In early October the garden is still giving us summer vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and okra, but their numbers are fading. As the seasons change, so do the harvests. Now we are also enjoying a variety of greens and other goodies that the autumn season brings us.
lettuce and tomatoes (click on any image to enlarge)
For salad greens right now we have our choice of lettuce, Chinese cabbage, arugula, endive and radish tops. A September planting of lettuce in one of the cold frame beds is just now sizing up. It was also good on these BLT sandwiches we enjoyed for lunch one day.
BLT sandwich on homemade Whole Grain Bread
Peppers are still sizing up and ripening here with our warmish fall weather. The Fairy Tale and Pingtung Long eggplants are producing well too. We’re enjoying all of these warm season vegetables because we know that the first frost is just around the corner.
harvest of peppers and eggplant
Yum Yum Gold peppers may not be huge, but they are big on taste and prolific. We love them grilled, which really brings out their sweetness.
Yum Yum Gold mini bell peppers
This is my first time growing the Jimmy Nardello peppers, but it won’t be my last. They are on the Slow Food USA Ark of Taste, and I have to say they are a great tasting pepper. They’ve done well in what has been a difficult year for growing peppers.
Jimmy Nardello pepper
Also ripening now are our Hot Yummy peppers. This one in my hand proved to be not very hot, but it was sweet and yummy. I am going to save seed from these unique peppers in hopes of keeping this strain going.
Hot Yummy pepper
We’ve got the loose headed Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage that braved the August heat to give us some nice salad greens. It held up surprisingly well. We have some mini headed cabbages that are almost ready too.
lettuce and Tokyo Bekana Chinese cabbage
And we got two of our ‘neck pumpkins’ this year. This butternut squash relative, aka Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck Squash is great for pumpkin dishes. These two weighed a little over 7 pounds and will make several pies. I can see some pumpkin bread and muffins in my future too!
neck pumpkins
We’re also enjoying our kale. So far we’ve only harvested the Lacinato, but the other varieties are doing great this year. More on them and the other fall greens soon.
bed with Lacinato kale
I hope you’ve enjoyed a peek at what we are harvesting here in October. For more gardener’s harvests, visit Daphne’s Dandelions. And may your gardens be ever productive!
What a nice variety of summer and cool weather crops to enjoy! You have some interesting varieties of peppers that I think I will write down to try next year.
Nice peppers, those little gold ones really caught my eye. I see that Territorial Seed sells them, perhaps I will give them a try next season. There is nothing better then seeing ones hard work in the garden pay off with such wonderful treasures of food is there.:)
Is the Lacinato kale the same thing as Tuscan kale / Cavalo Nero? And how do you eat it? I’m always on the lookout for good recipes for the stuff.
It’s the same kale. We usually braise it, or make kale chips.
I may have to try those yum yum gold peppers – they look beautiful! Interesting crookneck squash – never heard of it before. Nice variety coming from your garden. There is only a brief time period each season where you can get the ripe tomatoes AND fresh lettuce to make a proper BLT.
It is always a treat to have both here at the same time!
I too like the look of those Yum Yum gold peppers – I wonder if they have made it to Oz yet – or perhaps there is an equivalent. I also like the look of the crookneck pumpkins. Are the plants big?
That pumpkin/squash has big vines. I got the seeds from Baker Creek.
I’m intrigued by the Jimmy Nardello peppers. For us, Tolli’s Sweet Italian performed the best this year, but it was a rough year all around for growing peppers. I’ll have to look into the Nardello peppers though, and maybe try those next year.
We had some of the Nardello peppers last night on a pizza. It’s pretty versatile!