This week’s Urban Update is looking a little slower. We can really tell that the busy gardening season is coming to an end with days that are shorter and cooler. There are not as many vegetables coming into the kitchen as during the full swing of summer. And we are welcoming this much needed change in pace. There are still chores to be done and garden tasks to do, but it’s done much slower as there is no rush. We are still harvesting from our garden and planning on visiting more farms this month with the intention of preserving yet more goodness for the winter months.
October 13, 2023
In The Garden
Brassicas
This was our first year attempting to grow a fall garden. Our spring crop of brassicas did amazing, and we used the same seed starting technique as we did for spring planting. We were hoping to have fresh veggies in November and maybe even December and beyond. Our idea was to rotate out some of our summer crops and replace them with a fall planting. This was done in our potato bed this year and I do believe this would work in a different location.
Our potato bed is in the back corner of our yard. Keep in mind we do live in the city on about a 1/4 acre of land. Our area is limited on where to place gardens. This bed did well for our potatoes. We harvested a little over 80lbs of potatoes this season. We were a little late on digging them up due to maturity. I think that has to do with the location.
This part of the yard gets afternoon shade. Lots of morning sun all the way to around 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. Then shade for the rest of the day. This worked ok for the potatoes but our new crops not so good. As the seasons change so do the number of hours that we have sunlight in that area. We were hoping to harvest the potatoes the first or second week of August and then immediately plant our brassicas. But because of the shade the potatoes took a bit longer and we had lots of rain during this time. You want to wait until the ground is dry, so the potatoes store better.
This bed in particular starts to gets shade much sooner than it did in June and July. Now it averages 4hrs of sun at most which is not ideal for any crop. That compounded by the ever-present bug pressures we have, and my brassicas are not doing well. I have them covered with insect netting, but I believe this was added to late and the cabbage moth was able to lay eggs. We have lots of cabbage worms as well as slugs and pill bugs that are just devouring these plants. I will leave them in the ground and cover them with frost fabric. We will add plastic covering when the time comes but I fear they are too far gone. I will keep you posted on this.
Firewood
With the temperatures dropping now is the time for us to get our wood piles in order. We usually go through and stack a nice pile up next to the house for easy access when we want to have a fire. We also chop the pieces smaller, so they fit better into the fireplace. Removing the rotten bark from the outside of the wood before stacking it next to our house helps with bugs. The rotten bark on the wood is an ideal place for them to hide. We have a real problem with pill bugs in our yard and they just love to hide here in the bark. Removing this helps to keep them away from the house and out of my living room.
We definitely have enough wood to last all season. This is thanks to our large tree we had to take down this spring. I was so sad to see it go but it was rotten and would have fallen on our home very soon. We took this tree down and the next weekend we had a severe storm come through that took down several healthy trees in our neighborhood. I’m sure this one would have fallen then had we not removed it when we did.
This week we had our first of hopefully many fires. One inside and one outside. Both were fabulous. With the cool nights we have been having it’s been a little to chilly for me to sit outside with a fire. Temperatures have been down into the 40’s. But one beautiful evening it stayed up in the 60’s and was a perfect night for us to enjoy a fire outside with a hot cup of cider, which my family calls “wassail”.
In The Kitchen
This week I made a big pot of homemade potato soup with some soft bread sticks (the recipe is from Homesteading With The Zimmermans). The bread sticks were amazing, and I doubled the batch to put some in the freezer for future soup nights. It is a perfect time of year for soup and such an easy recipe. I used my homegrown potatoes, my canned carrots, and chicken stock, some homegrown onions and garlic along with celery. Then added heavy cream, salt and pepper and yum! An easy dinner ready in less then 45 minutes. I love using homegrown and home canned foods. I know how they were grown and what they were canned with.
Pumpkins
We harvested some nice sized pie pumpkins from our volunteer pumpkin vines in the back garden and I roasted 2 of these. I made some yummy breakfast scones and froze 7 one cup Ziplock bags of puree.
I love roasting pumpkins because the peeling process is so easy then. The tough skin just pulls right off and the flesh is so soft. I like to let the pumpkin liquid drain off by putting the flesh in a sieve lined with cheese cloth. I let this set for several hours or even overnight. This helps your product, (muffins, breads, scones, etc.), not to be too watery. Sometimes the pumpkin can hold a lot of liquid which will make the batter to runny and cause things not to cook up well. I will store the rest of these pumpkins for processing later in the winter when I have nothing else to process. This is a good winter project.
Wrap Up
It was a good week here. The fall leaves are starting to fall, temperatures are much cooler, and sweater season is here. I look forward to all the fall activities and flavors of the season. I hope you are preparing for the winter months and getting ready for a beautiful fall. Stay tune for next weeks Urban Update and happy gardening and stay motivated.
Leave a Reply