Posted on 10/09/2009 5:31:49 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning to all of you gardeners. Running a little late with the post this morning. My garden area is now clear of plants. If the daily rain showers will just by pass me for a few days I will do a final tilling and remove a few more of the roots left behind. To all of you with Fall/Winter gardens I wish you the best.

Weekly Gardening Thread

I hope all of you will stop by.
This is typically a low volume ping list. Once a week for the thread and every once in a while for other FR threads posted that might be of interest.
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When to plant turnips and root crops?.................
I still have okra coming in. I picked a big bag yesterday. It was the first picking in a week or so. The recent cool, wet weather has slowed it down considerably. I was picking a bag every other day when the weather was warmer. I still have a few tomatoes and peppers coming in, too. I have planted broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots and lettuce in the greenhouse and they are progressing well. I’m planning to plant a second round of Broccoli shortly, putting the second harvest about a month behind the first. I’ll do the same with carrots in another week or so.
Do you get frost where you live in Fla.?
Good Morning RD, and thank you for running this thread.
it’s down to cornfield/rattlesnake/butter beans,, harvested the last yesterday, big batch drying,3 runs canned..
turnips so-so and collards produced well,
will bring the rocoto and arbo peppers in and get ready for frost next week..
maybe we will all survive and be here next march to start again...
Yes, but it’s usually in Dec - Feb, but sometimes as late as April....
I’m done. All that’s left in the garden are the brussels sprouts and they’re staying as long as possible to get sweeter with the cold.
Harvested the squash FIL grew for me this year; butternut, delicata and honeybear (a new acron-type from Jung’s.)
Killing freeze this weekend...and maybe SNOW! Eeeek!
The kids and I will be grabbing the rest of the tomatoes today. I have gobs of Romas still out there. I will be stewing and canning them - easy peasy. The remaining peppers are small, and the rest of the beans need picked. We are supposed to get below 32* tonight, so it’s a “must do today” thing.
We harvested the Sugar Pie pumpkins and spaghetti squash a week or two ago. My vines got powdery mildew, so they were dying off pretty quickly. The squash is curing nicely. :) The spaghetti squash was so good buttered, it tasted so sweet to me! I love it. And I can’t wait to make FRESH pumpkin pie. Yum.
You all inspired me this year, and this is probably the best harvest year we’ve ever had. We normally lose out to weeds and pests. Many good ideas are posted, and I can’t wait until late winter/early spring to start over.
It is supposed to get down to 45 tonight here in the Dallas area, does that mean an end to tomatoes and peppers?
Thanks for the ping, R/D.
After our 7” of snow last weekend here in Central Oregon we are in a “clean-up” mode. We did get the garlic planted and will now focus on flowering blubs this weekend.
Liberty Thug - our forecast low for tomorrow is single digits due to that artic blast coming down from the ‘pole.
Count your blessings. We hope that after breaking thru the frozen layer we can plant blubs.
Weekly visit to the nursery last weekend discovered “winter tomatoes” so bought two and planted them. Never heard of them before, but we’ll give them a try and see how they do here in So.CA.
Six nice sized pumpkins are going to be ready for carving for Halloween. Still have a nice harvest of egg plant going, one Japanese and one regular.
Morning all.
Our transplant lettuces and chard are looking good. Our seeds of lettuce, leeks, mustard greens, spinach and radishes are going to town. We had some heavy rains this past week that did not help, but the sun is supposed to appear more just in time.
I’m in central Texas and have turnips, radishes and carrots up already. I am trying to get potatoes to grow in five gallon buckets this fall.
Last week, I finally cleared my tiny garden space, mixed in some compost and planted fall/winter stuff.
I have no idea if anything will actually come up.
I’m just hoping for the best.
If it stays cool overnights like that they will definatly slow down.
I harvested about 20 lbs turnips, 20 lbs rutabagas, 80-90 lbs potatos (kennebec, yukon gold and red pontiac). Picked all the green tomatos before a big freeze so they are all ripening on the kitchen counter. Got 16-16-16 fertilizer and superphosphate bone meal worked into the soil before planting two varieties of softneck garlic and two varieties of hardneck garlic. Last night it was 27F and snow up here in the Colorado Rockies. Two ski areas opened last week, Loveland and A-Basin. The earliest they have ever opened. The Rockies and Phillies are tied 1-1 in their series. The first two games were in Philadelphia. They play game 3 in Denver. It may be snowing Saturday night for the game! Been following the Florida Gators football. They were really terrible when I was at UF!
Mornin’ all! :)
The sun is shining and I finally got out in the garden last evening! Lost one broccoli and two collards, only found one carrot sprout, and the onions look great! Found lots of deer prints. I showed them to the gbaby. Told him, “You know what those are? Deer prints! You know what? Opa’s gonna have to get his gun and shoot them.” He told me, 2 1/2 yo, totally serious—”I’ll get my gun and shoot them.” He went back in and ran to his gpa. “Opa, Opa, deer prints in garden! Shoot them! LOL
The tomatoes aren’t going to be crazy about 45 degrees, but in my experience the peppers will just now be getting going good. I am about 4-5 hours east of you on I-20 and my peppers go crazy when the weather is cooler. Last year I picked peppers right up until Christmas.
what a beautiful garden!!!!
Mmmmmmmm ... backstrap steaks with broccoli and cheese sauce. Go get ‘em Opa.
