Septembers garden.

My garden is winding down but there's still lots to do. For the next two weeks it's final harvesting and trimming. Then pulling out plants and readying the soil for next spring and planting some things to overwinter. 

Here's what the garden looks like now. I've got a couple of groups of spinach growing. Not doing the best but enough to add to other greens in a small salad every now and then. 

There are still a couple of carrots. And I haven't harvested any of the parsnips yet, waiting till after a frost (I'm curious about how they'll turn out).  Their stalks are much bigger than I would have thought. I imagined them to look much like a carrot top. 

There's still several eggplants on the plants. I have pinched off all remaining flowers so all the energy and nutrients will go into growing the current fruit. They have definitely slowed down. 

There are still a food number of tomatoes that need to ripen. I am hoping most will ripen on the plant but I'll take the ones that don't in to ripen inside. I have trimmed back the plants considerably. 

The hot pepper section of my garden has been taken over by cayennes. There are still a couple of banana peppers, several cherry bomb and a bunch of habaneros but the Cajun bells and sweet bells are done. 

The leeks are going crazing. Fighting for space and light. I really learned my lesson  about planting less is more. They need their space. 

My fall lettuces are doing great. Planted about a month ago they are perfect size for salads right now. 

The fall beets still have a ways to go. 

One of the Brussel sprout plants are doing well. The other I might give up on and take out. 

Here's my late planted kohl robi. I'm not sure if this is going to make it. 

My fall planted radishes are coming nicely. Hope they taste yummy. 

This is the one remaining broccoli plant. It's still producing side shoots.

The sweet slicing english cucumbers are still going strong. There's several fruits growing on the vines and even new flowers. 

The herb planters are also doing well. Oregano, thyme, lemon thyme, basil, cilantro, flat parsley, Curley parsley, rosemary, and peppermint. 

I've got to trim these and root some for a winter indoor herb garden. 

Garden Update

The colours in the garden are changing from greens to reds!  Hot peppers and tomatoes are all ripening.  Our eggplant plants are overrun with fruit.  The brussel sprouts are starting for form on their stalks.   We have taken out all but one broccoli plant removed all the lettuces and planted some new lettuces for the fall from seed.  I've also planted some kohl rabi (not sure if they are going to have enough time, but we'll see).  Fall radishes and beets have also been planted in some spaces in between.  

  Here are the tomatoes:  finally the larger ones are turning red!  We have grape (which have been ripening continuously all summer), Health kick (these are loaded with lycopene - they taste delicious) and Ultra sweet (this is a beefsteak variety- they are so large and taste yummy and sweet).

The eggplants are really ramping up their game, GMF has been enjoying them in eggplant parmesan.  

 We planted some fall beets and lettuces and they have all started coming up now.

 Our last broccoli plant is still producing.

I can barely keep up with the cucumber.  They are a slicing variety (can't remember exactly what they were called).  I'm not a fan of pickles so I don't do that, I just eat the cucumbers fresh and in salads.

The hot peppers are literally ripening in hours.  I look at them in the morning and their green and I get home from work and they are bright red.  I am so excited to make hot sauces soon.  I've got cajun bell, cherry bomb, habenero and TONS of cayenne.

Here are the brussel spouts.  They look so neat growing on the stalk.  I'm not a big fan of brussel sprouts but GMF will love them.

For this post I'm linking up with An Oregon Cottage's Garden Party series.  Check out what other people have going on in their gardens.

Hot Peppers & Cross Pollination.

Today I'm linking up with Tuesday Garden Party at An Oregon Cottage.  This series has people post on a variety of garden topics including what's growing/blooming, tips, ideas, progress, harvests, recipes, before/afters or how-tos.  I  love connecting with other gardeners and seeing what is happening.  I find it very motivational.  You should check some of the posts in the series this week. (click on the button to the left).

On to the POST:  

Ok so I will be the first to admit that I over planted hot peppers this year.  We are getting tons of hot peppers coming off all the plants though!  Can't wait to make my own hot sauce!  They are definitely too close together.  But I have read that to avoid cross pollination different plants need to be 100's of feet apart.  So I guess I should just get used to this because I don't have that much space and I want to keep planting different kinds of peppers.  This year I planted 6 cayenne plants, 2 habanero plants, 1 cherry bomb, 1 cajun bell and 2 banana pepper plants.  I know that's a lot of plants in a small area (as you can see below).

The first to produce fruit were the cherry bomb then the cajun bell and the banana peppers, then the cayenne peppers and finally the habanero.  We noticed a couple weeks ago that one of the cayenne pepper plants is growing 2 distinctly different shaped peppers.  The normal long skinny sometimes curled cayenne pepper (B), and what looks very much like a jalapeño pepper (A).  We think the cayenne has cross pollinated with the cherry bomb creating a hybrid shape.

Here is a picture of the cherry bomb, as you can see it is short and wide with a darker skin colour than the cayenne.  We think this is the best candidate for what has cross pollinated.  In the background you can see the cajun bell plant.

 We also have a very short and stumpy cajun bell on our hands.  Seen in the centre of the photo below. It started to turn colour fairly quickly and was actually eaten yesterday bright red (this photo was taken about a week ago).  The stumpy pepper tasted like a cajun bell.   We are not sure this one is result of cross pollination or just a runt of the plant?  Any ideas?

The last issue we are having with our peppers is curling leaves on the habaneros.  It's just the top leaves and I'm not sure why this is happening.  There was one week where the weather fluctuated quite a bit from really hot to very mild.  This could be the cause but we are not sure.  The plants are still flowering and fruiting so were not overly worried but just curious.  

Has anyone else had interesting cross pollination in their garden?  

Or

Have you had curling leaves on pepper plants, and what do you think the cause is?

Garden Update July 20th

Well it was crazy hot this week and I needed to water a lot!  But the garden is doing fantastic.  I've got 2 new planters for more herbs.  I have been growing clippings from the original herbs and will plant them there.  The clippings are in spice jars on the kitchen sink window sill.  They are rooting well.  The mint especially.I have also been rooting a tomato clipping.  I pulled off a large sucker the other day and decided to try and keep it and see what happens.