The late summer garden

Here’s a round up of developments in the garden.
​
Harvesting pumpkins and butternuts
My pumpkins and butternuts died off the vines quite early this year so I harvested them and stored them inside.  The butternut variety that we grew this year was called Chieftain. 

Butternut Chieftain

​We also grew Spaghetti Squash and the following pumpkin varieties – Blue Hubbard, Jarrahdale and Queensland Blue.  All of these are known to store really well.

Our pumpkin harvest this season

Harvesting okra
​
Our okra is starting to become ready!  This season I grew four varieties: Gunjan, Emerald Green, Clemson Spineless and Burgundy.  I planted my okra in 9 litre square black plastic containers (around the size of a household bucket).  I have 193 plants in total.  Every two days, I keep an eye on them as they mature quickly.  It’s best to harvest them while they are young otherwise they can start to become too tough.

Two okra from our plants

Planting rudbeckia seedlings
​
My marigolds that were planted in large plastic baba troughs had just about had it, so I pulled them out and replaced them with some dwarf rudbeckia seedlings that I raised from seed.  This is the first time that I have grown rudbeckia and I am very pleased with the results.  They are very easy to grow from seed and required little effort on my part.

Rudbeckia seedlings

Potting up seedlings

I have been busy working in my nursery.  I have been potting up lettuce seedlings (including the wonderful variety Degli Ortolani from Italian Seeds Pronto), Pak Choi, Silverbeet, Kale and Spinach.  When they have grown a bit in the seed raising trays I transferred them to, I will move them into the garden.  I expect this to be in March some time.

Next steps

• Remove bean vines.  Our cobra beans were simply marvelous but all good things come to an end.  I will then prepare the ground for sowing peas in mid-March

Our bountiful cobra runner beans

• Remove pumpkin vines.  I am just waiting for one spaghetti squash to ripen before I can remove it and do this.
• In the area that we grew pumpkins in over the summer, I intend to plant celery and giant asters.  I raised both from seed and my seedlings are in my nursery.  They are almost ready to go into the ground.

Celery seedlings in my nursery

King size aster seedlings in my nursery