What are fall garden clean up tips?

As we enter into the last few weeks of fall, knowing that the first frost is on its way, it is a great time to take this opportunity for cleaning up the garden. By doing a few simple tasks for fall garden clean up, you will gain a head start in the when planting time comes in the spring.

The weather has been perfect to take advantage of the time to give some extra attention to your vegetable and flower gardens before winter. This time of year, you're done harvesting all the bounty (or getting close) your vegetable garden has produced and your flower garden starts to wither away and plants die down. It may be hard to keep motivated to get back in your garden and do that garden clean up, but by working ahead of the cooler temperatures coming will be beneficial to your garden.

Mulch bed prepared for winter months.

Below are some tips for fall end of season garden clean up:

MULCH - Protect plant roots and soil from extreme temperatures during the winter months. Here in Indiana we can see some pretty cold temperatures! Cover perennials, shrubs, and newly planted trees with 2 to 3 inches deep and about 2 times the width of roots at the base with a good layer of mulch.

PRUNING - Shape plants and remove any dead or broken branches by cutting back, or pruning. Remove any top growth of perennials. This may also be done in the spring time, which is what I do as some plants I like to keep as is for "winter interest" with snowfall (example: hydrangeas and ornamental grasses). Be sure the growing point of the plants is still protected for the winter months.

WEEDING - Always maintaining weeds is beneficial for your garden. Weeds can drop seeds that can overwinter, which will sprout in the spring. Continue to weed your garden until the ground freezes.

WATERING - It is always important to water newly planted trees, shrubs, and perennials. Early fall is a good time to plant new plants, but be sure to continue to water even though the temperatures are cooler as they have not completely developed a self sustaining root system yet.

REMOVE PLANTS - Annuals that aren't cold tolerant, like pansies, will die off after a hard frost. Remove annuals from your garden and flower beds.

COMPOST- Doing fall clean up is a great time to continue to add to your compost pile. Discard any diseased plants, but take advantage of the opportunity to discard any good plants in your compost pile.

CONTAINERS & GARDEN ORNAMENTS - Be sure to clean up and put away your garden ornaments to prevent them from cracking in the winter. This is a great time to clean up flower pots, containers, and vegetable cages and trellis' and store them away.

BULBS & GARLIC - Plant flower bulbs and garlic to overwinter in your garden and be ready to bloom next spring and summer.

BIRDS - Don't forget to continue to fill bird feeders for the winter. As the temperatures become cooler and snow falls, food becomes more scarce for birds and they will love finding your bird feeder full!

PLAN - Now that this season is over, be sure to plan your garden for next season. Decide if you want to add any more flowers, shrubs or trees to your landscape. Plan an idea out for your vegetable gardens and what you would like to grow. By starting to plan in the fall, you will have an idea what you want to look for as the new season nears. You can get a head start on possibly ordering vegetable seed as well.

I like to leave my dried hydrangea blooms for "winter interest" with the snow.
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By taking the time to get you garden ready for fall and winter and the cooler/freezing temperatures you will be giving yourself an advantage to the season to come in the spring. You won't regret spending the extra time to do these steps. 

Fried Cinnamon Apples

There are so many things I love about fall time, it is hard to choose an absolute favorite. These Fried Cinnamon Apples sure are up there on the list though. I love the buttery cinnamon flavor combined with apple. They are so delicious!

My family loves apples! We eat them year round, but in the fall when they are more available from apple farms, is when we really make a lot of different things with apples. My husband is usually the one that makes our fried cinnamon apples as he really really likes them. Often times we have them as an after dinner treat. This recipe is super easy and a nice addition to any meal.

Ingredients: 

2 Apples

1/2 Stick Butter

2 Tbsp White Sugar

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

Cinnamon (to taste) 

Directions: 

1. Peel apples and slice. 

2. Cut slabs of butter and place in pan and melt. 

3. Add apples to pan. Cook until soft. 

4. Add sugar and brown sugar to pan. 

5. Add cinnamon for your taste liking. 

Don't over cook, the apples can get too mushy or caramelized too much. We like them just soft. 

We generally just make this basic recipe, but it can easily be multiplied to serve more! What a great way to bring fall into your cooking by serving these cinnamon apples. 

If you want to change up the way you enjoy apples, give this recipe a try! The apples are fantastic and have incredible flavor! Enjoy the flavors of fall!

