Friday, October 30, 2009

Then & Now- October Review

Time for the final monthly review of the season!

I was a little worried about the spaghetti squash when I picked them. They nearly all had some yellow but weren't looking very ripe at all. I left them on the vine as long as possible even though the vines were looking pretty dead.



I had read they would ripen as long as they had started changing color and YAY they did! They spent about 3 weeks just like this on my dining room table. Only one looks like it may not turn. It didn't have any yellow when it was picked. I ate one for dinner tonight!
The yellowing bell pepper ripened off-plant as well and was eaten about 10 days later (it came on my road trip with me- it's the ONLY yellow bell that grew and I wasn't going to miss out on eating it!!


I had to pick everything that was approaching ripeness at the beginning of the month because I was gone for a couple weeks. I went back to Vermont for my class reunion. We had a whole weekend bash and it was a great time! As a bit of a gee-whiz, I tried to cover the garden to see what might make it while I was away. Temps had been hitting lows in the 30's before I left so I figured if the weather held out for a couple weeks, it might make it.




It didn't.

About a week after I left, the weather took a drastic turn. The forecast showed a low of 19 one night, high in the 20's and then a low of 14. I knew it wouldn't make it through that kind of cold. All of the covers had open spots for ventilation for the warm days and they would have needed blankets and probably lights to survive those lows. Oh well. I think the biggest disappointment was the raspberries. There were so many berries on the plants that froze before ripening.


I was part-way through the garden clean-up the other day when I had to stop for some reason. I didn't get to work outside again the end of this week for sure! We had a nasty storm roll through. We didn't get the 2+ feet of snow that some areas around Denver saw, just 3-4". Those 3-4" coupled with some wicked winds sure can make some good drifts though! This was my garden yesterday. I wonder how the baby lettuce in bed #1 are doing under all that snow.




Too bad my driveway looks like this too. We get the worst snowdrift across the drive with nearly every storm. I guess shoveling snow is good exercise at least which is probably good since I bought Halloween candy this week...


October Harvest Totals:

ZUCCHINI 6 OZ
LETTUCE 4 OZ
BEANS 1 OZ
TOMATOES 9 OZ
CARROTS 13 OZ
CUKES 5 OZ
PEPPERS 1# 11 OZ
DAIKON RADISH 3 OZ
SPAGHETTI SQUASH 27# 14 OZ
PUMPKIN -2 VOLUNTEERS- 18# 7 OZ
POTATOES 7# 6 OZ

October Total: 927 oz = 57# 15 oz

September total: 878 oz = 54# 14 oz
August total: 338 oz = 21 lb 2 oz
July total: 157 oz = 9 lb 13 oz
June total: 69 oz =4 lb 5 oz
May total: 10 oz .

Total: 2379 oz = 148 lb 11 oz

7 comments:

Ribbit said...

Wow, look at that snow! Unbelieveable.

Unknown said...

I thought of you when I saw the reports of the snow on the news. Wow! Now you can start planning for next year :)

jbest123 said...

Looks like you made a smart move. And Good timing also a good harvest. John

Amy said...

I suppose it's probably good that it froze, now I can get on with the fall chores instead of trying to keep it alive. I have just a few squares with some lettuce and the rest is ready to be cleaned up. This week, we're having beautiful weather, sunny and in the 50's & 60's, so I hope to get some work done!

Grain Damaged said...

LOL... LOVE that you took the bell pepper with you! I'd totally do something like that. ::Stomps foot:: "I grew this and I'm gonna eat it, no matter what!"

Otherwise, OH NO SNOW! Already? I hope your little lettuce sprouts made it.

Amy said...

Yepper, I took my pepper on a 1900 mile road trip...and it was TASTY!!

Toni said...

Wow... I'm impressed with your harvest in OCTOBER!