Honestly, I was out of my garden for about 10 day this month. My cucumbers finally gave up the ghost but everything else is going full fruiting. My peppers are reaching their big flush. The tomatoes have put on their Fall flush as well. As tradition states for 2021, my Fall garden is failing though I do have plenty of lettuce to plant in the next 10 days or so. In short this September has actually been pretty normal, a freak occurrence in a year of freakish weather. But there are good things happening with my experiments in my garden update so let dig into the September 2021 garden update.

Garden Update September 2021

So I have given a light overview of the garden above but here are the more interesting things.

My Okra has been invaded.

Ants are colonizing aphids on my okra pods. That isn’t cool. It already wiped one pod out of existence so I will be doing a Fall Neem Oil treatment this week.

My cucumbers died but I did get a final two fruit on their way out.

In my absence, the Goji berries went insane. It must be their season because I came home to a very pretty plant.

My sweet potatoes have formed tubers but I am hoping to get a bit more size out of them. They are a 90 day variety but I have had some issue with their vines so I have left them a bit longer. They will likely be coming up at the 110 day mark. Hopefully, I did not screw up by letting them go a bit too long.

With all the really interesting bits done, lets look into the experiments.

Experiment 1: Chinese Peppers

This is the big success. They are in full flush with rapidly maturing peppers. Despite my hopes, they are an F1 hybrid because there was cross pollination. That is sad but I do have to say the peppers have been really good.

I basically have two kinds of peppers. I originally though about the fact that I did save a pepper for seed. However, I would have probably saved some seed from all the peppers I used once I decided to save seed. Since I got two kinds of peppers from the same batch of seed, that must have come from two fruits. The joys of decade plus memories.

With that out of the way, lets look at what we have.

Here is the first kind. These are very much like a Cubanelle pepper. So close that I would think that some Cubanelle jumped into the jar. It is different. There is more heat in this pepper and it is bigger than any Cubanelle, I have had.

While I have had a couple of the first peppers, I have not tried these. These look closer to the Chinese Peppers I remember. The size and color is about correct but the shape is not. The parent peppers had more of the classic pepper shape. These look like the largest jalapeno you have ever encountered.

As you can see, the pepper is getting close to being ripe.

I want to have at least one pepper per plant to harvest seeds from for the future.

Overall, these are pretty healthy plants giving me a boat load of peppers. It would not surprise me if they are my top producers for the year.

These are 10 feet or more from other peppers and close together. I hope that I can stabilize the genetics of these peppers. That is a multiyear process but I am not planning on dying in the near future.

Experiment 2: Jelly Melon

If you read the last update, you know that my Jelly Melons failed. Almost all of them died but there is one spiny survivor mixed with my basil.

Unfortunately, it don’t have any flowers or fruit. On the bright side, my basil is well defended!

His fate is sealed. When I start transplanting my Fall lettuces, he will get the yank. It’s a shame too because it is a pretty healthy plant.

Experiment 3: Summer Potato

So I tried a summer crop of potatoes against the recommendation of my extension office. I planted 3 spuds. Only one of them actually produced a plant. As a happy note, the plant is very healthy and green. It is growing like a weed so it is happy. It has another 2-6 weeks to grow. I’m not sure if we are going to make it good potato harvest but a month is a long time in plant years.

Experiment 4: Mulberry Tree

One of the goals for this year was to get a mulberry from my weed mulberry trees. They are sitting along the fence and really need to go in the next year or two. I am worried about fence damage.

My current mulberry trees are babies from a tree that was cut down during a fence replacement. I will have to intercept this tree, since this time they are on my side of the fence. I wanted to get a new one started so I didn’t lose my mulberries long term.

Unfortunately, all my berries disappeared from my small trees. I failed to get one before the wildlife so I had no hope of growing one this year.

One morning, I opened the door to let my dog out. Sitting about 8 inches from the door was a single, perfect mulberry. I have no idea where it came from. Fate wanted me to have it.

I planted it in a red solo cup knockoff with some drainage poked in the bottom and stuck it in the window next to my propagating snake plants.

Part of the reason, I never talked about it was that it did nothing. Month, after month, after month, there was nothing.

Then I came home from my time away and was greeted with this.

It took its sweet time, but I have a little plant. I will be trying to keep it alive and happy in its cup over the winter. It will join the Dragon Fruit as I attempt it for a second time.

Feelings on My Garden for the September 2021 Update?

I feel this update was happier than the last. Hopefully, as the season winds down I will be able to keep the garden going in some form during the winter.

While my plans keep failing for my Fall garden, I do have a bunch of strong healthy lettuce. I started these at the beginning of the month. Unlike last year where they got started in October, these will have a full month to grow and get established before winter starts creeping in. There is a small chance that I have enough to provide lettuce during the warmer parts of winter. That has me excited.