"Oh! It's the end of the summer. You must have a lot more time on your hands now that the garden is winding down." Anyone who says these words to me will see me snap, gurgle out a few swear words and then shove them into a puddle.
No. No, September doesn't mean the garden is winding down. September means EVERYTHING has to be picked before it either rots in the ground or gets eaten by something with fur, feathers and a very low IQ; yet still proves to be smarter than me. THAT is the truth of the September vegetable garden.
September means picking, digging, washing, processing, canning, freezing, pickling, threshing, storing and wondering what's sticky under your feet in the kitchen ALL MONTH LONG.
Classic Bread & Butter pickle recipe
And I love it.
I love every single bit of it.
I love the colour and the sounds and the quiet of a September garden.
There's the last of the corn to be picked and eaten fresh off the cob right in the garden. Tomatoes spilling everywhere. Walking past the melon patch, you can smell the sweet fruit fragrance in the air.
I just harvested my wheat. Let me say that again because it's a sentence I've never uttered before and it's a LOT of fun to say ...
I JUST HARVESTED MY WHEAT!
UPDATE: You can read about how to grow wheat in this post. I've been successfully growing it on a small scale for several years now.
I used this cute little book called Homegrown Whole Grains that focuses on small scale wheat growing to help me through my first year of wheat growing.
The second crop of peas are making their way to the trellis.
Dahlias are coming into their most abundant blooming time, their heads nodding with the weight of their beauty.
I'm even happy to look at the Brussels sprouts. So long as there's some sort of protective layer between them and me.
But the best, the very BEST thing about a September garden are the secrets it holds.
Below the ground, hidden from view are all the root crops that were planted months ago. Quietly growing away under the cover of soil. The only hint of what's going on can be seen in the carrot bed where their shoulders flirt with the sun.
Saucy little things.
Things get dug up when I have time, but I try to leave anything that grows underground in the dirt as long as I can because it's the perfect conditions for preserving them.
VEGETABLE STORAGE TIP
Once you pull up a carrot or potato, you have to find somewhere cool to store it with the right humidity. Once October hits, finding a spot inside to store root crops is easier because the outside has cooled down. Once that happens it makes vegetable storage areas like mudrooms, garages, basements or kitchen cupboards cooler as well. (Kitchen cupboards that are on outside walls are always cooler than regular cupboards. So if you have nowhere else to put them, store your root vegetables in that cupboard, in a cardboard box, as close to the exterior wall as possible.
Beets, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, and carrots are all hidden under the soil but it's the potato crops that keep their development a complete secret. Beets and carrots peek up a bit. Potatoes do not. Potatoes are incredibly secretive. Everybody says so.
Potato harvest day is like Christmas morning for adults. At least it is for adults who have an uncommon love of tubers.
That would be me. I am that uncommon person. I love my potatoes with the fierceness of a mother. If they're big enough I'll put them in a frilly dress like a mother too. So that's something to ponder.
So no, dear friends. September isn't a month that turns your garden into a relaxing breeze; rather it turns you into a bit of a hurricane.
And a puddle pusher.
And a revealer of secrets.
That's the September vegetable garden.
Beautiful photos, beautiful words!
I think this is your most beautifully written post yet. And the drone shots of the garden are exquisite. Gather on...!
LOVE this post so much! And I agree with another reader... your writing is amazing and poetic. I can smell the melons!
Karen,
Love your garden!!!
I thought I was the only person out there that has the same passion that you do when it comes to gardening. Maybe some kind of obsession with what we do but sure better than being a drug addict or gambler dont you think. I just love this time of the year just walking around and listening to the sounds and smelling the different scents. I as well have so much to freeze, dry, can or pickle. Non stop but I LOVE IT!~!
What are the plants in front of the carrots? Almost looks like basil. My basil suddenly got hit by the powdery mildew about a month ago and killed most of my plants. Lots of wet August nights in southern Ontario was the culprit I am sure!
I forgot about your wheat - can't wait for further info. I adore that last picture - you and your wheat look so good in that garden. I have 12 little sugar pea plants ready to set out - after Dorian passes! They are suppose to be dwarf plants that bush but they are stretching their little vines upward over the chop sticks and now reach past the skewers and I feel like Jack with his bean stalk. They are currently waving at me to give them more to climb upon but I have to wait until today is over before I can stick them in the ground. Then I need to think of what in the world I can give them to grow. I guess I'll try a wire strung between two trees with strings hanging down for each plant. These sure are tall skinny bushes!
Letting your hair grow I see...
Oh, I love the shape of those melons, (that sounds a little weird) what kind are they? I've been making your roasted tomato sauce and freezing it. It was one of the things I used the most last year. I've tried to focus my growing and preserving on only what gets eaten in one winter, no freezer leftovers.
