Fall Tilling

[jal_ut]

I just went out and started the big Green and tilled my garden plot.
I have already planted the garlic, Guess I am done for the season?
Sunny skies today and the temp is 54 degrees F. The weather man
says we have a few more sunny days coming.

[applestar]

It's always kind of frustrating to have the freeze come through and wipe out the garden, and then warm weather returns to tease you, but I guess it's better to accept those days as ideal time to spend outside and put the garden to bed for the season.

I bet those sunny days will help get the microbes in the tilled ground started a bit before they begin hibernating from the cold and snow.

[gumbo2176]

That sure beats my walk behind, front tine little 5 HP. tiller that gives me a pretty good workout a few times a year. I busted some new ground for my brother-in-law last week after he bought a new house on 1.5 acres of well manicured lawn. His ground was hard pan gray clay and that little tiller did the job, but it beat me up.

If you could garden year round, you could likely feed a small community with all the produce you'd get. I've seen pics of your limited growing time harvests and I must say, your ground must be fertile enough to plant a toothpick and grow a tree.

[PaulF]

I only fall till because the mulch (paper and straw) get incorporated into the soil to add organics that my soil needs badly. Also, shredded leaves and extra compost gets tilled in every fall. This gets done after the first frost and before the ground freezes solid. If my soil was in great shape the tilling would wait for spring. It is now to the point I only rake things smooth in the spring.

[digitS']

As of today, I have things outta the way for the Tractor Guy in the big veggie garden.

Come on, Tractor Guy!!

Actually, I'm hoping to get back out there before he shows up and get all the plants down on the ground. The easier he has it ~ the better the job he will do. Yeah.

Steve

[jal_ut]

The leaves have not came off my trees yet. We are having an extended warm fall. When the leaves do fall I will pick up some off the front lawn and put them on the garden. I like to leave all the garden plants that are not picked for the harvest and till in everything, including standing corn stalks. That tractor mounted tiller tills it all in.

[Taiji]

No frost here yet, but it looks like maybe this weekend. I gotta get out there and get all the remaining tomatoes. (and there's lots of them!)

Just between you and me, I'm not really frustrated when frost comes! Being an aging baby boomer I look forward to some much needed rest! I do get my garden beds planted with cover crops, then all I have to do is go out and water them occasionally during the winter. But, looks like we're expecting a wet winter here with el nino.

[digitS']

I have everything on the horizontal in the big veggie garden as of yesterday morning.

The sunflowers will be the toughest altho they are cut in about 16" chunks and about 6" from the ground.

The corn stalks can't be so great for the tiller, either. I forgot all about bringing any home for fall decorating! I've even done that especially early some years, hanging them in the carport. That seems to help them hold onto their leaves a little better. Forgot to turn my pumpkins through the summer ... I suppose I should quit complaining about my aging memory and get what I got out by the front door to scare the kids. Weirdly shaped punkins might help with that ...

Steve

[jal_ut]

Memories

Yes I do have fun with the gardening.

[jal_ut]

Raked up a big pile of leaves today onto a tarp and pulled them out to the garden. Lots of good organic matter here.

[imafan26]

James you get so much out of your plot in your short season. I am still fighting off snails that keep eating all of my seedlings and the ever present weeds.

[gumbo2176]

James you get so much out of your plot in your short season. I am still fighting off snails that keep eating all of my seedlings and the ever present weeds.

I'm with you with the pests still attacking my plants. I've noticed a good bit of damage to my salad greens and beet seedlings and issues with my tomato plants. Then I have oxalis coming out my ears right now with these mild temperatures running into the second week of November. A frost will kill the oxalis and it will just stay dormant for the most part until spring and rear its ugly head again as the ground warms.

Until 2 days ago I was still running my A/C frequently to cut down on humidity with the mid to high 80 degree temperatures. Just these past 2 days have brought some cooler temperatures and I can now have the house open to air out with cross ventilation. My electric bill will be better soon------I hope.

