Posted on 09/30/2016 7:42:32 PM PDT by greeneyes
I hope so too. Vicarious living during the winter helps! I did see a book about 4 season gardening written by someone who lives in New England.
Looking at the contents, I believe he use a covered hotbed of compost, but so many plants need the extra hours of daylight. It looked like we would get the greenhouse this fall, but then hubby got laid up, and we decided to wait.
Thanks, greeneyes!
We compost weeds and other yard waste, but attracting predators is too risky here. The mastiffs from next door, coyotes and bears were visiting our property daily. I can’t grow or compost in the fenced in area, because our dogs would destroy everything.
We have containers that are waist high on the deck and one in the front yard where we grow all of our vegetables.
Well, the bears will hibernate eventually, I guess, but that still leaves the other critters to deal with.
I always keep that idea about the hot bed in the back of my mind, in case we ever absolutely have to grow stuff in the winter.
That reminds me that I have to order more seeds. :)
Always time for seeds. LOL
I save leftovers every year. It’s amazing how long they remain viable. :)
I do that too. Also order the half price samplers at the end of the season. Then, I give them to Hubby when he’s looking for something to plant.
I don’t know if the basils will survive at all - three of them starting stacking flower-looking things on top - not like the leaves before - gotta admit I stripped those because they weren’t turning into leaves. Maybe that was bad. Well, not looking like they’ll make it.
Not much to say for the other basil plants - the leaves are getting dark spots, often the tips of the leaves - crushed eggshells and vegetable plant food in the soil, too.
The pepper plants and most of the tomato plants are healthy - lot of young tomato plants I’ll probably not try to save but there’s a few that might be worth it.
Hoping to bring inside 3-4 pepper plants and keep them going. Just dunno.
Well, I never know either, but I’m always willing to experiment - keeps it interesting, I think. LOL
I just snip those things off the basil plant. If you leave them, they will become flowers. I’m not sure what the spots are. I have harvested bunches and bunches of basil this summer from just 3 plants. I cut them back to about 6 inches and they just keep on going.
I’ll prune the one in a pot that I’m bringing in. One little packet of seeds, and only planted 3 of those and I have more basil than we can use in a year! I’m thinking I’ll give the kids some dried basil at Thanksgiving. I usually give them each a home grown lemon at Christmas.
That’s what I was afraid of - they’d become flowers. I slid about 10 off each stalk - they were stacking like crazy.
There are some new, broad green leaves at the bottom (near the bottom) of one - but they don’t look like Basil leaves (well, sorta, on a package of living basil I bought at Sprout’s grocery store).
Haven’t smelled them yet to see what they’re like.
Sauteed banana peppers and onion are my favorite topping for a nice Italian sausage off the grill.Yum!
I trim mine really short before I bring it in. Cooler weather and shorter days are often a signal to annuals to make seeds for the next year’s survival.
When I grow plants indoors, I always turn on a grow light after dark to simulate the longer days of summer. It’s only important for some plants, but I just do it for all and that way I don’t have to remember which is which.
I really should have cleared a space for my lemon tree and brought it in today. It’s down to 49 degrees @ dawn and cooler days, not good for the tomatoes either.
Yeah we hit 49 degrees the other night and I still have 15-16 tomatoes out there. Some good-sized, some not yet matured.
I’m hoping we’ll get that longer spell where we don’t see freezing until December. Crossing my fingers.
So I hope this weather trend reverses. I can’t bring in all those tomato plants.
I’m hoping that the weather holds till middle of next week. I have no time to do anything before then, and there is a lot I still want to do.
37 and 34 degrees (tonight) - sprouting tomato plants and pepper plants all inside where it is warm - even the Bush Early Girl started 2 tomatoes last week - teeny right now.
I don’t know how to tell when my carrots are “done” - the thicker stalk plants only have small carrots when I did a test dig. They’ve been going 75 days I think which was the growth period - I think I’m gonna give them longer.
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