7 late-season tips for your food garden

We have been thinking about food a lot lately. Every time we are in our gardens, we are reminded that the food we grew with such pride through the summer is melting away into pockets of rot. But we are here to tell you that in fall, there is an encore happening in your garden and celebration is not finished.

Leeks

Leeks are running Mark’s life these days. He grew more than he can count, on account of when he sowed four packets of their seeds, he had 110-per-cent germination (an impossibility, we know, but this is how it feels to be successful in the garden). Every gardener has had this experience. Leeks enjoy the cold, especially temperatures below freezing. They get bigger and better by the day.

Carrots are much the same. Bring on the cold weather, they say to one another as they huddle shoulder to shoulder in the cold, sandy soil. We suggest that you dig them soon and put them in bushel baskets of dry sand to hold them over the next couple of months in your garage or cold cellar. They can carry on their discussion there while waiting for you to bring them to the table.

Pumpkins

No doubt you recently picked up a pumpkin at your local food retailer or farmers’ market. We remind you that pumpkins are 90 per cent water. Therefore, throwing them out or disposing of them at the end of your driveway makes no sense. Think about all the garbage trucks in November that are driving around with large orange vegetables: Neat packages full of water. It makes so much more sense to just place it on the surface of the soil in your garden and let Mother Nature rot it down into something useful for your soil. In time, it will assist in building microbes and organic matter there.

Raspberries

If you had a great crop of raspberries this season, now is the time to cut them down by removing the canes that fruited this summer. Cut the woody stems to the ground. Leave the young growth that occurred in August to mature and produce fruit next season. If you have fall bearing raspberries, then finish picking and cut down the fruiting canes next spring.

Garlic

The whole routine of planting and harvesting garlic is counter intuitive. You plant the cloves now in open, well-drained soil. Come July, they will sprout a long stem with a pigtail and flower on the end of it: This is called a scape. Three or four of these sell for big bucks at the farmers’ market in July, so cut and use them. Every part of the garlic plant is edible, so be creative and use the flowers in salads or whatever you are cooking on the barbecue that time of year. When you harvest the garlic in August, leave the bulbs in the sun for a few days. Then tie the stems together and hang them in a cool, well-ventilated place until you are ready to use them in the kitchen.

Rhubarb

If you have a large rhubarb plant in the garden, now is an appropriate time to dig it up, divide it into smaller root portions and replant it or give away some of the divisions. This is also true for hostas, daylilies, monarda and many other perennial flowering plants.

Strawberries

Strawberries that have been in the same soil for three years or more are ready to be dug up, separated and moved to new ground. Make sure that their new home is completely weed-free at the time of planting, or you will regret it. Weeding strawberries is not our favourite job.

Asparagus

Spring is when the new plants are available for sale and therefore planting. However, if you have an established clump, now is an appropriate time to make sure that it is weed free. Let the leaves and stems stand over winter. They will help to accumulate snow as a natural insulator, and they add some interest to the winter garden.

It may be late in the season, but don’t forget that the garden still needs some of your attention.