Some Fall Clean-Up and Planting 2022

End of October here. Most annual vegetable plants –tomatoes, cucumbers, squashes– are in rough shape after being spent, going through the Labor Day heatwave, and now cooler nights during the Fall season.

The temperature hit the low 40s where I’m at last night (10/25), which is impressive.

It seems to me the end of September and most of October overall were cooler this year here in the SF Bay Area (North Bay) than usual.

Now that I see that, I may have preferred to start my 60 day Fall plants that should be ready in November back in August. Usually when there’s too much heat at the end of September or during October and you plant stuff like fall/winter radishes in August, they’ll bolt before the roots are ready for harvest. It’s probably a lesson to start and plant stuff here each month, regardless of past experience.

Sometimes plants here can surprise you, too. Last winter, I still had some heirloom tomato plant alive with nightly low 40s, and 30s Fahrenheit temperatures. Technically, tomato plants should die at temperatures below 50F. It finally died when the temperatures kept hitting the upper 20s at night, but not before it made one last large tomato during the cold weather.

I started cleaning up my containers used by the Roma tomatoes at the end of September. I was curious what shape the old tomato roots were in after they were done, and if I’ll find the water gel crystals that I used somewhere inside.

Here are some pictures from that:

View of Roma tomato root ball and potting soil with pot on tarp.
Here's the potting soil and old Roma tomato root ball that came out. Looks like the roots were concentrated toward the middle of the pot. The volume of soil shrank. September 26, 2022.
View of the broken up potting soil and roots on the tarp.
It was easier to break up and inspect the potting soil and roots on a tarp. The darker soil in the middle was the fresh soil from this year, most of it disappeared. September 26, 2022.
Close up of used water gel crystals in potting soil.
Here's a close-up of the used water gel crystals in potting soil. Looks like I can still find most of them after 8 months. September 26, 2022.
View of inside of plastic pot with a less than 5 inch layer of yard waste on the bottom.
Putting layers of yard waste at the bottom of the pot. This seemed to work well for one of my zucchini plants, so I'll try this in more pots now. September 26, 2022.

I ended up preparing three of these same used containers to plant some Broccoli, Black Nebula carrots, and Pusa Gulabi radishes for the end of November or December. At the bottom of each of those pots, I put a layer of yard waste, less than 5 inches thick. The old broken up potting soil was laid on top - I did not add any extra fertilizer this time.

View of a finished renewed pot planted with a Fava Bean and Broccoli sprout.
A finished renewed pot with a Fava Bean and Broccoli start planted. Sowed some Radish seeds, too. September 26, 2022.

Here’s how they look today:

View of the 3 renewed pots 1 month later, everything grew.
Each of the big pots has a Broccoli in the middle, a Fava Bean on the side and 2 of the pots have Black Nebula carrots, and one has Pusa Gulabi radishes. Carrots and radishes are 1 month old. October 26, 2022

I also planted some carrots and radishes in 3 20 gallon grow bags that I filled mostly with yard waste. Here’s one bag of Kyoto Red carrots looking ok so far:

View of 20 gallon grow bag with carrot plants.
20 gallon grow bag of carrots. Red Brandywine tomatoes in 5 gallon bags in the background. October 26, 2022.

There was some space to plant more radishes in the ground too, but it seems the earwigs and slugs ate most of those already. The earwigs have been destroying some of my newer baby sprouts in containers planted at the end of September, too. Earwigs came out here after mid-September, and this year they subsided mid-June. It seems like 2 weeks straight of cooler weather brought them out. Earwig trouble and damage each probably deserve their own posts.

I also planted other miscellaneous things around the garden, such as small Yod Fah broccoli and even tried sowing some buckwheat. I like buckwheat a lot as a grain, and I keep hearing the plant makes a pretty good ground cover. So far, I like the behavior of its growth, it came up and flowered really fast. I’m also liking how my new Egyptian walking onions are multiplying.

An overall view of some containers filled with broccoli, walking onions, buckwheat, and other assorted plants.
Container of a row of Yod Fah Broccoli on the very bottom. Buckwheat is interspersed throughout. Walking onions on top. Some watermelon radish sprouts in the ground on top, too, but they're not going to make it - it turned out to be a spot earwigs like and it's still too shady there, too. My Goji Berry bush in the pot to the left is getting fall colors. October 26, 2022.