October in the Garden

 It's the beginning of Fall, 

but someone forgot to inform Mother Nature!

We are still having days with heat indexes into the 100's.  

That kind of weather is great for the garden...

not so much for all the pumpkin spice things.

My little garden is still going pretty strong.

I've started seedlings for cool weather crops and I hope to get them in the ground in the next three weeks.  They've all developed a strong case of "legginess" but I think a thinning and re-potting will take care of that.  Until then, We are still enjoying peppers, chard greens, okra, and a few little cherry tomatoes.  I also let one of my flower beds go to the weeds and I found the most delightful volunteer goldenrod plant growing!  The bees are loving it right now, but I did harvest some for myself to use in tea and soaps!

Our peppers always grow well into the end of October, but the above pictured pepper is absolutely the slowest growing pepper I've ever seen!  I sowed these Carolina Reaper pepper seeds back in February and just now in October I am seeing my first pepper.  There are dozens of flowers on the plant that will eventually turn into peppers, but I'm not sure if they will have time to mature by the time cooler weather arrives. 

Who knows? 

 Maybe we'll be eating that super hot "Suicide Salsa" 

with our Christmas tamales!