Grow Your Own: It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
by John Weckerle
The Great Pumpkin.
With Halloween just a day away, the denizens of New Mexico Central headquarters are watching with bated breath as the great pumpkin (this year’s only pumpkin, and likely our last given the yields) slowly ripens in the greenhouse. It is a race against time; colder temperatures appear to have taken their toll on the cucumbers, tomatoes, and zucchini, and the pumpkin plant itself is looking a bit compromised. We brought in some of the latter two today, but it seems likely that this will be our last. We harvested eggplants and peppers as well, and those plants are doing well still – with luck, sunny days and warmer temperatures may give us a little more time with them. Green beans are anybody’s guess, at this point, and we can take the leeks and shallots at any time.
Today’s harvest – tomatoes, zucchini, eggplants, bell peppers, green chiles, and cabbage.
Last Sunday’s harvest.
Until the last couple of days, temperatures in the greenhouse had been reaching into the mid- to upper-80s, and dropping to the high 30s to mid-40s at night. They barely crept above 50 degrees today, however, and this may be a critical point for the warm-weather loving plants. Cabbage is doing well and doesn’t mind a little cool weather, and we’ll see what happens with the broccoli, which we never pulled up. All things considered, we consider ourselves fortunate to be harvesting summer veggies this close to November. As we remove the summer plants from the beds, we’ll be amending soil and getting things ready for Spring – or perhaps some Winter growing!