The Rambling Gardeners September 2026 Garden Newsletter
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Howdy from the Homestead
Well, here we are — fall. Seems like it wasn’t that long ago we were putting the first seeds in the ground, and now we’re talking football season and pumpkins on the porch. Don’t let the calendar fool you, though: Raleigh is still flirting with 100 degrees this week, so the garden hasn’t gotten the memo. The peppers are coming in by the basketful every three weeks, the bees are finally finding the fall flow, and the loofah has grown into something out of a horror flick. Come grow with us.
This Month in the Garden
Beds & Soil
Tarped the old tomato bed to let the sun bake out the blight that hit the tomatoes and potatoes this year. Cut the strawberry bed back and left the trimmings on top to compost down over winter.
Harvest & Preserving
Pulled a huge watermelon, the cantaloupes and honeydew, and pepper hauls off just seven plants. Dehydrated, froze, pickled, and jellied our way through the pepper mountain.
Bees & Flock
No honey harvest this year — the whole goal is getting the hive through its first winter, so we’re feeding heavy and watching the fall goldenrod flow finally bring nectar in. The chicken yard grew volunteer basil, sunflowers, and a tomato plant.
Kitchen & Pantry
Pickled banana peppers, pepper jelly with cream cheese, vacuum-sealed jalapeños for popper season, and an elderberry jam that came out as syrup — pancakes win either way.
What We’re Growing Now
The tomatillos — our first try at them — are growing great despite some pest pressure. Second-round sweet corn is silking and came on strong the last couple weeks, sweet potatoes look like the best crop we’ve grown in the raised beds, and the peanuts, Kentucky Blue beans, and zinnias are all still going. The pepper plants are as loaded as they’ve been all summer, and the monster loofah keeps swallowing more of the garden every week.
Planted this month: potatoes (round two), beets, carrots, cilantro (round two), radishes, mum seedlings, lettuce (fall bed), and cucumbers (round two).
Lessons Learned
The bread-maker elderberry jam never set — not enough pectin — so we’ve got elderberry syrup instead, and honestly it’s great on pancakes. Bigger lesson: all that chicken-run nitrogen grows lush green plants that won’t flower, which explains the honeysuckle. Next year the loofah gets planted along the run to shade the girls instead of eating the garden.
From the Kitchen: Pawpaw Ridge’s Refrigerator Pickled Banana Peppers
Bring 1 cup vinegar, 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1 smashed garlic clove to a boil. Slice banana peppers into 1/8-inch rings, drop them in the boiling brine, and let them soak about 8 minutes. Pack into clean jars, top with brine, and crunch them down so they’re packed tight. Straight to the fridge — no canner needed. Good for about 3 months, if they last that long.
September Planting — By Zone
Zone 5
Indoors: Season’s winding down — start herbs like parsley on a sunny sill. Outside: Spinach, lettuce, and radishes the first week; plant garlic late in the month and sow cover crops as beds empty.
Zone 6
Indoors: Pot up herbs to bring in before frost. Outside: Spinach, lettuce, radishes, and kale transplants early; garlic and cover crops toward the end of the month.
Zone 7
Outside: Lettuce, spinach, radishes, turnips, kale, and collards all month; get carrots in early. Prep garlic beds for an October planting.
Zone 8
Outside: Broccoli and cabbage transplants, carrots, beets, lettuce, and radishes now; spinach once the heat finally breaks. Still time for a fast second round of cucumbers early in the month.
Not sure which zone you’re in? Look it up by ZIP code at planthardiness.ars.usda.gov.
On the Channel This Month
- Too Many Peppers? 7 Ways to Save Every Single One
- What Survived Our Zone 8a Summer — And the Loofah That Took Over
- What Brands Actually Send Small YouTubers (We Said No to 7 of Them)
- How to Pickle Banana Peppers in 8 Minutes (No Canner Needed) | Pawpaw Ridge
- This Free Garden Planner App Tells You What to Plant in Your Zone
Coming Up Next Month
Overwinter a jalapeño — pepper plants are perennials, so we’re potting one up to carry through winter. Winter tomato experiment — potting up a tomato to grow inside under the lights, just to see if we can. Lettuce under the hoops — the fall lettuce bed gets hoops so a heavy frost can’t touch it.
Sweet potatoes come out in about two months, the second-round sweet corn should give us a couple dozen ears, and the old melon bed comes out to make room for a pergola — a little zen corner with a bench, maybe even a fountain.
Roda or whoever you are??? That newsletter is lovely in every way! It’s pleasing visually with just the right amount of color to make it upbeat and it’s an honest story of all that happened. That helps us to trust your reporting: like when you say the elderberries never set-up and stayed as syrup, but you used them, then, as syrup.It’s all very interesting. I’ll send it to my Wash-dah friends just in case any of them care. They aren’t doers, though. They would rather shop, go on trips or go to events. That’s why I bought them opera glasses—I think I’m in zone 5, but am not sure if it’s a or b??? Love you, Cutie
Aunt Beth