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sheeshshe
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I think my garden is done.

bitter sweet. it was a fun year... I learned a lot, did a lot, and now I'm feeling done as well and I'm glad its done too. :lol: everything is winding down and dying. most everything ended up dying of fungal disease since I got to the point where I didnt feel like treating it anymore and the kids weren't allowing me to do much gardening a bit ago. so yeah.. sigh......... I wish I got more out of it, but I am happy with what I did. I'm ready to relax and rest.

I just planted some oats to see if I can get it to grow before winter kill in hopes for a small cover crop. I was going to put it everywhere but yeah. I'm just done I think. its going to have to suffice!

hit or miss
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Bummer! I'm trying to keep the maters alive long enough to get the last few green ones to turn. I'm thinking about whacking off the okra now. I didn't plant enough to really get some pickled and one can only eat just so much fried okra! :lol: The jalapeno's are going full bore right now! I need to get a batch of jalapeno relish done this coming weekend. We're still a little over a month away from a killing freeze though, there's still hope! :shock:

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gixxerific
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Relax and rest that sounds good for me, yeah right.

I'm on to the fall garden and thinking heavily about next years garden. It doesn't stop, the gardening season that is. It only gives you more time to plan out next years garden.

So let's get cracking.

I will have time to rest when I'm dead. :wink:

P.S. this was the worst year ever for me, but I ALWAYS have new hope for the next season.

Bring it!!!!! :-() :flower:

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sheeshshe
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Oh, I alreayd have next years all planned out already ROFL! any time someone on here said that they're favorite veg was whatever, I wrote it down. well, as long as everyone concurred :) I know what I'm planting and what I'm not planted. I pretty much know where I'm planting it at too hehe. not completely though. I still have to plant garlic too.

One thing I haven't decided yet on is onions, which variety I want to do. this year I planted the wrong type. so they didn't get bigger than an inch in diameter.

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gixxerific
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sheeshshe now that is what I'm talking about.

Can't wait to hear your thoughts this winter.

Oh and yes this site is still up during the winter.

Propagation anyone, plant propagation that is. :lol: :P

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gixxerific
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sheeshshe wrote:Oh, I alreayd have next years all planned out already ROFL! any time someone on here said that they're favorite veg was whatever, I wrote it down. well, as long as everyone concurred :) I know what I'm planting and what I'm not planted. I pretty much know where I'm planting it at too hehe. not completely though. I still have to plant garlic too.

One thing I haven't decided yet on is onions, which variety I want to do. this year I planted the wrong type. so they didn't get bigger than an inch in diameter.
About the notes of this forum, yeah I have them all over the place if only I knew where they all were. :roll:

gumbo2176
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[quote="hit or miss"] I'm thinking about whacking off the okra now. I didn't plant enough to really get some pickled and one can only eat just so much fried okra! :lol:

I'm considering pulling my okra too but for a different reason. I now have about 10 qts. of it smothered down with tomatoes, onions, celery, bell pepper and garlic and close to four 1 gallon bags of it cut fresh and frozen. I'll pick enough to get a couple gallons of pickled okra, then out the ground they will come. I know I've given away close to a bushel of the stuff these past 3 months. All this from 30 plants that are now over 7 feet tall and taking up a lot of fall garden space. I will plant it again in the late spring as it is a staple in my household.

Oh, and if you are tired or fried okra, try grilling it-------that stuff is great fixed like that. Arrange the okra alternating stem end, pointed end, push a skewer through one end and do the same to the other end to make a "raft" of okra. Brush on some olive oil, sprinkle with sea salt and a bit of black pepper and grill till it has grill marks and the okra gets fork tender.

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sheeshshe
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:)

now to those onions... any thoughts on long day onions? LOL!


I decided I'm NOT doing corn next year. and I'm going to do potatoes, but I think in bags outside my garden fence. I think I"ll do black beans or some other drying bean. tomatoes I have those all picked out already too. jalepenos, check. OH! I haven't picekd my cucumber type yet either. so I guess I'm wrong, I don't have it all planned HAHA. now to find my notes on the other things...

Urban_Garden
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Yeah that's how my garden is starting to act. Most of my cucumber and squash plants are dying (pulled up an entire bed of dead squash the other day). My tomatoes, peppers, beans, and flowers are still going strong. Guess it is time to start the fall garden! Here I come carrots and onions!

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Alan in Vermont
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Things are just a bit gloomy here this fall, garden season is winding down, and not one second too soon.

My normal goals are to have all we want or can pass on to non-gardening friends and enough to sell to pay for next years' seed and fertilizer.

This year has been just about a bust. Not trying to be a whiner, I realize that sometimes things just flat go bad. I've also picked up a bit of the stoic attitude that farmers show in the face of adversity, "Next year will be better!"

I was handicapped by my bunged up wing to the extent that what might have been 10-12 days work, getting tillage done, took the better part of a month. The result was that almost nothing got planted on time.

Once things started growing there was a growing list of things going wrong to keep me amused.

