Fall Garden Tour with Heidi!! Last Harvest of the Season (tomatoes, peppers, fall crops).

Alright you guys, welcome back to a brand new video. Welcome back to the homestead. In today's video, we're going to be heading out into the garden for a mid-September garden tour. Things are definitely looking pretty rough out there, but there's still a surprising amount of food left to harvest and you guys already know we're not going to let it go to waste. So come along to the garden we're going to show you what is thriving, surviving, dying, what needs to be harvested, and what was just planted. And you guys please stay tuned for the end of the video where we'll be sharing another favorite fall inspired recipe using our own seasoning opening day which you can grab down below in the description and we'll see you in the kitchen later. All right you guys we're gonna kick off this little tour over here at the arched trellises. Peach is going crazy. We're not going to do a too in-depth tour here but this luffa trellis is absolutely thriving and if you guys look this is what our dried luffa is beginning to look like. It's all hard and it literally is so lightweight. This one is still heavy and it's not anywhere close to being dried. So it'll be really cool to see all of these start to transform into our sponges. Are you excited to shower with I can't wait. We all know we have one thing on our mind right now. Opening day is almost here. And you know what that means. You've got to stock your pantry. Before you fill your freezer. If you guys still haven't gotten your farmhouse kitchen opening day seasoning, you still have time We've got a sale running on our three-pack camp bundle right now That'll get you free shipping and stocked up before opening day. I'm very disappointed with my pumpkins They got destroyed by squash borer worms So we literally only have one pumpkin I did do some fall decorations yesterday and this would look so cute on one of our porches so I think this is about as big as it's gonna get. Oh my gosh there's a worm in it. Look at that. It's a black one. This is a chocolate pumpkin so I think it's gonna get a little bit darker than this. It's not your typical orange pumpkin but it's gonna fit so cute with my fall decor so let's go find a spot for it. All right you guys I think this is gonna look so cute right here on our little barrel. This is my little plastic pumpkin But I've got this old vintage. Black pepper seasoning can, buy it. Is actually a surprising little late runner here. This is the cucamelon, the mouse melon that I was so excited about and I didn't think was gonna be able to grow, but it is just shooting up all different directions. And if you come in close, you might be able to see the start of possibly some mouse melons. Looks like a bobber stop. And then we've just got a few of our butternut squash here coming in. So we'll take whatever we can get there. It's been a really really really tough season for all things squash, cucumbers, all the cucurbits have been just decimated by squash bugs and then squash vine borers. But on the outsides of these raised beds we have sweet potatoes. We're going to show you the other sweet potato bed that's inside the garden and you guys it is Insane. And it's almost ready to harvest. That video will be coming soon. We're probably going to have like 500 pounds of sweet potatoes. You guys, before we head into the garden, I want to show you our star tomato plant. It was this volunteer plant that just popped up outside of the garden. And as you can see, it is taller than me and is absolutely loaded. It's still got green tomatoes, some ripe, gorgeous red ones. So we'll definitely be harvesting those soon, but first let's start this tour to give you guys a quick breakdown on everything that is growing. Uh kind of at the end of its life cycle and what we just planted. At the beginning of the season we had peas here then we had some October beans and some green beans. Now all of that is gone and we have just planted some peas. We're a fall crop of peas and we're fingers crossed it does well. The weather is just so up and down it's so hard to get anything um Right this season it seems like with the weather it's either super super hot super super dry or the cold weather just comes too quick. So we're hoping we get a pea harvest since we really didn't have much luck this spring. For this trellis here we have on this side red indian beans that go all the way up to this next trellis and jacob's cattle beans right here on both of these trellises. This is where we're running into some issues. Coming close. our new bean sprouts are getting decimated by something yeah an unknown species of pest like we don't we don't know what it is because during the day there's nothing they're eating um so we think it's something that's happening at night but we've got the garden now littered with mouse traps and we have caught i think two or two yeah field mice that were coming in at night as well and they were just completely eating all of the leaves off it was So it was really obvious that those were mice, so. It's really concerning because our beans are supposed to be one of our staple pantry foods to get us through the winter because it's such a good protein meal and so like we have maybe we have two pint-sized jars of dried beans and that's it right now so we're really banking on this bean crop. Our sunflowers have just about finished there might be a few Few yellow ones still up there but for the most part it's the end of the road for these guys. Up here at this last trellis We've got our October beans. We did more succession planting of Octobers. This side are all exhausted old plants that were just waiting on these really late bloomers. You can see these bean pods here are taking a really long time to turn color. They're still just this green color. We want them at least looking like that before we harvest them. So we're just kind of Kind of waiting on those, but on this side, We replanted all new October beans and same thing here. They look okay, most of them, but then we've got a lot that have these eaten... It really looks like beetle damage. We had the same problem during the peak of the summer with our green bean plants, the Japanese beetles. They loved them. but they were always out during the day and they're not even i don't see those anymore. this is our corn patch you guys and um we've got a few stalks left over there. kind of at this point i'm thinking if there's anything left it'll be decor for the porches too. but this uh we kind of turned this