A lot of people are having their first ever garden this year and I'd like to repeat a few time tested ideas for you. Those of you who already know everything, go outside and weed for two minutes, but you will miss details on a free seed give away.
Newbies- if your background, mentor, or garden book is Midwestern, you may think Labor day is the end of the line, but because the Pacific Ocean keeps Oregon cooler in spring than Iowa, we still have one of our three warm months coming up. September is warmer than June in western Oregon- something your tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers have been telling you all along. So don't pull any plants out of your backyard plot until frost or drenching rain forces your cold muddy hand.
If you stop watering your tomatoes now- or at least cut way back, you will force the plants to ripen the fruit already set, rather than producing more flowers. The fruit will keep better if it's not so moist too. We ate our last fresh tomatoes from 2019 in March of 2020.
When nights get cool, tomatoes will ripen better in the house than out in the garden. Pick them pink and put them in a box inside.
Beans, corn, zucchini and the like often produce well until Halloween or beyond- if you leave them in the ground.
You can also plant things now. Remember the fava beans I deified in June?
Well, I saved some seeds for you, and you can pick them up at the Noisette Pastry kitchen at 200 W Broadway in Eugene for free.
Bring a container, take what you like, or buy just buy Windsor Broad Fava Beans at your favorite garden store. Plant them every foot in rows two feet apart.
A little water until the rains start later this fall, and you will be eating the leaves in salads all winter, enjoying fresh beans in May, and adding nutritious nitrogen to your soil- the natural - free way.
I'm John Fischer with KLCC's Good Gardening.