The fall and winter vegetable garden is a work in progress. I vowed to do better than last year, which is proving harder than anticipated even though I began sowing cool season seed middle of July. The ratty-looking radishes are ready now and spinach bolted during the recent heat wave. The first and second sets of broccoli seedlings are leggy and flowering, having been decimated by cabbage worms whose parents I chased around all summer with a tennis racket. At the time the old racket sounded easier than row cover, though in hindsight seems perhaps less sanguine.

There are a few actual success stories, including a big kale crop and a patch of happy endive that’s put on nice growth. I’m finding that succession planting, or sowing seeds every couple of weeks, has helped get plants that are on track. Yesterday I took advantage of the grey skies to clear the fading cranberry bean bushes, and to transplant raddichio starts and yet another iteration of broccoli seedlings to the pea patach. Even with shrinking daylight and cool rainy weather, there’s still a bit of time before winter shuts everything down.