September Garden Ramblings - A Repost.
This is a re-post from September 2020, an unusually cool summer, similar to this year.
September means busy harvest month here on the acreage, so much to do that I barely know what to tell you about first.
We have had such odd weather on the island this year. If this was your first year of gardening, rest assured that not all years are this weird. If you made it through this one and are still game to do it again next year, welcome to the crazy homesteader life.
September is all about canning, dehydrating, and freezing the garden goodies for winter. The summer garden is harvested, cleaned up, top dressed, ready for winter by the first weekend in October. Phew, seems like a lot to do if one looks at it like that. Best to take it step by step and veg by veg.
Here are some tips on how to get the rest of your vegetables to finish off in preparation for garden clean up and winter. ….
Tomatoes - a little bit of info about everything to do with tomatoes.
Are finally kicking into high gear, with loads ripening daily. I mean, we have been eating some fresh in salads and sandwiches but the canning tomatoes have just started to turn red over the past two weeks.
We have 100 tomato plants in the garden this year, 50 of them are paste tomatoes for canning,. We are really, really hoping to harvest them all before the fall rains begin as the risk of blight increases with each rain fall. Late blight will wipe out a tomato patch in mere days, so I am always a bit nervous when rain is forecasted. So far, so good!
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.
We still have loads of time for tomatoes to ripen on the vine, so try not to worry too much. I leave them on the vine as long as possible as I find that the counter top tomatoes just don’t have that same vine-ripened, homegrown flavour. Here are a few tips that will help your tomatoes ripen faster if they are straggling…
Nip the tops off of your vining tomato plants. This puts the energy into ripening the tomatoes rather than making more blossoms/tomatoes.
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.
Remove some of the excess foliage to allow more sun at the tomatoes and hasten the ripening process.
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.
In mid to late September, you can start bringing them in to ripen. Do not pick really hard, green tomatoes to bring indoors, they will not ever ripen, no matter what you do. The tomatoes need to be starting to ripen just a bit, they can still be green but with just a wee hint of colour starting and need to be a bit soft rather than rock hard.
Tomatoes can be frozen whole, just as they are, if your month is too busy with other things to process right now. The tomatoes can be tossed into soups, stews, chilis just as they are, or take a couple of bags out of the freezer and do some canning when you have more time on hand.
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 plant material, will not survive the composting process.
You can find this yummy, super easy Fridge Dill Pickle recipe here at the Smitten Kitchen.
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.
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.
Onions - Wait till 90% of tops have folded on their own and then push the rest over. Wait a week to pull them up and then cure for a few weeks before storing. My onions were ready to go early this year, so have already finished curing!
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!
Lift potatoes when the tops have fully yellowed and died down. Lay them out to cure for a few days on a flat surface. They will then have nice thick skins on them so will last in storage till spring. Place in a cardboard box in the garage or shed. Cardboard will insulate them from the cool temps but will also breathe to let out the moisture so that your potatoes do not go mouldy. Do not put them in a well sealed container or you will lose them (ask me how I know ; )
Celery - I take stalks from the outside as I need them and leave the celery plant itself in the garden. It stays crisp and 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 2020 ; )
Cabbages, Kale - Leave them be, too. They can stay in the garden till needed.
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.
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.
Grapes are coming along really well this year. Try to leave your grapes on the vine till they are nice and sweet but before the wasps get to them. It is a bit of a challenge to figure out when to harvest each year, I tend to pick them just a bit early as I do not want to deal with those angry late summer wasps.
Strawberries - are making runners right now. To rejuvenate your bed or to add new plants, just root in these baby strawberries where you want them. Strawberry patches need to be redone every 3rd or 4th year for the best berries or they become dry, warped, seedy, not tasty.
Herbs - As you are pruning them back for fall, hang them up to dry or chap and freeze in ice cuber trays to use throughout the winter. Just chop or buzz in the grinder, top with with a bit of water and freeze, or add a bit of olive oil plus water and freeze.
Brussel sprouts were planted in May and are starting to make their little sprouts along the stems. As you do your clean up this month, if you do not yet see sprouts coming along, twist or cut off the ‘cabbage-like’ tops.
Kale, too, is good left in for the winter. It 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.
Other stuff…
Sunflowers - how to know when they are ready to harvest for the birds? Check out this link to my old blog..https://oldethymefoodgarden.blogspot.com/2015/08/sunflowers-theyre-for-birds.html
Roses - Do not feed! Feeding will encourage new growth which may be fatal when the colder temps arrive.
Stop deadheading. Allowing hips to form on your roses lets it know that it is time to shut down for the year.
Clean up as you go. While you are harvesting, pull out any plant material that is done for the year.
Wash up pots and leave them out in the sunshine to dry nicely before you put them away, ready to go again in spring. Do not leave ceramic pots or terra cotta out in the elements, they will crack or sliver into chards with the rains and cold temps.
Make note of what did well, what you want to do again next year, or what you do not want to do again next year. I always think that I will remember, but after going through the Christmas craziness and whatnot, inevitably I forget. So, throughout the growing season, I jot down all sorts of ideas as they occur… a plant I want to try, someone passes on a new garden link to check out, what I did not like in pots or the garden, what to move, what to grow again… so many ideas are in those journals! Like, grow more luffas in the hoophouse next year ; )
The October post will be all about how to feed your soil, putting nutrients back in for next year. For now, harvesting and a good clean up.
Keep weeding! As soon as the rains start in earnest, weeds will be sprouting like mad. Try to stay on top of them to prevent them from seeding again so that the entire process is repeated next year.
Perennial flower beds… check them out, look for empty pockets, are you happy with the look? This is a great time to pick up perennials to add more colour, to fill in empty spaces, make your late summer garden better than ever next year. I actually do this throughout the seasons, take note of what I need to add and where for year round colour in the huge front perimeter beds.
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
For now, get your bed prepped and ready.
I have to confess that I had hubby toss out the hanging baskets and summer
Happy Gardening and Harvesting!
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