Now that it’s officially fall, there’s a feeling in the garden that the end is near. The tomato vines are thin, the bush green beans look toughened. The herbs are looking every bit like Dorian Gray, as robust as they were back in June. As long as there’s no real cold snap, the garden will keep plugging along. I fully realize this, but for some reason I spend less time in the garden this time of year. So does the sun. Not only does the sun set earlier, it also sits lower in the sky and is blocked by a nearby building. Less sun, slower ripening. Instead of growing six inches a day, the zucchini are growing just a couple of inches. I can handle that.

Removing powdery mildew from Zucchini

Speaking of zucchini, I am testing a novel approach to my late-season harvest of these guys. While my garden neighbors pulled up their powdery mildew-laden zucchini plants two weeks ago, I instead decided to remove the white-laced leaves.

There were plenty of new, healthy leaves emerging, and also a good number of flowers. Removing the leaves opened up the plants to more sunlight so the fruit could develop faster. It also increased airflow, which helps slow down the spread of that pesky powdery mildew. Even though I left just two or three leaves on each plant, they’ve recovered quite well. Yes, the powdery mildew is back, but so are the flowers and hence the zucchini.

I also took the same approach with my tomatoes. The late-August vines were a tangled mess, with many of the lower leaves dead or dying. Of course, the fruit were hidden within that chaos and weren’t getting the light they needed to ripen. I did a thorough cleaning of dead and yellowing leaves and really opened up the plants. I literally saved the life of a couple of my Beefsteak varieties, which were being crowded out by the towering cherry tomatoes.

And my two hours of hard labor it took to clean up the zucchini and tomatoes has paid off in an extended harvest. In fact, I’ve brought home at least four zucchini (compared to my neighbor’s harvest), and the tomatoes keep coming. And that gives us plenty of toppings for homemade pizza. Let’s see just how far we can push the season.