What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Zeedman]

The freeze was coming Friday night, so I was out in the gardens Thursday gathering the beans & pumpkins that had been covered for the last two frosts. The week gained for the pole beans successfully allowed a vary large number to ripen. It took about 3 hours in the cold wind & drizzle to pick them all. I was dressed in layers, but my hands got a little numb toward the end.

Madagascar limas (top), Gigandes runner beans (left), Bird Egg #3 (bottom). I ended up with a good amount of seed for each of those, far better than I expected after the late planting. The extra week gained by covering the "bean tunnel" really paid off for dry seed.

Wasn't going to harvest the pumpkins yet; but with nothing but more hard frosts in the next week, I decided to bring those in too. The ones in the front (with strings around their stems) were hand pollinated for seed.

Little Greenseed pumpkins

The freeze came through last night, so almost everything in the garden is dead now. The only thing left is chard, which can take a light freeze. I don't usually harvest chard until after its been kissed by frost, since that sweetens it.

So almost all outside garden work is done, except for planting garlic, and (hopefully) putting the gardens to bed. I hope it dries out, so I can collect & turn under Fall leaves, which are starting to drop.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

Today was busy but a fun day. We did something I usually loathe. Went shopping! Helped kids with their homework after getting home. Than spent about an hour harvested pumpkins from the volunteer plants. Yes, you read that correctly, these are all from several volunteer plants that I didn't have the heart to pull out.
Tomorrow we will harvest from the actual cultivated patch

 

[digitS']

Pumpkins?

Here are the two that I brought home. There are another 8 or so given away and elsewhere.


Called "Champions." I'm fairly happy with them but if DD doesn't carve all of hers for Halloween, I may ask for one back and save it in the basement to learn what it tastes like. Johnny's says they are 30# each - Heavy Enuf carrying outta the garden!

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

I pulled the tarp and harvested about 2 quarts worth of beans from the final bean harvest. We ate one quart with dinner, and I filled a quart for pressure canning, now in the fridge.
Freeze watch tonight, and for the next 4 nights, so not worth covering/salvaging any more.
I could not BELIEVE how many more tomatoes I harvested from the ones along the cistern.
IF I keep up with them I should be canning more tomatoes for the next several weeks.
Harvested most of the meager beet harvest, and had them with dinner.
I covered the herbs in the two bed north of the garage. Everything has grown so thick;y there it should hold for tonight.
I want to dig up and winterize the geraniums and see about harvesting some more basil, thyme, and sage.
I fed DD's chonks (read, "cats"), and covered their big pot of basil with a paper lawn/leaf bag, covered the other 2 smaller pots and moved them from the steps to under the porch and adjacent to the house, where it's warmer.
Hoping they will hold on for a few days and see if I can get some of their geraniums back to my house and winterize Them, too. Not enough time this week to just dig them out.
It's probably good that this freeze has come now. Saturday's high will be 73, and I plan to winterize the windows this week, while it isn't too cold to do so.
I have some underdeveloped cabbage in the big garden. Might study up on how to keep them alive outside with some straw cover, or other.
My growing season is now pretty much over, but I did get a bounty!

 

[digitS']

Harvesting ... No More long carrots like Sugarsnax! And if there is a short parsnip - I want it! My . feet . are . sore . from . digging! The soil in the distant garden is too rocky and these are hold-overs from a garden with somewhat different rocky soil.

Brought home the celeriac, some green beans, mustard greens, a few tomatoes, peppers & eggplant ... there are still Portuguese kale out there.

Gathered the sprinklers, all those dang hoses and Y's. Came home after a busy 3 hours!

Steve

 

[digitS']

Finally made it back to the garden. The little rainstorms, cool temperatures and wind ... okay, I'll mention the lack of anything remaining to harvest ... discouraged an earlier return.

There had been a light frost! The cucumbers were dead, the tomato plants mostly dead and the beans were burnt right across the top. Peppers looked the same way but all had already been picked.

Found a few things to bring home - mostly mustard greens. But, the purpose was primarily to move sprinkler pipe and stakes out of the garden.

I guess the volunteer weather station at the nearby school is just too distant to accurately measure temperatures. I have been wondering about that this year. It has been consistently a little warmer out there than here at home and yet, that is very uncharacteristic. It was 34°f (1°C) here at home this morning but the frost damage in the distant garden is dry as tho it occurred about 7 days ago when the thermometer also read in the mid-30's.

It hit 50° (10C) by the time the little job was completed at noon but the 10-14 mph wind was a little uncomfortable for a fair weather gardener . This was the best recent day weather-wise and it's is supposed to continue sprinkly, chilly and windy right up until there is a chance of snow Tuesday night. I'm not sure if the property owner cares that nothing is tilled on my part because they cannot see the garden from their house and he wasn't out there to tend a garden this year. If he calls the tractor guy to come in, as he has tended to do - that will put everything below ground. I'll have to keep track of things. I can only remember once or twice showing up to do anything in the garden in November. My rototiller is ready to go, at least, but I'd like to be tilling after most things are dead from the frost.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

needed a break from breaking me so today i did some actual gardening, weeding the onionyums patch and also uncovered the septic tank so we can have it pumped Tuesday afternoon. i have the septic pumping folks business number in my contacts under Pooper Pumper. p.s. our tank is very easy to find (scrape some gravel aside and lift up a bit of plastic and there it is).

as usual while doing anything around here it always comes up with more projects - the metal rings for pulling the plugs on the tanks were pretty rusted and looking like they may not last very long if not cleaned up and protected so i scraped them with a piece of gravel and wire brushed them a bit, blew them clean with the hose, dried them off with a clean rag and came back in an hour and spray painted them with bright green, came back 40 minutes later and gave them a 2nd coat. should i take a picture? haha. yes, i should, just because i can...

 

[Phaedra]

I harvested some leafy greens and then directly sowed a hardy variety spinach.

Hens enjoyed a lot of fresh leaves from all kind of larger brassicas.

 

[ducks4you]

YOUR household will Never go hungry, @Phaedra Geiermann !

 

[Zeedman]

The weather is allowing me to put the gardens to bed properly this year. Since the chances are 50/50 year-to-year that rain will prevent that, I'm counting my blessings. All trellises & cages have been removed, after which I mowed the gardens. Yesterday I collected the leaves from 3 of my neighbors & dumped them into the gardens, to be turned under. Will be collecting leaves from my yard & DD#2 today, to add to that.

If I have time, I will transport the mower & leaf vac to the rural garden. My intent is to add leaves there & begin the process of rebuilding that depleted soil (which was the reason I acquired the leaf vac in the first place). Last year, strong winds scoured all the lawns clean there, blowing the leaves into the surrounding farm fields. The same thing happened again this year, but fortunately quite a few more leaves have fallen since.