Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Friday, October 3, 2008

October strawberries

October strawberriesI can't believe it but my day neutral Tri Star strawberries are still producing berries. Apparently, according to the website where I bought the plants last year, day neutral strawberries will produce in an ongoing fashion from June until frost which, around here, won't be until sometime in November.

In the meantime, I'll be enjoying all those yummy strawberries!

I've also got quite a few sugar pie pumpkins that are ready for picking, some zucchinis that hopefully will continue growing and be ready in a few weeks and I'm still hoping that all those figs on my little tree will keep growing and ripen soon. Since we're expecting a bit of rain over the next week, I harvested a bunch of tomatoes to ripen indoors since many of my tomatoes are splitting when we get heavy rains.

As for preserving food items, I've been dehydrating apples and hope to get some from our neighbor's tree to dehydrate some more and hopefully make some pie filling. I'm also freezing the tomatoes that we are not eating for making tomato sauce when I have enough to do so.

Are your gardens still producing or are they starting to slow down?

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

You'd think here in the South (Atlanta) things would continue to be flourishing but actually our garden is really winding down. We are in the middle of a very long drought and even watering can't help extend the growing period too much here. Hopefully October will be a wetter month and our fall garden will start to be productive.
CLM

Anonymous said...

We had our first frost last night...late for us here in central Ontario. Luckily I had brought in the last of the tomatoes and strawberries in the evening.

Laura said...

Thankfully, we are slowing down... which is great since I am running out of shelf space, jars and freezer spots are at a prime. Now I can concentrate on baking!

Lisa Zahn said...

I have the same Tri-Star strawberries here in Minnesota and they're producing more now than they did in June! They're so yummy...

Kristi said...

I love how your posts coincide with things happening here. Number 2 son picked a bunch of strawberries yesterday (I think they're Seascape), and some carrots. We had our first (and last) homegrown corn as well, and it wasn't quite ripe yet. We'll leave the corn to the "experts" in future.

If your tomatoes are splitting when it rains, it means that they're not getting enough water.

Today I'll be making applesauce and tomorrow I'll be making tomato sauce, but aside from root crops and greens, my garden's pretty much done.

Anonymous said...

Sadly, school is taking too much time from garden/kitchen play. But I did harvest several tomatoes, 5 eggplants, and 2 red bell peppers last night. Now to carve out some time to do something with them before they rot, like most of the tomatoes in the last month have! (I've been living off PB&J this semester)

Anonymous said...

I'm done (not that mine was very productive anyway) except for some potted basil plants that we brought inside until we have time to make pesto.

First frost was last night, according to the weather - it was predicted for a few nights ago, so we brought stuff in then.

CoCargoRider said...

our garden is just about done producing except for some zuchinni, pumpkins, and watermelon. We are going to have to bring the remaining maters in to ripen on the counter, as we are getting close to first frost.

Green Bean said...

Still going on the tomatoes - well, stopping and starting depending on the weather. My kids picked my squash early this year. They just couldn't wait. My strawberries last year kept going until November and they are still going this year too. So far, so good. TONs of preserving. I need to make more strawberry jam and chutney and pasta sauce. And then I'll likely turn to the squash.

Anonymous said...

My first year garden was a slight success. Everything is done except here in Western Massachusetts except some zucchini which I, too, hope will get a bit bigger and green tomatoes. Anyone help me with what to do with green tomatoes? I think I'll try the Tristar strawberries next year. I have tiny Alpine strawberries that are still producing. They're yummy, but a long way from jam. I'm thinking of putting in some garlic soon.

LatigoLiz said...

I'd still have some strawberries if the dog and the slugs would leave them alone! Need to get the potatoes out of the ground. Have tomoatoes dropping off the vine, but we don’t really like the cherry tomatoes much. The larger one (I need to look at the label) is probably splitting all ove the place. I have cinnamon and purple ruffles basil doing OK in my greenhouse. My late-planted peas are starting to burst at the seems and I need to get them picked and shelled and frozen. The pumpkins are starting to get perfectly ripe and will be ready for carving at our big carving party in a couple of weeks. And there are apples and pears than need picking! I think that’s it.

Julie said...

i cannot recall what type of berries we got, but ours are still producing berries also. They actually produced almost nothing during the normal season and now they are booming with berries.

Robj98168 said...

My garden is slowing down. I am glad you have strawberries- I have one plant that is still producing- didn't want folks to think I was goofy! I still got peas, putting them in the shady side of the house worked out really well for me! And now I am satisfying myself with lettuce, and waiting for that &^%$ Broccoli to start growing. And I gots three pumpkinS! Still harvessting tomatoes, but not for long!

Laura said...

Our humble beginings of a garden are hobbling along. Our heirloom bean plant has beans but I have no idea when to harvest them. :D
What I thought was brocoli is probably California Poppies. Our sunflowers are probably never going to really take off, 'cause... well the sun is soon going to hibernate.
The chives and lavender seeds that we planted never showed.
I'm thinking of just mulching it all and planting garlic! :)

Our herbs (cilantro, sage, basil) are all growing like weeds in their little clay pots!
It may sound like we didn't do very well, but we had lots of fun watching and waiting and fussing over everything. For our first foray into urban homesteading I consider it a success. :D I also think its pretty funny that I have been carefully tending "brocoli" this whole time. Ah well.

Laura said...

Oh spell check, where art thou when I need you. Broccoli, folks. That's what I meant to say. :D

Farmer's Daughter said...

I can't believe you have strawberries still! Ours have been gone since late June!

I'm still picking tomatoes, lettuce, parsley, basil, chives, a few green beans, and some carrots are almost ready.

My fall/winter garden just got started a month ago, with lettuce, spinach, broccoli, turnips and more carrots growing. We're currently researching cold frams and I'm reading books on winter gardening. My goal is to never have to buy salad greens again!

Anonymous said...

We still have dozens of green tomatoes on the vines. We're expecting snow in the upper elevations saturday night, but not on the valley floor where we live. We'll pick any green tomatoes left, wrap them loosely in crumpled newspaper and stick them in a box in our closet. We pick through the box looking for red ones through the fall. We usually have to toss whatever is left about mid December because they are starting to rot.
We also still have some squash and pumpkins.

Mindful Momma said...

I never thought to freeze whole tomatoes to use later. Thanks for the tip!