Garden with Betty Cahill: It's Official, Fall 2021

It only took until the final day of September for temperatures to cool, leaves to begin changing colors and a reach for the sweater. Fall in Denver has arrived ... and oh what a relief it is to be out of the 90s. I love the fall gardening season!

What happenings are up next in the garden?

For me it's pulling out the tomato and cucumber plants and getting the beds ready for planting garlic.

It's taken me three days (over a period of a couple of weeks) to take out the eight tomato plants. I don't work as fast as I used to and I ran out of room in the compost bin. I harvested a few more almost ripe tomatoes which will still taste grand in a couple of weeks after sitting pretty in a box in the basement. You can also wrap them individually in newspaper to ripen.

As I've written earlier, it was a banner tomato year. Instead of sharing a couple of fruits with neighbors and friends, they took home small boxes. Glen and I blanched and froze a dozen or more of bags of tomatoes for later use. Life in the garden is good.

Hands down my favorite warm season crops this past summer were Tomato Mountain Rouge, Martini Cucumbers and Genovese Basil which I grow every summer without fail.

The Mountain Rouge plants were extremely disease resistant yet didn't disappoint in the taste department. The untraditional blush pink color set it apart from the pack of go - to regular winners like 'Early Girl' and 'Celebrity.'

It's been years since I planted cucumbers, mainly because with just the two of us, they can't be eaten quickly enough. Not so with the martini cukes. No need to peel, just harvest when small, slice and drizzle with olive oil and a little salt and you're set for life. I wish I could grow these inside all winter - they're that good and so care free. The plants didn't get a speck of powdery mildew all summer - dumb me, I didn't take a photo before I pulled them.

Sure, many of the martini cukes got large if not harvested often enough. This turned out to be a win for a friend with chickens. She told me that her chickens knew they were a very special treat and got super excited when she pulled them from the bag.

The basil is still going, I cover it every night with a folded heavy floating row cover. The next day I remove the cover when it's above fifty degrees.

Edibles that are growing now include some recently seeded mixed lettuces and, as mentioned the basil - all in Smart Pots® for convenience and super healthy growth.

Seed garlic will go in this weekend.

I hope you had a wonderful summer growing season! 😀🍅🥒🌿🍆🍉🍑🍒🍓🍎