How to tell when pumpkins are ready to pick?

With our Summer days nearly close to over, its time to start thinking about the months ahead. The Fall season brings some of the most beautiful colors in nature. Colors in the changing of the leaves, mums, Indian corn, gourds, and PUMPKINS.

Around the beginning of September, the feeling of Fall is in the air and people are ready to start decorating their homes for the season. Pumpkins our our biggest crop we grow and one of our favorite. We love the Fall season and providing all the beautiful items for our customers to decorate with. We sell in bulk to local businesses and to customers at the farmers market and our Fall Harvest Days event.

Some grow pumpkins in their own garden. So when are pumpkins ready to pick?

Color - A good indicator is they have turned orange by this time of year. But also some pumpkins are ripe and ready to pick when they are still green, so be sure to check the other areas to see if they are ripe.

Tap the pumpkin - By taping the pumpkin or giving it a thump if it sounds hollow inside, the pumpkin is ready to pick.

Skin - When the pumpkin is ripe, the skin or outer core becomes hard.

Stem - You want the stem closest to the pumpkin becomes hard, the pumpkin is ready to pick.

Vine Leaves - The pumpkin vine leaves will start to dry and become crispy. The vine will die down when the pumpkins are ready to pick.

A few picking tips to remember:

Use a sharp knife or pruners when cutting the stem of the pumpkin.

Leave a long stem when cutting the pumpkin, this will slow down the rotting process.

Disinfect the pumpkin with diluted bleach to kill any bacteria on the outer core of the pumpkin that could cause it to start rotting early.

Picking pumpkins at cooler temperatures and displaying in shaded areas can also help slow down the rotting process by keeping out of direct sun and heat.

Pumpkins are beautiful decor pieces, a fun tradition to carve for Halloween, and great for all those favorite pumpkin food items everyone loves this time of year.

Enjoy your pumpkins and Fall!

Loaded Mashed Potatoes

Are you looking for a Loaded Mashed Potatoes recipe?! Then I have the recipe for you! My family loves these potatoes.

Potatoes are one our favorite vegetables to grow in the garden. The grew very well this year and produced several bushels of potatoes. We are in the process of getting all the potatoes dug, cleaned, and graded by size, then sell them in bulk for our customers for the fall and winter months. The kids enjoy helping us dig them too. I especially love that they are seeing the whole process of farm to fork with helping us plant, dig, and prepare them for cooking.

We love potatoes!

Potatoes are a staple in our home. We eat them often various ways. This recipe is one of our favorites to have and everyone likes it! Usually we get leftovers from it too, which is also a added plus. 

Ingredients:

- 5 lbs potatoes

- 1 stick of butter

- 1 cup sour cream

- 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese

- 1/4 cup milk

- 1 lb bacon 

- green onions, green tops cut into pieces

- pepper

Directions: 

- Peel and cut up the potatoes and place in pot of water, boil until fork tender. 

- Cook bacon and crumble into pieces. 

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees

- Once potatoes are ready, drain and transfer to a large mixing bowl. Cut butter into several pieces and add those, the sour cream, and milk to the potatoes. Mash all together with a potato masher. 

- Add pepper, half of the bacon, and 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese to the potato mixture. Mash everything together with the potato masher. I don't mind if my potatoes are slightly chunky, but mostly mashed. 

-Transfer potato mixture to a 9 x 13 baking dish. 

- Sprinkle the remaining cup of shredded cheddar cheese onto the top of the potatoes. 

-Bake in the oven until top cheese is melted and potatoes bake through - about 20 minutes. 

- Remove from oven and sprinkle the remaining bacon and the green onion pieces on top of the mashed potatoes. 

-Serve.  

This loaded mashed potato side dish would make a delicious addition to any of your meals. It is also great for those family get togethers and potluck dinners. A great way to enjoy potatoes from your own garden as well. 

Enjoy! 

Summer rain affect on our produce

The summer of 2015 - a different one for sure. Midwesterners will remember this summer as one with lots of rain. Here in Northwest Indiana we got 21 inches of rain in 16 days. Crops sitting in standing water. Everywhere. At a critical part in the growing season also! Farmers have taken losses for sure.

Picking kale for CSAs after 4 inches of rain

As produce growers, we have gotten several questions asking "How has the rain affected your crops?"

