There may be no more beautiful month in Iowa than October.

Just take a look at my backyard. The woods became a palette of purple, yellow and rust in the last few weeks, even as the vegetables of summer continued to produce blooms in the garden. Frost remained at bay until the early hours of October 17, and I picked the last cucumbers, tomatoes, beans, and peppers less than 24 hours before that.

Since the frost, I’ve harvested the winter squash, but there are still potatoes, sweet potatoes, and leeks ready to come in. And the fall garden is going strong, with lettuce, arugula, spinach, carrots, celery, peas, and cabbage among the autumn offerings.

Even the nesting box took on added color in October. The Easter Egger pullets I brought home in June finally started laying in the last couple of weeks. Or at least one did – I can’t be sure because I haven’t had two colored eggs on the same day.

In the last week, I’ve had a rainbow of eggs – in shades of green, olive, and blue. It’s all a bit mysterious because I thought each of the two Easter Eggers would lay only one color of egg. But I’m not complaining; when those eggs are added to the brown, beige, and white eggs from the other three chickens, it sure makes for a colorful carton.

Here’s a look at my kitchen garden in October.

The dreaded Emerald Ash Borer was discovered just a couple miles north of here this month. I hope my beautiful Purple Ash (above left) survives the inevitable infestation.

 

The end of the summer garden

My crazy cucumber plant kept on keeping on right until the first frost:

 

As did the eggplant:

 

And the zucchini:

 

October harvests

This was one of the last tomatoes I harvested in what will go down as a banner year for tomatoes:

 

It was a pretty good year for peppers, too. My husband harvested the last of them right before the frost:

 

The October harvest provided some key ingredients for our upcoming Thanksgiving feast, like these butternut squash:

 

This bucket was just the beginning of what is promising to be a good potato harvest:

 

Look at the size of that potato:

 

The fall garden

It’s still pretty easy to make a meal with what we find in the garden in October. Our autumn selection of fresh garden veggies includes all of these and more:

Carrots.

 

Arugula.

 

Spinach.

 

Mixed greens.

 

Meanwhile, in the egg garden

I got my first Easter Egger egg on October 16! It came a few weeks after I hoped it would, but it was pretty enough to be worth the wait:

 

Not sure which of these girls was responsible:

 

My nesting box sure is colorful these days:

 

What’s been going on in your garden in October?