They're cantaloupe, but I can't remember which variety. Nothing fancy, just standard. I'm overrun with cantaloupe! ~ karen
Karen, what else can you do with the all those beautiful melons besides just eating them? I know you share a lot of your garden, but even though ripe wonderfully delicious cantaloupe is about my favorite fruit, I don’t think I would be able to eat fast enough to use all your melons. I can’t think of anything else except maybe fruit leather.
Such beautiful abundance - in your garden and in your words.
Thank you for letting us see all of it, even the cute (?!) soft sleeping little bunnies. How did you sneak up on them?
I'm at the point where I want to start shoving zucchini in people's open car windows - and now I've got eggplant coming. Your garden is AMAZING and huge! I have a much, much smaller plot - and it keeps me going. Ah ... September and the riches it holds!
Karen - I would like to request a blog on composting. I just got rid of 3 ugly black plastic composters that are kind of useless (for me) - and I am getting ready to build a composter from scrap wood. I am using a design that I am trying to remember from my dad's garden from way "back in the day". The good thing about his composter was that it was easy to get into to turn the compost. Much more difficult in those black plastic thingys. Anyway - if you have some ideas or recommendations on composting - I would love to hear about it!
Hi Susan. I have several posts on composting. :) Some of them are at the top of this page. The bigger the pile the faster it will compost usually. And YES turning it is key! To make access to your compost easy, build a 3 sided box structure out of wood slats where the front is completely open. It doesn't need to have 4 sides. If you're worried your pile will be so big it spills out the front, just add a removable "door" attached with hook and eyes or even hinges. ~ karen!
Every Sunday lately I've been canning and I absolutely love it.
Thank you for giving my healthy brain a workout while my poorly aged body rests during your September workout. Ah, gardening …. the happiest years of my life. Keep on hoeing.
Wait a sec! Second crop of peas?! My understanding is that peas need cool temperature to sprout and warm temperatures to grow. So when and how do you plant a second crop of peas? We're just finishing the last of the snow peas (the only kind of peas my husband would eat, after a mother who only served mushy peas) and would love to have a second crop.
Yep, second crop of peas, lol. I start them in cells with the seeds from the spring crop and once they're 4" high or so I plant them out. They like nights that are on the cool"ish" side and warm but not hot days. So fall, like spring is perfect. They won't produce as much as spring peas but providing the weather cooperates I'll still get peas. ~ karen!
Excellent harvest. Especially enjoy the drone photos. Adds a nice new perspective.
Thanks Jim. The drone is a LOT of fun. ~ karen!
September is the time we plant our fall garden!! Absolutely adore your garden.
.... “in the carrot bed where their shoulders flirt with the sun”. How perfect is that description!
I no longer tend to a garden as I’m old and now live in a condo but I still garden vicariously through you, Karen! Thank you for walking me through your beautiful garden!
You “do” everything under the sun with such passion and enthusiasm and are such a skilled writer, that I read all of your posts (no matter the subject) and I recommend your blog to every one I meet.
Thanks Elaine! I do tend to have enthusiasm, lol. ~ karen!
Love this...almost as much as I love September. :)
September is certainly not a quiet time in the garden even if you don’t grow vegetables. Now is the time I divide plants, develop new beds and move plants around to create a more pleasing grouping of texture and colour. All this done after starring at my garden all summer long both to enjoy the beauty of it as well as considering improvement. Early fall is the best time to divide and shift plants because in our area they will have a month to settle in and develop a good root system for next year. October is bulb planting and garden clean up and all those leaves! I love my garden, and I so enjoy reading about yours!
Ug, I'm going to have to do all of that too in my front yard. Digging up and dividing plants is the WORST. By that time of the season I'm sooooo done with heavy garden work, lol. ~ karen!
The smell of melons? Heaven.
You really are an incredible writer. I see a picture in your words. Oh, and in your pictures! Haha. The garden is beautiful.
Thanks Deb I appreciate you saying that. I've always loved writing. ~ karen
YES, Fall means a TON of garden work--& I don't grow vegetables. I have armloads of old daylily leaves to gather up, umpteen ferns, irises and hostas that have overgrown their beds & need to be dug up & moved or divided. And fruit--sheesh, berries, grapes, peaches & apples.
Climbing roses are up into the trees. Wisteria is crawling over the greenhouse...jasmine is heading for the Coast. Watering, pruning, deadheading...thank goodness the sun goes down so I can get a bit of rest.
i'd love to see YOU garden, Tamara!
Wow, can I relate! Iris and hosta on the rampage! Kind of looks like giant green spiders trying to crawl out. This is about 8’x8’ and 150# of thinned Siberian. I was hoping to bag them and put them on the front curb for people to take for free, but who has time to do that?
Beautiful, almost poetic! I’m going to forward it to my DIL.
Thanks Tina! ~ karen
You took the words out of my mouth—-poetic.