from the inside out.

Brussel Sprouts were planted in May and are starting to make their little sprouts along the stems. Pull of the yellowing leaves along the stem and if you do not yet see sprouts coming along, twist or cut off the ‘cabbage-like’ tops.

Other things of note to do this month...

Clean as you go... For anything not mentioned here, just harvest and clean the bed as you go along. My goal is always to have the garden winter ready by Thanksgiving.

Do not feed plants at this time of the year. More on feeding the soil and gardens next month. For now, the only thing that needs feeding are your hanging baskets and planters, if you want to keep them going for a while longer.

What veggies to plant from seed in September?

You can still plant some things from seed, as long as you plant soon.
- Beets (for the greens, not the roots - is too late to plant for roots)
- Collards
- Corn Salad aka Mache
- Greens, like arugula, mustards
- Lettuces
- Mesclun
- Pak Choi
- Radishes
- Spinach
- Turnips
- Winter radishes, like China rose, Daikon, Black Spanish

What to grow from starter plants...

Is getting to be borderline time for some starter plants, but as one never knows how the fall is going to go. Maybe take a chance and see what happens? If we have an early winter, you will have lost just a few bucks, but if we have a nice, long Indian Summer, you have everything to gain!

Sure bets from starters are..
- Arugula
- Collards
- Greens
- Kale
- Lettuce
- Leeks
- Mescluns
- Pak Choi
- Spinach
- Swiss Chard
- Turnips

Getting late but maybe chance it?
- Broccoli and Cauliflower
- Brussels sprouts
- Cabbage
- Kohlrabi
- Onions

Garlic can be planted from early fall through till mid November, ideally. More on garlic growing next month. For now, get your bed prepped and ready. Top dress with manure or compost as garlic is a heavy feeder.

If you are buying your garlic from me, thank you so very much! The garlic that I bring in from Farmer Guy is all BC garlic, grown by our very own farmers. They have had a really tough year with labour shortages and inclement growing conditions, so are very, very grateful to you all for your support this year more than ever.

Here is a how to for growing really great garlic!

Picture from 'Southern Living' 

Start thinking about your fall planters while you are out shopping about.. I have to confess that I have hubby tossing out the summer baskets and planters already. Truthfully, I am just tired of watering and feeding them and really did not love them this year so am ready for something new and fresh.

Happy Harvest ~ Tanja