My Last Tomatoes of the Season: October 15th!

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One of my goals was to keep the garden going. This is the latest, into fall, I have had tasty tomatoes. Some always survive but they are beat up and awful looking. The 'Sarah's Galapagos' are currant tomatoes. They are healthy looking and sweet tasting.

Fall Currant Type Tomatoes - The Rusted Garden Blog

The tomato vines were pulled and this section of my garden has been cleaned and winterized. The tomatoes were growing in the far 4x4 raised bed by the railing and house. They have moved on.

My Winterized Garden - The Rusted Garden Blog

Update on Fall Garlic, Onions and Leeks: 3 Weeks of Growth

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Fall gardening is alive and well in Maryland. Some cool weather vegetables you plant to harvest in the fall and others you plant to over-winter and be ready come spring. On September 26th I did a video on planting garlic, onion seeds and leeks. His is the progress about 3 weeks later.

The vegetables will do their thing over the winter and be ready in various stages for spring and late spring harvesting.

Fall Planted Garlic - The Rusted Garden Blog

Fall Planted Onion Seeds - The Rusted Garden Blog

Notice the onions and leeks look almost the same. They are related. Onions make the round bulb you are familiar with and leeks grow more like cylindrical stalks. Both great additions to the garden. And you can start them in the fall.

Fall Planted Leeks - The Rusted Garden Blog

Winterizing and Filling Your Raised Bed: Kill Slugs Too!

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Fall is a great time to winterize your vegetable garden raised beds (so to speak) and fill them up for next spring. You do the work now, to have ready to go planting beds come spring. Winterizing your beds is also a great way to cut down on slugs and snails. Kill them in the fall, so they aren't around in the spring.

Remove all the debris from this year's vegetables. Bag it and throw it away. That is the best way to remove over-wintering disease spores. The bed in the video is just filled with cheap topsoil, leaves and grass and a layer of newspaper. You are putting your bed to sleep for about 4 months. The goal is to fill up your bed, cut down on disease, reduce the snail and slug population and get the work done early.

When spring arrives you will add compost, manure and other organic matter to the top of the bed and then, come spring, you will turn it all under. Your beds will be ready for your spring cool weather vegetables. Winterize is not an exact process. It is a concept. The video gives you the basic idea of winterizing and a way to kill some slugs and snails.

Fall Chard, Peas and Leeks: Cool Weather Gardening

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I ate these vegetables last week in a stir-fry. I feel pretty good about achieving a goal of eating into the fall. As of October 14th,  I can still eat out of the garden. I just built a plastic wrap mini greenhouse and hope to get greens into December. A new goal.

Fall gardening, as I mentioned, is well and good in Maryland Zone 7. Here is what I picked last week and a little bit of what they look like prepared to be cooked.

Fall Swiss Chard, Leeks & Peas - The Rusted Garden Blog

Cleaned-Up Swiss Chard in the Fall - The Rusted Garden Blog

Swiss Chard is a great garden vegetable. It is a cool favoring crop that grows through the summer and comes back like a monster in the fall. You prepare the stalks like celery. It has a different taste but a great similiar crunch without the celery string. It readily absorbs the seasonings of the dish.

Sliced Swiss Chard Stalks for Stir-Fry - The Rusted Garden Blog

Below are the vegetables prepared as going into my stir-fry. The swiss chard leaves were chopped. They can be used in salads. I didn't stir-fry them. I made a bed of greens out of them and put the stir-fry on top of them at plating.

Fall Garden Vegetable Stir-Fry - The Rusted Garden Blog

Building A Mini Garden Greenhouse Out of 'Saran' Wrap: It Works!

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This video will show you how to use plastic cling wrap like 'Saran Wrap' to build a mini vegetable garden greenhouse. I am not demonstrating the exact way to construct it but I am offering an idea for you to adopt to your garden needs. Tonight the temperature will dip to 37 degrees which most likely means frost in my area.

Many cool weather crops can take frost and even freeze. I built this mini green house as a way to prolong my growing season by at least 4 weeks. You can use the idea in this video to extend your vegetable growing season in the fall and start your vegetable growing season earlier in the spring.

Be an artist and sculpt a mini greenhouse. Have fun with it.