Keep the Good and Rip Out the Bad

Created on 9/13/2009

How do your tomato plants look? Not so great, eh? I just pulled up a few skinny brown plants and threw them in the compost. Some spotty eggplants with dried fruits also went into the heap. My Midwest climate clock says I have a month maybe six weeks until the first killing frost. I don’t have time to coddle some half-dead plant that gave up on our summer romance long ago. My relationship advice to you is the same: rip out the unproductive, withering plants to make room for the new.

It is not too late to sow greens and radishes for the fall. Radishes are usually a quick growing spring crop. I know you are familiar with the typical red, pink or purple crunchy, tangy, salad spheres. The radishes I just planted in my garden are Asian winter radishes. These are bigger than the everyday sort and have white and green skin and rose-red flesh- hence the reason for their other name- the watermelon radish. The winter radishes do best when sown in late summer so they mature in cool weather. The ‘Misato Rose’ I planted will take about sixty days to grow to harvest size. Frost will not hurt the radishes as they mature. I am thinking about the late fall meal now. The peasant menu I have in mind is simple- just some brown crusty bread, artisan cheese, thick slices of watermelon radish and a seasonal local microbrew.

I pulled up an entire row of sweet alyssum that was shriveled and spent. In its place I sowed a row of spinach. I also planted some Redbor kale and two different mesclun mixes. The mixes contain blends of lettuce, kale, Asian greens, mustards, arugula and radicchio. All of which do well in cool weather.

Now my kitchen garden is a wonderful mix of bright late summer flowers like zinnias and marigolds planted among a few healthy tomato, basil, pepper and tomatillo plants. The transition garden is a patchwork quilt of old and new. Young cool season seedlings are growing beside mature summer plants; groomed to take their place when frost arrives. There is still time. Take out what’s not working and start fresh for fall.