[jal_ut]

Interesting! We don't have land snails here. I think you should get after those snails though. I am sure there are some options to thin them out.

[imafan26]

African snails were imported for escargo and they escaped. I have 4 inch African snails, bush snails, and at least 4 different kinds of slugs. I have seen some cannibal snails but they are few.
The rain has really made the weeds take off even more and they are so big that I burned out 3 weed whackers this year. I usually have a wet yard anyway and the snails love all the hiding places. I need a weed party, but I don't think anyone would want to takle these guys.

Tomorrow I am debating which garden I will work on. The Urban garden will be closed for veteran's day but usually some volunteers come in anyway. I could go to my community garden, but with the rain I don't think I need to water and I don't know if the composting facility will be open on a holiday. My best bet would be to stay home and fill my green cans which will not take long. I still have half the bilimbi tree to cull and I can pick any spot in my yard and it will still take me most of the day to make a dent in it. If it doesn't rain for at least three hours I can round up the paths again. It is actually working the best at keeping the weeds from coming back. It just takes more than one round to get the sprouted seeds taken care of. Since the weeds are growing between the rocks and pavers it is easier to kill the roots this way. Wednesday is usually my day to volunteer at the botanical garden and I need to check in once in a while.

I don't get cold enough to kill anything. Rain will kill off my succulents and some orchids as well as turn the lavender black if it lasts long enough, but the weeds just love the rain. I have turned the sprinkler system off since it has been raining almost every day and every night enough to be annoying when I try to work outside.

[Taiji]

I usually don't have snails out here, but this year has been wetter than usual, and unseasonably wet these past couple of months. October is usually one of our driest months, just after our southwestern monsoons are over. Not this year; lots of rain in October, very unseasonable. It's good though, almost no one in Arizona complains when we get more rain than we normally do!
So, lots of snails down in the garden. I see snail tracks on the ground (guess I should say snail trails ) and under leaves, under boards, climbing walls, etc. I don't notice a lot of damage from them though, save for the swiss chard. Great huge portions of chard leaves missing; I suspect snails.
What I don't get is where they come from in the first place; how they get here. This is a dry, sandy, hot, high desert environment; and until I moved here, this was virgin land; no standing water. I thought snails laid eggs in clusters. Do they survive deep down in the soil til moisture gets down there and beckons them forth?

[digitS']

This may go a little way towards helping you understand your snail population explosion, Taiji. However, I don't know where they were on your land before your wet, 2015 season.

A gardening writer for the San Francisco Chronicle (sfgate) attempts to answer the question: How Fast Do Garden Snails Reproduce.

"If the average snail lays 86 eggs per cycle and has an average of five reproductive cycles a year, each individual snail can lay 430 eggs a year."

What we also need to keep in mind is that "Garden snails are hermaphroditic ... each individual snail of reproductive age is capable of laying eggs." So, if there are 100 snails hiding somewhere on your property at the beginning of the season, there may be nearly 50,000 by season's end.

Steve

[Taiji]

Interesting, thanks. I just remembered something of significance; almost every year I bring some bags of leaves from in town from friends' properties to put on the garden. I'll bet there were some snails in those bags because the people I got the leaves from have snails!

[digitS']

Sounds likely.

I know that other gardeners have thought that their potting soil held snail eggs. That would be seriously bad news.

I have a few slugs show up in the greenhouse in March/April every year. They tend to like to hide between the inserts and the flats. The seedlings are millimeters away!

I have to find them quick! I'm generous with the bait if I can't.

Steve

[imafan26]

Snails and slugs can lay eggs that will stay dormant up to two years waiting for the right conditions to hatch.

