happy october everybody this is one of my favorite this is one of my favorite times of year in the
garden the sun is a little lower in the sky the way the light hits the color in the garden is
gorgeous and everything everything's kind of putting on that final flush before the really
cold weather hits now this year at least here in ohio in zone six has been unusually warm usually
our first frost is about october 15th here this year it's looking like our first chance
won't even be till this weekend which is about a week and a half later than usual it's also been
unseasonably warm but i always enjoy doing one last garden tour before that frost hits
so i thought i'd show you today what is going on in the garden let's take a look
now first i wanted to share with you some of the flowers in the garden because the
colors always look amazing this time of year my big blue salvia is at its prime
right now and this will last through the first couple of frost it's it's fairly cold tolerant
and this is a great late season nectar source for the bees
my Xochi marigolds are still hanging in there now you can see these blooms aren't as large as they
were when i showed you earlier in the summer but they're still putting on a lot of blooms right now
my Signet marigolds and happy mix marigolds are still pumping out the blooms
this red salvia and i apologize i forget the name this was just some i picked up from a box store
color is really fantastic but it's really not attracting any pollinators which i'm
really disappointed with i probably won't be growing this one again
and behind me here you can see the beautiful heavenly blue morning glories
that were very very late to bloom this year but are now really putting on a nice show that color
is just hard to beat over here is another of my favorite garden flower slash herbs this is
a borage planting and again a wonderful food for the bees and other pollinators this time of year
i have not planted any of this i planted borage from seed last spring and it's been volunteering
ever since and with borage here i will typically get a flush in the spring and then again in the
fall it does not like the heat so these plants all kind of melt away in the summer and get kind
of nasty looking i just hack them all back and they flush back in the fall in the cool weather
pineapple sage is putting on its last flush here
and this is an herb with a wonderful scented leaf it does kind
of smell like pineapple and this attracts hummingbirds and butterflies in particular
all of the nasturtiums that you'll see in the garden today
are also volunteers i planted last year allowed the seeds to drop and they just come up everywhere
i love these for their spreading habit and for their bright vibrant colors
i'm not big into edible flowers but i do actually really enjoy nasturtium
they have a very peppery almost radishy heat but then when you get down to where the nectar
is you get this subtle sweetness that really complements that spiciness and they're quite
tasty and all parts of the nasturtium are edible the leaves the flowers and the seeds
so i feel like sometimes it's an overlooked multi-use plant that is really easy to grow
yet another volunteer and really great late season food for the bees this is holy basil and it will
turn into a bit of a weed in your garden if you let it it readily self sews but it's very also
very easy to pull up and get rid of if you don't want it this is one of those polarizing plants
where i feel like either people just love the smell or think it's disgusting i'm on the love it
camp i love the way this stuff smells in addition to being a great food for the bees holy basil is
an adaptogen so it is an herb that helps your body cope with stress which i don't know about
you all but i can definitely use some of that this is really easy to make into a tea you can
dehydrate it and grind it up my sister just did this she dried up a bunch of this powdered it
and then mixed it into local honey which is a wonderful treat you can make tinctures there's
a lot of versatility there but super easy to grow a wonderful addition to any garden and here are my
carmencita castor beans this variety has more reddish purple coloration it is more compact
than the standard castor beans that i grew last year but in addition to the gorgeous color what
i like is these actually mature quickly enough to produce mature seeds in my climate which the
standard full-size castor beans didn't do so i can save seeds of this one which is pretty cool
now on to the veggies i've got a good mix of warm season and cool season crops still
going on so i'll show you a little bit of both in front of me here are my fall cauliflower
now all of these cauliflower and my broccoli and cabbage and kohlrabi
up until just a few days ago i had insect netting over all of these my plants are kind
of outgrowing my hoops so i removed everything i'm hoping for that fall frost now to get rid
of some of my cabbage worm pressure because as you will see in a minute they have really
done a number to my brussels sprouts typically once i remove these row covers i have to start
a just about a weekly spray with a bt product i like to use green step to keep the cabbage
worms from just completely decimating these plants because we definitely have a high population this
fall and they are really capable of doing a lot of damage now on my brussels sprouts you'll see
they've really chewed up the leaves luckily i've still got quite a few sprouts but you'll
see what can happen when they're left unchecked you can see all the damage these worms can do
there's one of the culprits right there one of the surest forms of pest control
but they definitely chew these leaves up
luckily i still have some sprouts here
and i'm curious if anyone else has to support their brussels sprout stalks and what you are
using to do that with i'm just using folded up tomato cages here but i'm trying to plan better
for next year i don't like this solution so if anyone has some good solutions for supporting
these plants be sure to drop a line in the comments below and in the same planting row
i've got more of my other fall crops some fennel some kohlrabi coming along some chinese cabbage
and the slugs really did a number to this chinese cabbage they really seem to like it and slugs
are not a pest that i typically have a problem with so these guys caught me a bit by surprise
i did find that dusting the plants regularly with diatomaceous earth
helps a lot but these these plants being under the netting the damage kind of
escaped me till i pulled the netting off the other day got some ball headed cabbage here
more cabbage
i've already harvested some kohlrabi
i've got a couple different varieties of broccoli through here
some of these are just starting to put on little heads
my purple sprouting broccoli
some volunteer dill back here
and peppers are still going strong i am still picking peppers like crazy
it's so it's always a trick this time of year to get them picked and used up before that frost hits
and typically when i have a huge onslaught of peppers like this to use up i just chop them and
throw them in the freezer i do pickled peppers or one of my favorites is a fermented hot sauce
which is incredibly tasty and a great way to use up a lot of hot peppers
i've got fall planted bulb onions in two different locations this year and one batch i'm going to
cover and i'm going to leave the other batch uncovered just to test how truly winter hearty
they are celery is still going strong this was planted this past spring and i've been harvesting
for months i've really been impressed with a new variety i'm growing this year called kelvin
it has produced the biggest tastiest stalks of any of the varieties that i've tried
a lot of cover crops back through here as well as some marigolds and some volunteer mexican tarragon
also known as mexican mint marigold cow peas back there will die off as soon as the frost hits
i've got my tiller radish over here which is more cold hardy and won't start to die back until we
regularly drop into the freezing temperatures i've got a cool season blend up here and little spots
of winter rye kind of sprinkled throughout the garden now in the cover crop something i wanted
to point out is that if you've got tall plants like okra tomatoes peppers are some good examples
that probably won't be coming out till the frost but you still want to get a cold season cover crop
planted go ahead and sew right underneath your plants so you can see here with this okra that
i just continued my cover crop blend the cover crop sprouted up and when these plants die off
i will just chop them off at the base and i've already got my cover crop established
some of my tomatoes are still hanging on now i've been really impressed with this variety this is
a variety called summer sweetheart i grew it because it reportedly had septorial leaf
spot resistance which is one of my biggest issues here in ohio and i have been pleasantly surprised
so it is october and i am still getting really nice fruit off of this thing
it has a very minimal amount of foyer disease what looks like late blight to me but i'm not certain
but it has definitely remained healthy and productive much longer than i'm used to with most
tomatoes now just to give you an idea this is what my tomatoes typically look like this time of year
we've got luffas i did luffas on this main arch again this year i just switched and planted them
on the other side of the arch and i've got more luffas this year actually than i got
last year i've also got them planted on an arch on the other side of the garden i don't really
need that many luffa sponges but they're a lot of fun to grow and i like the way these plants
cover up an archway in a hurry now last year i shared a video on how to peel and process
the luffas into sponges but i also discovered last year that if i just leave some of the luffa gourds
out in the elements through the winter they dry up and slough off their skins on their own
without me having to do any of the work so this year i'm going to do both i'm going to harvest
some and prep them myself the rest i'm just going to let hang out here for a while
and then next to my luffa arch i've got some of my winter greens planted in this bed
radishes quite a few different lettuces some volunteer dill
some green onions and then some very late planted spinach which will overwinter
if you watch some of my gardening videos from earlier in the year you may recognize this
area as the place where i had my chickens fenced in so we did butcher all of those
meat chickens i opened this up pulled all the straw back worked the soil a little
because it was still very compacted and heavy i came through basically with a garden fork
and then planted this all in rye late next spring i will be cutting the rye down and this spot
should be ready to go either for some mid-season planting or i might hold off and just do some of
my fall crops here but having the chickens in here should really help with that poor soil quality
and in this contraption over here i've got some more of my fall crops
some collards kale and endive, escarole now this tent comes with two different covers it's got
a frost cover which i will be swapping out soon and this which is kind of an insect netting cover
now in certain applications this would work really well right here it wasn't the best because it's
actually shading my plants too much so i think i'm gonna have to do some tweaking for next year but
this will be really handy to overwinter some of these greens when i do put the frost cover on it
and moving outside the garden fence i just wanted to show you really quickly
you may have heard me mention that i lost pretty much all of my pumpkin squash and gourds that i
planted this year primarily because of squash vine borer and cucumber beetles
so everything you see here is actually from volunteer plants which i think is
pretty cool it it just goes to show you the resiliency of some of these plants
particularly ones that are kind of a result of survival of the fittest
out front here i've got the new chicken yard the chickens did such a good job prepping that
back corner of my garden then i'm now going to move them to any new area that i want
garden formed and let them work it for a season or two so my oldest
rooster and oldest hens get the privilege of having their own special little yard here
back here i've got a second hugelkultur bed in progress my original hugelbed
i didn't do the quote unquote right way i just piled everything on top of the ground
and then wheelbarrowed topsoil and dumped on top of it this one i actually dug a trench
first and i am slowly filling it with logs and garden debris and i'll be cleaning out
the chicken coop and dumping it in there and these hugekultur beds for me have been a great
solution to areas that are really low lying and poor draining and have really heavy clay soil
and then i've got just a few extras over here at mom and dad's planted that i wanted to share with
you the first is my sweet potatoes i did all of them over here just because of space constraints
but these are coming to the tail end of their season as soon as that
first frost hits these leaves are going to turn black and shrivel up
and that's typically when i harvest just to give them the longest season possible i am a little
worried about the kind of vole damage we're going to end up with on these tubers when i harvest
so wish me luck on that one i've got a bigger broccoli planting over here at mom and dad's
i just want to just show you these because you can see really obviously here how these plants
are getting too big for the netting so i'm gonna have to get these off of here very very soon
and i've actually got some bigger heads of broccoli on this planting already
i've also got a lot of my shell pole beans over here this particular variety is a variety called
christmas lima and just for the sake of time because i didn't have time to come out here
and get these all when they were fresh i will actually just let these hang until after the frost
these beans will dry down naturally at which point i can just harvest them all
shell them and put them in mason jars for storage
and this is my dad's little um lima bean house that he created for the grandkids
to have a little space to come in here and hide and play and it turned out pretty neat
and then of course i have to share one of the volunteer flowers over here as well
this is an amaranth
and my dad doesn't even remember the last time he planted amaranth and it just keeps
volunteering and it is a really beautiful impressive plant well over six feet tall
and they've just kind of popped up everywhere
so that wraps up what is going on in my zone 6a ohio garden in october
just before the first fall frost i want to thank all of you for visiting with me today
and if you enjoyed today's video please consider subscribing to my channel
growfully with jenna thanks for watching and i'll see you next time