I just got the second round of planting in the Spinach Fall Trial done. I was out looking at the garden and thinking about when I would need to plant again, when I realized that this week was the 2nd scheduled planting for the spinach and other greens! I grabbed my seeds and labels and headed right out to get the ‘Space’ Spinach, Red and Green Saladbowl Lettuces, ‘Winter Density’ Lettuce, Elegance Greens Mix, and as a random idea some of the ‘Bleu de Solaize’ Leek seed. I thought I’d see if the leeks would be transplantable size by spring, just for fun.

Our poor Swiss Chard! It has had a rough year between insects and diseases. This leaf is primarily riddled with what I believe to be Cercospora Leaf Spot lesions. We are picking off the diseased leaves, spraying with neem oil, and hopefully avoiding anymore overhead watering for the rest of the season. (Even though we have a drip system, when it was so hot, it was just too tempting to use the hose!)

Now that the weather is getting cooler, we are starting to see a rebound in the flea beetle population, as I mentioned last week in the photoessay. You can see another one of the marauding bugs on the lower edge of this radish leaf, as well as observe the progress they made in just a few days. We sprayed all our radishes and Asian greens with neem oil this week to knock the beetles back a bit.

Now for a more uplifting, less depressing photo! The peppers are loaded down and bending over after being pokey about producing earlier this year. The jalapenos are particularly productive.

One of the leeks is actually starting to look like a leek! This was the very first seedling that germinated when I planted the seeds 6 weeks ago, and it is still maintaining its edge. It almost looks like a plant that is going to do something rather than a little wisp of green that maybe isn’t meant to be there.

I have to say that I’m impressed with the gardening fortitude of you all, because based on the poll from last week, all but one of you have every intention of sticking with your tomato plants until the bitter end this year. I guess we are not all tomatoed out yet!

In other housekeeping news, we did have about 1.25 lbs of tomatoes and 1.25 lbs of peppers from the Family of 4 Garden this week. That’s $5.63 worth, which makes our running total $221.58.

Have a great weekend! Be watching for more garden results next week!