[imafan26]

I just weeded my veggie garden at home again. I found one radish that I missed. One snail and about 9-5 gallon buckets of weeds. My green bin is half empty. It took me 2 1/2 hours to do that and it is not a big garden. I am going back out after my break and fill the other half of the bin and hopefully work on filling the second bin too. I have enough greens and weeds to fill it. If I get tired I can fill the bin fast with the tree trimmings. I had to pull out the basil, they all had downy mildew. The bees were still foraging them so I left the holy basil which doesn't really get downy mildew and is flowering in place. I was going to cut the Jamaican oregano and some other plants but I'll wait on them for a little bit more so the bees have pollen and nectar. I have plenty of other things I can thin out first.

I was looking at my sprinkler manifold. I have already replaced one of the manifolds but two others are leaking and the selanoids on all of the old ones are cracked. Two of the zones are fused and go on at the same time and the insulation is falling off the wires. The system was put in around 1990 so I guess there is work to be done there too. My to do list gets longer every day. For now, I'll just do possible, and take one thing at a time.

[jal_ut]

It is interesting to hear from gardeners from many other areas, and see what different problems we have. Here at this high altitude of 5000 feet, we have about a four month growing season. Some of the cold resistant plants may grow a little beyond those limits. Interesting that some plants like grasses and dandelions and clovers will go dormant yet live to grow come spring, even though the ground may freeze where there roots are. Here it is to be expected to have the ground freeze down about a foot deep or more. We can get low temps down to minus 20 degrees F. Yet many plants survive this. The good thing about the cold is that it takes out many pests, and come spring they must migrate back in as the temperatures rise. Some years we don't get many pests as they don't make it here. About the only garden plants I overwinter are garlic. Asparagus and pie plant (rhubarb) are perennial types. They winter here.

[imafan26]

I don't really have too many plants that go truely dormant. Most will just slow down.

Eggplant and peppers will continue to ripen fruit but they will not make new flowers until maybe around February.

The frangipani plumeria should be dropping leaves, but it is late probably because it has been warmer. Plumeria is not native to Hawaii although many people think it is. The Singapore plumeria will keep its leaves all year.

Nasturtium seeds that were dropped in the late Spring are starting to sprout now that it is getting cooler.

Perilla has been growing all summer but it is blooming now and will die back after that. Any seeds that sprout now will bloom prematurely

Ginger, Turmeric, and arrowroot will start to bloom anytime after September. My turmeric and zingerber already have. After the bloom, the foliage will die back and the rhyzomes will be lifted, the old rotting rhyzomes will be taken out and compost added. New seed pieces will be put in and the bed mulched. The rest will be harvested. Turmeric will come up first, but the ginger can lay dormant till around April.

Desert Rose: If it does not rain much I can keep the desert rose outside and it will not go dormant. if it does start raining too much, it will be killed so I will bring the Desert Rose and some of the other succulents I have onto the lanai. The desert rose will then lose all of the leaves and go dormant until it is taken out again after the rainy season is over.

Roses, Brown turkey fig, and some of my citrus trees never really stop fruiting and flowering. I just have to pick a time and prune them.
I like to prune the roses during the rainy season since it is better not to have many leaves on if it is going to rain nearly every day. It just gets fungal diseases.

I usually lightly prune my citrus trees after the leaves flush to cut out any water sprouts and to keep the trees compact. They bear less fruit, but I have 16 citrus trees and the only way to have that many in a small yard is to keep them in containers and keep them dwarfed. I get enough fruit to meet my needs and some for friends anyway. The Satsuma mandarins in my community garden were inherited from the previous gardener. I just prune them twice a year after the flush and after the fruit is harvest to keep them under 8 feet, open up the canopy so I can plant under them ,and keep the fruit at a convenient height. Actually some of the fruit drags on the ground because the weight of the fruit pulls the branches to the ground.

Unfortunately, there is no off season for weeds. They love rain.

[jal_ut]

Here is the setting of my garden. Down there in the valley. At 5000 feet elevation in Northern Utah, we have a four month growing season.

[imafan26]

You have four months, a lot of land and long growing days. You get a lot done in your short season. It is beautiful.

[jal_ut]

Don't send them (snails) my way!