Virtually all the cucurbits(sp) went in within a 2 day period. No changes in soil conditions and, doing it all myself meant it was all planted the same. Here's how they shaped up: I put in 2 packs ea of Snack Jack and Triple Treat pumpkins, both from Burpee's and both have hulless seeds. Out of all four packs I got Tom, Dick and Harry growing. Two packs of Waltham Butternut squash went in, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs came up.

You know it's bad when you can name them!

I think there were five varieties of cucumbers, three did so-so, two were disasters.

Prizewinner pumpkins were planted from saved seed. The resulting fruit are NOT gonna win any prizes. Maybe cross polination of last years crop or genetic fading,, no idea except that if it weren't for what I got from the saved seed I would have no PWs this year. I had two packs of new seed, planted as insurance, that never sent up a sprout.

I had started cauliflower, brocolli and cabbages. The cauliflower got hit first, followed by the brocolli and cabbages. Eaten off right to the ground over a couple nights time. Had to be some sort of bug but I never found a smoking gun. Out of the three species I did get a few cabbages that didn't split (too much rain at just the wrong time) or get some sort of slimy, stinky, black rot. Out of 80+ plants that I set out I got less than 20 cabbages. Those went to the local food shelf.

I set out 48 tomato plants in mid-May. Lost three the first week to a few days of 90+...° temps. The survivors were doing good until a spell of serious rain, at the wrong time had them splitting. Some of the remaining fruit healed and kept growing and the green fruit started ripening,,, only to get steamrollered by late blight. We saved what we could by making soup stock.

Nothing was coming off regular enough to make it worthwhile to take it to market. I was hoping for a good corn crop but that was also not meant to be.

I tried "Seneca Arrowhead" this year, looking for a short seasoned bi-color. This one has the growing days but was underwhelming to a fault. My planter was setting the seeds in double and triple lumps. Theoretical seed count was just about right but the undesired hill drop planting caused it to fight for space. Lots of small, 4" or less, ears and not a real good flavor. Won't play with that again next year.

Had Early Sunglow planted as well, it didn't do squat either.

We've had all we wanted, I picked 20-25 dozen and took it to the food shelf. Everything left, and there was a lot, was either too small to sell or gone by. I wish I had a couple pigs to feed it to.

Had a few things go good as well. Started onions from seed, they are starting to die back now. I will do those another year.

I planted a lot of Acorn Squash as I had a standing order for several hundred to go to the local diner. One batch did really well and partly offset the several plantings that did just about nothing. The good ones were "Tay Belle", the bad ones were a couple different brands of "Table Queen" The first of those were planted 5-9 and four more batches 10-14 days apart. So far I have taken 80 Tay Belle to the diner and not a one of the Table Queen yet. The Tay Belle were planted 6/4. There are a lot of squash on the others but not maturing worth beans. There are even a few that are a light cream color, I have no clue where those came from but I'm going to save seeds from them if they have agreeable taste and texture. I think the color will go good served as baked halves at the diner.

The $30 I got for those squash are all I have had for saleable produce this year.

Some of the pumpkins are doing really well with one monster too big for me to even make it wiggle.

Popcorn and broomcorm are both doing real good. There is going to be a learning curve to deal with, I told the granddaughter that we would have a try at making her a witches broom out of our broomcorm. That stuff is ginormous!!, some of it over 14 feet tall with stalks too hard to cut with a knife. I cut one stalk, right above the brace roots, and had to use my pruners to cut it as a knife would not make a mark.

OK,, whine mode is now off, things will be better next year.

specgrade
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Yep, my cukes were great while they lasted, the tomatoes are still producing, the corn was tore up by squirrels and some things didn't even make a showing. Still it was better than last year.

Next year I am going to expand a bit and rearrange some plantings (not put the cukes in the middle of the garden :roll: ) and try out a drip irrigation instead of the trusty sprinkler.

Time to sit back and think of what will be 8)

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gixxerific
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The garden is never done.

Off to plant some spinach and whatever else floats my boat. :wink:

garden5
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gixxerific wrote:The garden is never done.

Off to plant some spinach and whatever else floats my boat. :wink:
Yeah, spinach is a good fall crop.

Gix, are you doing any fall onions this year?

What about those red homongs, what ever became of those?

Next year, I'd really like to put in a large patch of sweet potatoes and squash.....really large. I tried to get a good squash harvest this year by planting several bush plant too close together, but they didn't do good at all maybe 2 or so of each variety. The SVB has a lot to do with that.

For the sweet potatoes, I'd really like to give them their own 10 x 10 spot (yeah, I really like sweet potatoes, but who doesn't), but we'll see. If I can go bigger, great, if not, oh well.

The toms are still going, but I will be smart this year and pick them all before there is a hard frost, probably within the next few weeks.

Good luck with your fall gardens, all.

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gixxerific
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G5 I will be planting onions with my garlic I hope that is not too late for the onions. But I really want to put them where my Sweet Potatoes are now. So I have to wait for them to be harvested.

About the Red Hmongs never ate one of them they all became compost. I will try again next year though. They never turned color.



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