At first, we really thought our produce field would be okay. It is in a sandier soil and wasn't sitting in standing water. A few dry days went by. The ground was still wet, but the vegetable plants still looked good. Then we got more rain, inches at a time, for several days. Even after the lengthy period of rain, it was too wet to get in to the fields to cultivate and take care of our plants. 

Getting a late start at planting due to the longer winter and so much rain really put a dent in our production. So much that we haven't attended our usual farmers markets this year. 

You take the challenges as they come. With the wet weather, we are thrilled that we have been able to still fulfill our weekly CSA deliveries, getting a nice assortment of produce, and still have enough for ourselves to enjoy each week and preserve for the winter. But just not a lot extra to have a good variety to take to the market.

The summer rain has also created an interesting harvesting schedule for our sweet corn. We planted 3 plantings of sweet corn, each two weeks apart. Due to the rainfall in June, our sweet corn will all be ready very soon.

Our biggest crop, pumpkins, had minimum wash out and are basically on schedule. We are looking forward to fall harvest. We will see closer to fall how things will look for our Fall Harvest Days.

Each year we don't know how the weather will be and we take each year as it comes. This year was just one of those years that created issues and we are working with what we have.

Zucchini Custard Pie

If your garden is like mine, most summers, you have more zucchini than you know what to do with. Here is a recipe to enjoy this vegetable in a whole new way as a delicious dessert. Baking with zucchini is my favorite way to enjoy it. You will be pleasantly surprised with the deliciousness of this pie!

Ingredients:
-2 medium zucchini
-Frozen pie crust - I use the Ritz Deep Dish Pie crust
-1/3 cup sugar
-1 tsp salt
-2 tsp cinnamon
-3/4 tsp ginger
-1/4 tsp allspice
-1/4 tsp nutmeg
-1 cup evaporated milk warmed
-2 eggs

Directions:
1. Skin zucchini and cut into small pieces and place in a microwavable dish.
2. Microwave on high until the pieces are tender.
3. Pour out any water! This is important for the pie to set and not be runny, so drain as much as you can off the zucchini.
4. Place pieces in a blender and puree.
5. Mix dry ingredients with puree.
6. Warm milk and add it with the eggs to the mixture.
7. Mix well and pour into crust.
8. Bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. Reduce to 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. The center will be wobbly.
9. Cool for 2 hours then chill if desired. Serve.

Add a dab of Cool Whip to the top when serving to make extra yummy! I have been making this pie for years and always look forward to making it each growing season. You know those extra large zucchinis you stumble across in the garden and think, "wow that got big fast" or "how did I miss that one," this recipe is also great to use those large ones (I just use the meaty part and leave out the seeds). Enjoy!!

Fall Vegetable Garden...when to and what to plant?

Even with your garden being plentiful of summer vegetables, don't forget about planting to harvest vegetables in the fall. Extend your growing season and enjoy more homegrown produce in the cooler months. The fall months are quickly approaching and now is the time to start planning for that fall produce. So many vegetable plants grow well in the cooler temps, it is a great time to take advantage of growing your own food by really maximizing your garden's production. So don't put those garden tools away just yet...

For fall vegetable growing choose seeds for lettuce, spinach, kale, peas, carrots, radishes, turnips, and kohlrabi. For broccoli and cauliflower transplants work best.

Just like early garden planting, you pick your plant date around the frost date. Plan backwards from the average first frost date for your area.

For example:
Fall average first frost: Oct. 10th
Most of the leafy greens take 40 days for seed to table, but you can eat the smaller tender leaves anytime)
Come back 40 days = August 27th.
Then allow a few extra weeks for slower growing conditions in cooler climate. = August 13th
Then allow a few extra weeks to enjoy your produce, we usually start planting our fall vegetable crops around the end of July, beginning of August and this allows plenty of time to enjoy what you have grown.

Its so nice to enjoy those cool crop vegetables again during the growing season. Fall is my favorite time of the garden. Getting to enjoy my favorite cool crop vegetables along with the summer vegetables. Fresh lettuce and radish along with my summer tomatoes and peppers. Yum! It really is a great time to get the most out of your garden!

Now start planning your fall vegetable garden and enjoy those delicious cool crop vegetable later in the growing season! Happy gardening!!