into a miscellaneous october bean bed. We've got them kind of scattered around all of our little drip lines. And these are not being touched hardly at all by any pests, knock on wood. So these could end up being our saving grace crop here. But we're going to need a lot of beans. All right, you guys, so this right here is a true fall bed in our garden right now. This is where we harvested our russet potatoes this summer and our Yukon gold potatoes. But now we're using it for beets and carrots. I'm going to have to go through and kind of thin these out so they have room to grow. But we've got two different types here. The awesome thing about carrots fall planting them is that once it starts getting cold, like even a light frost, that's going to make your carrots even sweeter. So I'm really excited about that and I hope that we have a lot so we can preserve them. So on the lower half of this bed we've got all of our beets. I did do two different types of beets here too and they're absolutely flourishing. I've been spending a lot of time trying to thin these out too. Because we want big juicy beets and one of the hardest things about gardening is, at least for me, is having to pull up some of the plants because I hate killing anything that actually makes it to the point of sprouting. But we have been enjoying the beet leaves as a little salad. These are completely edible and absolutely delicious. We're gonna have lots of beets, but that's not it. We've got more up here. Four rows of more beets. These were just planted so they're barely coming up. If you come in close you might be able to see some. That one? Yeah. So some additional crops that we've got going in our fall garden right now are in these three beds. Mustard greens Andy planted all in this bed. He said that he used to grow up eating those from his grandma and You eat them like sautéed with vinegar? Yep, just boil them in a big pot. Put vinegar and yeah just like collard greens. That's gonna be so good. And they're delicious. Especially with some beans and some cornbread. Mm-hmm. And then in this bed right here we've got two different types of kale that are supposed to be really good varieties for winter time growing and freezing storage. So I definitely want to have a lot of kale to freeze to add to all of our fall and winter stews and soups and All types of meals, so hopefully those do well. And then this last bed here was Swiss chard. We are a little bit late planting this, so I'm hoping that it comes up. But at the very least, if we get some baby greens, they'll be delicious to eat as well. And then over here in this raised bed, we've got just a replanting of our greens, salad greens. And they have been getting hit brutally by 90 degree weather days. So I'm hoping they do okay and they taste okay. They can get really bitter I'm going to go to Twitter. with super, super hot weather. But we've got more dill, spinach, red oak, red oak leaf lettuce, and then some romaine here. So can't wait for that. This right here is our sweet potato bed. And oh my gosh, we're gonna have so many sweet potatoes. This one's probably gonna be pretty small because this is actually just a runner. That started pretty recently. Look, that's just a runner, and it's loaded with them in there. This is a small one, you guys, but this is a runner that has actually spread to our pathway. So I can't imagine what is actually inside the bed. It's going to be so, so cool. We're waiting on these. It's probably going to be a couple more weeks. We're just waiting for the leaves to really turn yellow and then we're going to do a massive harvest. Speaking of huge harvests, we are about to find out what we have in this garden that is left to pick, which is a lot. We've got tomatoes and a ton of peppers. So first up are our JRG spicy peppers. And our never-ending sargento peppers here. Guys, I don't think that this pepper will be making it into the garden next year. Because we aren't crazy about the taste, it just doesn't bring that much flavor. So I don't think we're going to replant those. We'll have a different kind of pepper for sure. But these right here are absolutely delicious. These are our Escamillo Sweet Italian Frying Peppers. They are so big, so flavorful, and so versatile to use for cooking. So we've got a ton more of those to pick. And then, my gosh, we might be out here at these for an hour. Banana peppers. We've got hundreds of banana peppers. They just won't stop growing. Unfortunately, it looks like they really won't stop growing because There's flowers, so they're gonna keep on producing unless we just yank them. I don't know, if we do decide to grow some more banana peppers next year, it's just gonna be one plant. Last but certainly not least, we have some more beautiful sweet Italian peppers. This is the Carmen variety. They're so good. Definitely going to regrow these, but we've got all of these to pick all through here. So now it's time for our tomato plants. They won't stop, which is a blessing, but it's crazy. There's so much. Y'all are going to be surprised at how many tomatoes we still have coming in. Check this out. All of these tomatoes, a mix of cherries, romas, Amish paste, got a bunch more in here, and we picked a bunch of beautiful green tomatoes too from my mom. She wants to do Um, pickled green tomatoes, got all of these sweet peppers, and so many more green ones on the bushes. We've got this entire bucket full of banana peppers. We're definitely gonna make some more pickled banana peppers, and then I think with the rest of them, especially since we still have a bunch on those bushes, I think we're just gonna leave, like, a big basket full at maybe, like, a trailhead or something nearby, and just tell people to take what they want. And then, you guys, super excited about these, all of our spicy Little Reds and JRGs. Hot sauce coming soon, cannot wait. So far, we've just been dehydrating these peppers for pepper flakes, a lot of these peppers too for soups and chilies and stuff. So we'll definitely be doing that later, and the work just never stops. Yeah, it's a lot of food. Well you guys that was probably one of our last huge harvests from the garden this year but there's still so much going on with the fall garden so we'll be sure to keep you guys updated. Also opening day is almost here we're a week away and the excitement is getting real you guys. Don't forget to stock up on your opening day seasoning. We'll leave the link down below and we'll see And we'll see you guys in the next video. Thanks for watching and hanging out with us.