Season continues for some gardeners

'Azoychka' yellow tomato Oct 13, 2014

If you were lucky you escaped Oct 12 scattered frosts or covered tender plants and will be rewarded with an extended growing season. We've been in a pattern of cold-hot-cold-hot. This is expected to continue with temperatures again predicted to reach 80 degrees F in a couple days. Life in the high altitude, steppe climate of Denver, Colorado is always a roller coaster ride.

Tomatoes remaining on the vine will continue to ripen and zucchini will continue to grow larger. Just like betting when to plant warm season crops in spring, deciding when to shut down the warm season garden in fall is a challenge. I know some gardeners who have already torn out their gardens. How many more frost "escapes" will us late season garden gamblers have?

Zucchinis Oct 13, 2014

Of course tomatoes still on plants showing some color such as the yellow Azoychkas in the photo above may yet ripen on the vine. The ace in the hole is they are good candidates for picking and ripening indoors if a hard freeze is predicted (overnight temperatures expected to fall into the mid to upper twenties F). Green ones that are small probably won't have a chance but the largest can be harvested and used as fried green tomatoes.

'Bulls Blood' beet and 'Red Russian' kale
Oct 13, 2014

Meanwhile mid-summer planted, cool season crops such as the beets and kale in the photo will tolerate early frosts. The flavor of kale only improves once frosts begin in earnest. This is shaping up to be a year for warm season vegetable harvests to extend late into fall and cool season crops rewarding the savvy gardener with fall harvests as they always do.

Photo credits: Azoychka tomato, Zucchini, 'Bulls Blood' beet and 'Red Russian' kale all credit Carl Wilson.