Greetings.  It’s Heather again.

The garden is far from done as we wind into fall. Our lettuce bed is in full flush, with many other transplants awaiting their turn. We seeded two lettuces from Colonial Willamsburg– speckled lettuce and tennis ball lettuce, both donated by volunteer Debbie.

This afternoon I will harvest lettuce, spinach, kale, chard, and broccoli. Most of our broccoli crowns remain little buttons, but the flush of rain we had in the area put some over the edge.

On the 22nd of September, Saturday, we had an inch of rain in one day. It was torrential.

I’m pleased to report we have cauliflower–small white heads are appearing! Today volunteer Megan (information to come) rubber-banded the inner leaves around the cauliflower heads to keep them from turning green. Does anyone else do this in their gardens?

Two beds in our high tunnel are filled in with our “soil” mixture. One is planted in red lettuce, mizuna, dill, cilantro, and toscano kale. I hope to plant the other one this afternoon with a variety of other greens.

Cover crops are creeping up all over the garden–beds of oat and clover bring me a sense of peace.

I harvested all of the tongue of fire beans we are saving from seed, and almost all the scarlet runner beans we are saving for seed. More on seed-saving/processing/storage next post.

Peace be with you.

scarlet runner seeds

Scarlet Runner Beans, ready for saving–note the completely brown, dried-out pod