Fall Gardeners Unite!

[imafan26]

Frost is not a problem here, but rain is. Too much rain and the plants will get all kinds of fungal problems when it stops.

[Allyn]

I think we northerners can forgive that couple hours remark. Even though some of us haven't seen temps above freezing for days.

What do you use for frost covers? I've found that sheer curtains work very well and don't cook the plants if you forget to remove them the next day or so. It might be more difficult to find curtains large enough for big tomato plants but the curtains can be clipped together with clothes pins.

Who needs tv when you and a hen can go hunting for dinner? