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What's in your garden?By David Coltrain Agriculture Agent Walnut Creek Extension District What has the garden been producing this month? Here's what has been growing and producing in my garden. Let's start with the warm season crops that have been producing most of the summer. Sweet corn made it until the first day of fall. My sweet corn patch with staggered plantings and two varieties has had corn on the cob available nearly every day from around July 4 until Sept. 22 when I ate the last ear. Okra is still producing, although it only needs picking about twice a week instead of daily. The plants are now tall enough that I have to bend them over to reach the ripe okra and the pods have more blemishes than when it was hot. Green beans have been producing great this month. My fall planting was plenty early with the best beans I had all year. The planting that should have produced in August recovered from the beating of a horrific windstorm in early August to produce a good crop in September. Surprisingly, the early planting that had beans in June is producing again. Normally, I would have removed those plants, but I left them for "fencing" to keep the cantaloupes and watermelon vines contained. A few cantaloupes are still getting ripe and cucumbers are producing well. In fact, cucumbers are another crop with many different plantings still yielding. One hill each of butternut squash and spaghetti squash have produced around 20 fruit each and still going strong. Winter squash and pumpkins are mature when you cannot push your fingernail into the outside skin. Normally in a discussion about vegetables, tomatoes come up much earlier. If one crop was a disappointment this year in my garden, it would have to be tomatoes. I only planted five plants early this year and they had a lot of good tomatoes in July and have recently been producing a few ugly tomatoes. I planted four late tomatoes in June and they are also producing a few tomatoes, but usually badly split. I haven't mentioned summer squash. They have been doing great, probably too great. I planted one hill of zucchini early and another hill in mid summer. Both are still healthy and continue to yield well. The yellow squash is like the everready rabbit, it just keeps going and going. I know one hill of yellow squash has conservatively produced over 200 squash this year. I don't want to forget to mention raspberries. Three Heritage fall-bearing raspberry plants have been producing since late August and will produce until frost. Each day about 10 to 30 berries ripen and are ready to pick. The first miniature pumpkins and gourds have been picked and are displayed in our front yard with pumpkins, mums, pansies, straw and corn stalks from the sweet corn plantings. Salad greens planted late last month are ready. These include arugula, mizuna, red romaine lettuce, buttercrunch lettuce and spinach. Other salad ingredients still producing include chard and broccoli. Spring planted cabbage plants are finally ready, which is kind of a fluke. They should have been mature in June. One crop missing from my garden this year was sweet potatoes, but they will be planted next year. Now is the time to harvest sweet potatoes. They need to be harvested before frost, and then cured by placing them for about two weeks in an 80 degree dark spot. The October Green Thumb News newsletter is now available with 12 informative and timely articles including: Bulb care and planting, harvesting pumpkins, fall soil preparation, composting, controlling broadleaf weeds in lawns, fall tree color and a monthly garden calendar. If you would like to receive a copy of the newsletter, please call 800-460-9079 or e-mail me at coltrain@ksu.edu. Date: 12/21/06
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