The big good news right now is that the carrots I planted last summer. They are ready to pull now. The chard I planted a bit more recently is big enough that occasionaly I steal a leaf or two from each plant, but that doesn't amount to much yet. The kale plant is almost a bush now. It gives me half the greens in a delicious bowl of soup every week or so.

  

The broccoli plant continues to yeild another third of the greens in that soup. I harvest all of the heads with big enough flower buds on them. Usually each head is about the size of a quarter. Maybe I get three or four every time I harvest the largest kale leaves. I like to top it off with some green onion.

  

The nasturtium was finally beginning to look like something interesting about the time we got hit by that first serious cold snap. Now it's a has been. Nothing left but some decaying plant matter nobody would want to eat.

     

The beets are doing very well. Glad I planted them! A big success from just seeds. I'm planting them from seeds again next time!

     

The collards are all doing fine. I took a few cuttings from the best plants and planted them. The cuttings are taking okay as I type this.

  

     

The tomatoes were all doing fine until the frost hit. Now they used to be plants.

     

The artichoke is getting to be a nice bushy plant again.

  

The peas didn't all come up, but the half dozen or so that did are doing fine now. I get one or two pods of sweet cruchy pea flavor every time I water, or something like that.

I planted many broccoli seeds, and some of them came up. Of those I transplanted at least half a dozen into different spots around the plot. this is probably the best of the new ones. I'm hoping many of them develop. Then I'll be having home grown broccoli on a much more regular basis than I have been.

     

My big improvement project so far in the fall has been improving the border around my property. By the end of the winter I expect to have it nice the whole way around my plot. I ran out of wood half way around last winter.



This was the last harvest of tomatoes, the day before the frost hit. I got just over two pounds of them. I should have harvested the last peppers at the same time, but I didn't think of that. Two days after the frost I found a pepper and plucked it, but the thing was mushy and awful. They don't like frost. It would have done much better spending those two nights in the kitchen. A couple of days later that pinkish tomato looked good enough for soup, so I used it in this one.



All of the greens in that soup were also from the garden. The store bought ingredients were orchetta noodles from Trader Joe's and a hot dog and some dried tomato pesto from Safeway.