October Garden Bounty

this year, our family is trying to stretch our garden season through as much of the fall and winter as possible.  we've covered our small raised bed with some hoops and plastic (not all too securely fastened at this time because we have a tomatillo plant which has almost ripe fruit all over it and we are trying to keep it alive - on its "too tall for the hoops" trellis - until we can harvest some fruit), so that we can extend the harvest season for the spinach, lettuce, kale, cabbage and other mixed greens we still have growing in there.  for the first time i sowed a late summer batch of seeds (and luckily found the kale seedlings at a local garden center) and these have been so very nice to have still at this time of year - don't know why i never did a fall sowing of these things before - its so easy to do and so very rewarding. in furthering my quest for fall and winter greens, i've bought a mini greenhouse, which i've assembled and put out on my south-facing screened porch and will attempt to start some spinach and mixed salad greens in there.  it may be too much to ask of those little seeds to sprout and grow much this late in the year, but heck, i'm going to give it a try and see what happens.  worst case is i'll have a great spot for starting seeds come spring, since we have no table space for seed flats in the house.

one of the most mysterious things to come out of our garden (well really out of our compost pile - and the foundation planting in front of the house - where no vegetables have EVER been grown) is a squash plant, the likes of which we have not ever planted.  it vaguely resembles the acorn squash that we planted last year (and which grew prolifically, especially from the compost), but its so much bigger, that i can't imagine that its the same thing.  i suppose cross-pollination is at work somewhere in there, but i haven't had the time to look it up and see what might really be going on.  here's a photo of our mystery squash, which is pretty close to being the same size as my two-year-old's head...

yeah, yeah, gratuitous kid shot, i know...

and here is a pic of the yummy salad we made from some locally picked (well, while i was in maine last month) apples and the greens from our now-covered garden...