fall harvest!

Well, it's pretty much over unless the peas and carrots and parsnips survive... which I hope they will because I must say I was most excited about those. Due to the hard freeze that occurred last night I made a decision to go ahead and harvest all my greens, radishes, lettuce and kohlrabi so that they wouldn't die. I left the carrots, parsnips, and some kohlrabi as well as the one broccoli that I have been trying to grow. BIG LESSON LEARNED - and I may still have time to salvage where I made this error (with the young carrots and kohlrabi) - SPACING IS VERY IMPORTANT!!! I got really eager and thought surely that not all the seeds I put in the hole would germinate... so I put a PINCH of seeds in the hole instead of just one or two. Almost all the seeds sprouted with the kohlrabi and carrots and the broccoli. Which means all the plants grew VERY close together (even though it looked like one plant to the undiscerning eye). I got no bulb on the kohlrabi (which is the point of the vegetable) and the carrots (I pulled a few) are small and stringy. I am sure there is a lesson in this...

I think I can go back and thin the kohlrabi and carrots that are still in the ground if they haven't completely croaked now due to the freeze. We shall see.

This is my first time growing anything successfully, so here's to a good harvest. When I first started this adventure I took the advice of a well respected friend with a VERY green thumb who said just to put the seeds in the ground and watch what happens. Well, I tried that last year and had pretty much NOTHING come out of it. With the drought and poor soil and not enough watering, it was a miracle anything grew at all. I've learned so much since then. The bottom line is you have to start with a good foundation of good soil or you're pretty much screwed. I researched square foot gardening and it just seemed too easy, so I embarked on a growing adventure with that and learned so much along the way. I can't wait for spring to put to practice all that I have learned...

...that soil is the KEY! If you don't have good soil and don't water you might as well just forget about it. LOVE the square foot gardening method for this reason.
...spacing is critical if you want good quality vegetables! Or vegetables at all!
...if you sprout before you plant, put the sprouting pots in an area where they are getting direct light (not having to reach for it) and (per Dave Hulsey's suggestion) with a fan blowing on them. Seedlings should be barely an inch above the soil when you plant to keep them from getting long and stringy. I had great success planting the seeds directly into the ground. My radishes turned out MUCH prettier this way.
...root vegetables don't grow well in a peat pot.
...water water water water... it's tiring but worth it!

Here are some pics Jason took yesterday.