Been a while, and this one’s largely going to be a good news/bad news post because I have a lot of that going on right now.
October is a good month.
So good news first! The second brassica bed is doing great. Sprouts are sprouting, kohlrabi is rabi-ing- good news all around.
My next project isn’t really good news or bad news, it’s just an empty bed.
The bad news is…
Due to some delays the brassicas for that bed got a little wilty. We’ll see how many of them I can salvage.
It’s also time to put my celery into a bed, they’re both chafing at being in pots.
The whitefly traps are certainly killing the whitefly!
Chayote still looks rough though. Lots of damaged leaves at the bottom. The tops are pretty vigorous though so I’m cautious but not overly concerned.
The powdery mildew has returned to the zucchini, which is bad news but not unexpected news. It’s just what happens when the fall fog comes in.
The apple tree is producing like crazy which is nice. The apples are super tasty this year too, great for baking.
And the falling leaves make great mulch for the onion plot.
Back to bad news. The garden wide scale problem continues, and I’ll have to send my chocolate peppermint back to mint rehab.
Annoyingly my baby ginger mints are also damaged. I really have to get a handle on the ants out here, which are spreading the scale.
In good news, the Roman mint looks fantastic. Still some slight whitefly issues, but as mentioned previously, whitefly is more cosmetic than anything else, and only really bad when it’s everywhere.
My corn is sort of both good news and bad news. The ones I put on the edge of the bed were largely duds… But the big ones in the back…
Looks like I might get a couple of ears after all!
Back to bad news. This one really stings. The carrots look beautiful, nice sized roots, not to big, the right orange color… And they are bitter and tasteless. Looks like from a bed that was over-enriched which was the problem last year, I went to a bed that was very nutrient depleted and therefore the carrots are inedible.
I’ll have to pull everything, mix in compost and re-seed. What a pain.
It looks like my new Marjoram and Oregano are doing great though, maybe those humic acids are the key to nutrient uptake after all!
In good news that means a lot of prickly work, the blackberry vines are doing what blackberry vines do- grow like crazy.
I’ve got to strap on my gloves and tie up this sucker. I can already feel the wounds on my hands!
The arugula that reseeded itself is almost pickable. No such thing as too much arugula.
The thyme forest needs to be hacked back again, as it often does.
And finally in really really really good news, it turns out the confetti cilantro does breed true, and all that lovely coriander I got from the last plant is now two pots worth of more cilantro- and I still have seed left over!
I really have to get moving, the rains will come soon and then garden work will be very difficult. But October is a good month for planting, since there’s no frost or snow to worry about.
Just the possibility of a deluge!
The Neanderthal Gardens 
It’s all back and forth like a game of ping pong.
The brassicas should be fine. By now, you probably tended to them. I would plant them with only their green tip sticking above the surface. Roots grow from the portion of the stem that gets burried, which is fatter than the the lower portion of the stem. Lower damaged leaves can be removed in the process. They recover a bit faster if buried a bit deeper.