Somebody promised to ping you over here today and, as any good stalker would, I’m making sure that you got the invite. ;-)
It looks like the Humboldt Bay region may receive some needed rain next week. Our garden chores are at a stand still as my wife’s sister is visiting from Golden Co and we are having a grand time showing her the places of her youth. We went the farmers market yesterday morning to buy Cherokee Purple tomatoes and some Delicata Squash plus the farmers are still harvesting many crops.
Wednesday we visited a former inlaw at her Fieldbrook Valley Apple Farm in Fieldbrook Calif where she grows 50 varieties on 700 trees planted 8’X10’ spacing. The rootstock is semi-dwarf and pruned to Loper high with no ladders used. It is a sight to see and it’s just the 2 of them and one part time helper. They sell at the farm, market, local stores and the school lunch program. The trees are enormous producers!
I couldn’t remember his handle but I should have known not to worry...
I might have to try those here in the Coachella Valley.....in the past, we've gotten starter sets in late January and they're done by mid-April.
In September we started experimenting with winter container gardening.......peppers and cabbage are definitely proceeding better than they did during our summer.
Kennebec is what our legendary In-N-Out Burger chain uses for their fries....fresh daily; beyond delicious.
Dang... I forgot to ad that those 700 trees are planted on 2.5 acres. The farm shows up on Google Dirt really good. On G/E type in Fieldbrook Ca Fieldbrook Valley Apple farm. The pointer is off a little so scroll down and to the right...
Kennebec was the best producer of all the varieties. I also got two red potatos my wife found sprouting in the back of the pantry. I cut them up, let them dry a few days and planted them in an unplanted area of a front flower bed. They produced pretty well too.
Wish I had a quick pic of the frozen remains of my tomato and pepper plants and leafless trees, to stand in stark contrast to your idyllic photo. Western South Dakota is done for the season. We did get 12 quarts of sliced apples from our tree put up.
The freeze was not inordinately early, but still a bit early. Might have saved the plants for a day or two by covering, but the freezes kept coming nightly, and tomorrow is supposed to be the worst of it before warming up next week.
Is Nervous Tick supposed to be added the ping list?
That’s what he said on the Stalking Thread. I’ll look for his post...
Nummies! I was thinking country fried deer and gravy/maybe some jerky! Only prob with jerky is you can eat a 5# roast all by yoursel in about 5 minutes! LOL Have to make it and hide it or the kids will disappear it all in a blink. :)
Sounds like you’re having a geat time! Wish I could send you some rain! sposed to rain again this aft and tom. Sigh
>> Hopefully Tick will request a permanent spot on the ping list.
Sure, why not! I can use all the vitamins I can get.
Please put me on the ping list; Just don’t *post* to me or I’ll tell Admin Mod*. ;-)
Plus, work *sometimes* gets in the way. Like today. :-(
* inside joke for some of y’all
Ditto, except make that snow showers; and pull the last of the beets.
Several hard freezes, down tas low as 20F in the last two weeks, freezing the unripe late corn in its tracks--a total bust.
This hit 3-4 weeks earlier than normal, so we aren't nearly done with our Fall preparations. At least the flower beds & bulbs got mulched.
The new steam juicer did arrive in time to run two batches of apples through it.
Several record lows have been set around the area; and two of the highways that do not recieve "winter maintenance" were already closed for the season last weekend--much earlier than normal. Wet snow + high winds (up to 70 MPH gusts) + leaves still on the trees = a HUGE number of broken limbs * downed or snapped off trees throught the Black Hills. The wildlife wasn't ready for this either.
Done!
How did your potato tires do?
Look at a map of the eastern US. We were just beginning to dry out. :( No rain for months and then it’s like a hurricane. We’ve actually had hurricanes when we got less rain than the deluges we’ve had recently.
Snow? Freezing temps?
85 here today, and same tom. :) That’s why I live here and not where ever y’all are!
Megga dittoes! we're having Dumby for dinner tonight: Swissed round steak. He made the mistake of raidng our garden in broad daylight, in season, lst year.
We call them Dumbies, because if the wife sees one about to run into road while I'm driving, I'm liable to say, "Yes?" if she says, "DEER!"; but, if she says, Dumby!", I KNOW what she means. LOL
I'm going to try making (half recipe) the potato donuts (hope they taste like Spudnuts!) using the recipe posted on the thread last week, so Mrs. AR is making extra mashed potatoes, and doing them earlier than otherwise. Raised Potato Doughnuts
Hot Springs: snow falling all day. We have a gallon of fressh apple juice; a couple of apple pies in the freezer, and several quarts of frozen sliced apples put away.
The utility room is full of tomato plants that we pulled before the big freeze hit last week.
Let me know how they come out! Naw you wont have any potato taste.
I’ll post how they come out tomorrow, since the devil-dough takes so much punching.
Hubby ran into so many for so many years, it got to the point where we just called the ins agent and said “Again.” He’d cut us a check.
As far as I’m concerned, every one in my freezer or on my stove is one less I have to worry about hitting or being in my garden.
Hard to believe that at the turn of the century—1900—they were almost extinct in NC.
Dumby. I like that. :)
“Dumby” is one of the more polite terms we have for the antlered rats.
I do know for certain that they are Democrats: brainless, destructive, travel in herds, and live by freeloading.
Deer hunting is not a ‘sport’; it is a necessity. The meat is just a bonus.
That sounds WONDERFUL! ‘Delicata’ is a recent find for me; FIL grew a ton of it for me this season. It’s yummy! :)
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