Picking the First of My Fall Kale Crop

Now that it is October and fall is officially here it is time to start focusing on my cooler weather plants.  Today was a great day for picking kale and most of the plants had very large leaves that needed to be harvested right away.

I am pretty much done with my summer plants and again the last thing that is out there is the last watermelon that I need to pick.  I will be picking it before the weekend so make sure to check back and find out when I finally harvest this last melon.

This year my kale is growing quite fast and probably with the rain this past weekend that definitely helped it quite a bit.  I picked a total of 37 leaves which doesn’t sound like much, but these were very large leaves which is perfect for kale soup.  This is the best meal that I can make out of them and is great for those cold winter months.

You can see from the photo above that these leaves were quite huge and with only 37 of these leaves picked that makes this a good first harvest.

I am starting to see signs of broccoli beginning to grow.  The center part of the plant is producing fruit and this is a little early for them, but again I think the rain this weekend help it out.

Along with my broccoli and kale I am also growing cabbage which also looks pretty good at the moment.  It looks like some caterpillars got at some of the leaves and going through it is the best way to remove these pests and insects.

Some more peppers were picked today and these plants are still growing quite well and keep producing flowers.  I am not sure how much longer they will last especially when the cold weather comes, but for now I am going to keep harvesting these vegetables.

I am still getting some good sized peppers even at this stage of the garden season.

You can see that the flowers on my pepper plants are continuing to grow and this possibly means more peppers in the future.

Since it is October I also decided that it was time to finally pick all my pumpkins.  I like to pick them during this month because I can then use them for Halloween which is the main reason I grow these vegetables.  I have a total of seven, but I picked the last six today.

All I have left is the last watermelon, carrots, and my fall crop in the garden.  Watermelon will be picked this week, my carrots will be dug up in November, and my fall crop will be continuously picked as long as they keep producing leaves and fruit.