• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • How to Garden
    • Seed Starting
    • Plant Profiles
    • Tools & Equipment
    • Raised Bed Gardening
  • Vegetables
  • Fruit
  • Herbs
  • Plant Based Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Vegetarian Meals
  • About
    • Books & Classes
      • Herbalism Classes
      • Indoor Herb Gardening
      • Books for Christian Herbalists
      • Privacy Policy

Fall Vegetables Are the Best

October 11, 2011 by Jeanne

Fall vegetables are the best! The fall garden offers an abundance of fresh produce.

fall vegetables

 

Fall Vegetables

Some people think that summer is the best time for the vegetable garden, but I’d have to say that it’s fall.  Not only does the summer harvest continue, but now all the fall crops produce in abundance.

Just this week I harvested:

  • Tomatoes – we are getting the last hurrah of tomatoes from the garden. They’re smaller than the ones I picked during the peak of summer, but just as delicious.
  • Peppers – 27 pints canned, 4 pints frozen and countless peppers eaten already in the form of sausage and peppers, stuffed peppers and stir fry dishes, I am still picking them.  We should have another huge harvest before the frost kills the plants.
  • Eggplants – two are in the refrigerator already, waiting to be made into eggplant parmigiana tomorrow evening, but I’ve got more on the plants outside. I don’t know how many more I’ll harvest before the frost sets in, but it’s going to be a good year for them for sure.
  • Beets – the last of the beets are in.  I saved a few fresh ones for cooking but canned another nine pints last weekend.
  • Carrots – I canned six half pint jars using a new pickling recipe for sweet carrots. If they taste good, I’ll can more, but in the meantime I’ve frozen another six or seven pints, and left about half the bed in the ground.
  • Strawberries – yes, you read that correctly! I planted ever bearing strawberries and they sure do live up to their name. Each fall, I get a second crop of fresh organic strawberries. They’re smaller than the spring crop but still juicy and sweet. One word of caution (earned the hard way): wear gloves when picking fall strawberries if you happen to see some berries on your plants. Wasps, hornets and yellow jackets love them, and at this time of year those critters get MEAN.  Last year I got stung badly on my hand when I reached down into the strawberry bed and grasped a berry with a yellow jacket on it. OUCH.
  • Herbs – I’m drying trays of parsley and basil this week, but there’s also fresh sage, oregano, rosemary and chives to enjoy.  And the horseradish needs to be dug and made into sauce!
  • Green beans – still coming in.  No matter how many times I cut back on the amount I plant, they keep coming in. Somehow I accidentally bought the flat Italian kind and so now at least I have some variety.

 

More Vegetables to Harvest

These are the vegetables that I am harvesting in abundance, but there are more out there. I have acorn and butternut squash on the vine. I found the trick to outwitting those awful beetles – plant the seeds in August!  Apparently it’s just past their mating season so I avoided all the eggs and the swarms of newly hatched beetles that decimated the cucumbers, zucchini and summer squash.  We counted 20 butternut squash on the vine and just two acorn squash, but I’m hopeful we may get a few more of the acorn squash.

I planted cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower in what I *thought* was the empty potato bed. Wrong. I must have left a whole bunch of little seed potatoes around in the soil, because now I have a gigantic mess.  I have potato plants springing up everywhere, with a giant cabbage in one corner and broccoli leaning against potatoes. I have no idea how I’m going to get the potatoes out, but I’ll deal with that closer to Thanksgiving. The good thing about raised beds is that the soil stays workable longer. I can get in there and dig even after the frosts. So I can keep gardening until Thanksgiving or so.

The big yellow and black spiders are everywhere this year, a sign that the garden flourishes along its own terms, with spiders and birds keeping the insect population in check. The mole is back – this time, Pierre the cat found it near the shed. We caught Pierre digging fast and furiously in a hole and saw the mole scamper into the woods with Pierre hot on his trail. He lost the creature within a few feet but I had one excited kitty on my hands. I’ve had to watch Pierre very carefully every time he goes out into the garden. Last week, he managed to find a snake…which he brought up to the house, of course.  We heard a commotion on the back deck and went to the window to see Pierre under the picnic table playing with something.  I said to my husband, “Oh, how cute, he has a lizard.” Oops. Not quite. A rather good-sized snake was trying to escape his clutches.  I yelled for John and handed him a shovel, which he used to scoop and fling the snake into the side garden while I quickly snatched up Pierre and moved him back into the house.  He mewed in protest, the ungrateful brute, as if to say, “Hey! Daddy stole my snake!”

If you didn’t get a chance to plant vegetables this fall, now’s the time to head over to your local farmer’s market or a garden center and enjoy a little taste of fall. Do it now, before Halloween arrives with all that flurry of stuff to do.  Enjoy!

Pin
Share
Tweet
0 Shares

Filed Under: Vegetable Gardening

Previous Post: « Five Great Reasons to Grow a Vegetable Garden
Next Post: What Is Homesteading? »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. ~Gardener on Sherlock Street

    October 11, 2011 at

    You are really getting great harvests this year. Wow on the squash. My squash struggled this year. I do have spaghetti squash put up for fall but they’re small this year. Tomatoes and peppers are hanging on and doing good.

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Amazon
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Explore All Gardening Articles

Seed Starting Basics

Easy Ways to Save Cantaloupe Seeds

plants and tools in a wheelbarrow

Starting Peppers from Seeds

tomato seedlings

Seed Starting Resources

tomatoes on the vine

When Should You Start Tomato Seeds Indoors?

Herbalism Classes & Supplies

Goods Shop by Herbal Academy – botanically inspired products

We were featured in Porch.com and answered reader's questions about indoor plants.

Disclosure

Home Garden Joyo participates in two affiliate programs: Amazon and The Herbal Academy. Home Garden Joy earns a commission from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate. As an Herbal Academy Associate, HGJ also earns a commission when you sign up for classes or purchase herbs or supplies from The Herbal Academy.

Footer

raised bed garden

How to Build a Vegetable Garden Using Raised Beds

If you’re thinking about building a vegetable garden this year, raised beds are one of the best ways I know of to start a vegetable garden. Instead of renting a rototiller or hand-digging the soil, adding amendments and turning it all under to create a good garden bed, you start with the best soil mixture…

Read More

henbit close up

Henbit: Plant Profile

I’ve put together this henbit plant profile to spotlight a lovely plant – which many gardeners consider a weed. Weed or flower? To me, it’s a matter of perspective. Every spring, at least one of my raised beds is covered in a thick mat of henbit. Henbit is both lovely and practical despite being labeled…

Read More

fresh beets from the garden on the lawn after being washed

The Ultimate Guide to Growing Organic Beets

I wrote this Ultime Guide to Growing Beets to share my techniques for growing tasty, organic beets. Beets are a powerhouse of nutrition. Both the beetroot and the leaves and stems are edible. You can also can beets and beet greens to store them for year-round use. Here, I share with you a full guide…

Read More

a blue wheelbarrow and a red wheelbarrow filled with pine branches

Winter Homesteading Projects

Even though it’s cold and snowy out, winter homesteading projects beckon. As I write this, snow is falling in sheets outside my office windows, covering the orchard trees with a blanket of white. Last week, an ice storm knocked power out for 36 hours – and knocked pines down every which way. We had poles…

Read More

  • Privacy Policy
  • About
  • Awards

Copyright © 2025 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme