Rainbow Chard – Huge, beautiful bunches of brightly colored chard.
Beets – Chioggia, Golden or Kestral
Lettuce – Fireball, a beautiful red butter head type lettuce
Summer Squash and Zucchini
Sweet Basil
Flat Leaf Italian Parsley
Tomatoes – Gold Nugget and Washington Red Cherry tomatoes. Dry farmed Early Girls, yellow Taxis. Heirloom Silvery Fir Tree, plus Oregon Spring and Bellstar red slicing tomatoes.
Peppers – Jimmy Nordello sweet peppers. Hungarian Wax and Aci Sivri hot peppers.
Broccoli – both heads and sprouts
Farm Life
The fall equinox is fast approaching, which seems like a good time to take stock of the summer season before looking forward to Autumn.

Dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes on the vine
Overall, it has been a good year. In July, we had a spell of uncharacteristically hot weather. As a result we lost a few of the cool season crops, like cauliflower and lettuce. But, we more than made up for it in the jump start the warm season crops received. We have had wonderful tomatoes as a result. And, our experiment with dry farming Early Girl tomatoes has been a huge success.
The year has not been without its “opportunities for problem solving”. Those of you that have been reading this blog for some time will recall our recurring problem with the tractor’s cooling system. I have struggled with this issue ever since I purchased the tractor 18 months ago. It would run for awhile then begin overheating again.
Fortunately, I bought it from a reputable company that has worked hard to correct the problem. But, it has meant that the tractor has not been running properly during the times I needed it the most. Consequently, bed preparation was either done poorly, resulting in lots of weeds, or completed well but several weeks behind schedule.
The pole beans fell in to the latter category. They were not planted until several weeks after the ideal planting time. Because the weather was so good, they grew quickly and looked like they might even catch up. But, much to my dismay, the deer breeched the fence and ate the plants down to just a few inches tall.
Since the growing tip of a bean plant is at the very top, this brought their development to a screeching halt. Now, more than a month after having been grazed, they are still less than a foot tall. It is clear that they are not going to produce this year. Last week, we took the trellis down so that we could use it for the fall peas.

Golden Sunburst and Cozelle Zucchini
Last year, my underperforming vegetables were both in the cucurbit family, summer squash and zucchini. There were several weeks when I didn’t harvest any at all. You certainly couldn’t tell that by looking at this year’s harvest! It is not unusual for use to harvest 50 pounds one day, and come back the next and find almost that much again.
But the end of the summer squash and zucchini is in sight. It now has Powdery Mildew. This fungus is typical of fall when the cooler night time temperatures bring moisture in the form of dew. The rain this past weekend will spread the mildew even further. Unless we have a hot spell with both warm day and night time temperatures, the summer squash and zucchini plants will soon succumb. When they do, the winter squash will be ready to replace them. Already, they are hardening off in the fields. You may look forward to Delicata, Butternut, Dumpling, and Acorn squash, plus pie pumpkins.
Other members of the cucurbit family are also disappearing from our harvest. The weekend rains caused the remaining watermelons, cantaloupes, honey dew, etc. to burst. I had disconnected the irrigation on the melons/watermelons several weeks ago in order to improve the brix score, making them sweeter. The sudden influx of water from the rain was more than they could absorb. We will soon turn them under and use the space to plant crops for the winter season.

Broccoli Floret
While the cooler temperatures and rain is not good for the cucurbit family, it is great for the brassicas. The broccoli that we harvested in the early summer has begun to re-sprout. Some of the cabbage that we gave up on months ago is now starting to fill out.
There is much to look forward to as the season shifts to fall. There are two successions of leeks in the ground. We have broccoli and cauliflower that are ready to transplant as soon as the melons are turned under. We sowed sugar snap peas last week. The kale is starting to sprout, as is the fall succession of beets. In the next few weeks we will be planting kohlrabi, broccoli raab, and celeriac. Soon, we will begin preparing special beds for winter carrots and salad turnips.
Just as summer has been a good season, we can look forward to the bounty of fall.