Wow! The weather is turning to fall and though we have been anticipating this it always feels sudden and urgent after the State Fair.
Now that the extreme heat has past, it is the time we get busy again in our gardens. Our harvest is in full swing, and we should be taking note of what worked and didn’t work this year so we can make changes for next year.
How do we finish up our gardens this year?
Harvest ripe vegetables. If you have more than you can use, please share with the local food shelves. The easiest way to do this is to put them in the bins by the shed. They will be picked up on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays early in the morning. It’s easy to put your produce in the coolers the evening before pick-up.
Some guidelines:
Remove the inedible parts.
Take your giant zucchini home, scoop out the seeds and cook it or shred and freeze it. The food shelves don’t want your giant zucchinis. Kinda big is OK.
Split tomatoes – take them home and cook them. They don’t travel well. Donate fresh good- looking produce.
Don’t forget about herbs.
Put your food for donation in either paper bags or unscented plastic bags. There are bags inside the shed for this purpose.
Extend your harvest
Root vegetables like beets, carrots, parsnips and more can keep well in the garden until late October. When the weather turns cold or frost is expected, cover them with a thick layer of straw. Consider using a frost blanket that can be purchased at HD, Menards, or your local garden store.
Save seeds
You can save the seeds of many vegetables and flowers. Some of them cross pollinate so be careful and read up on it ahead of time.
Beans, eggplants, peppers and tomatoes are self-pollinating so you can save the seed and expect to grow the same variety next year. One caveat: self-pollinating doesn’t mean that they can’t cross-pollinate, but they don’t have to. You would protect them and isolate them if you were growing them out for a special purpose.
Squash will cross-pollinate. If you save your seed, you may get a new squash next year that is a cross between yours and your neighbors. Remember that insects can fly a long way.
It’s easy to save seeds from herbs such as dill, cilantro (coriander), and parsley (a biennial that sets seed the second year).
Many flowers will also have seeds that are easy to gather. Cosmos, marigolds and nasturtiums are just a few. Zinnias are also easy to save but they can be hybrids or open-pollinated.
https://extension.umn.edu/planting-and-growing-guides/saving-vegetable-seeds
https://seedsavers.org/learn/seed-saving/
Prepare your garden for next year
Fall is a great time to get a soil test. Find out now what your plot needs in terms of texture and nutrients and add some of it this fall. Fall is a good time to add composted manure because even if it is still a little ‘hot’, it will break down by spring planting time. https://soiltest.cfans.umn.edu
Residues in the garden
Residues in the garden have both upsides and downsides. Our garden rules state that we need to do good garden clean-up. But this means that we need to be mindful of how we leave our gardens in the fall. Tiling every year can be detrimental as it disturbs the microorganisms in the soil. Some healthy plant tissue can be worked into the soil as natural fertilizer and peas and beans may be good for this. They may completely break down by spring or need very little clean-up.
Pull those weeds! We’ve all been struggling to keep up with them. It has been a banner year for weeds, and they are all going to seed. Pull them and put them in your city compost. Do not compost them yourself as you probably don’t have a pile that is big enough or gets hot enough to kill weed seeds.
Diseased plant material should also go into commercial compost.
Plant a cover crop – in perhaps part of your garden. It’s an easy and natural way to enrich your soil.
And finally:
Prune – now is the time to prune your raspberry plants.
Dig out any scrub trees that have found their way into your plot. I’ve seen a lot of Black Walnuts popping up.
Think about crop rotation for next year and start planning your garden layout. Perhaps turn over some of the soil now to get ready for next spring.
Lay down a good layer of straw to protect plants like strawberries, raspberries and asparagus.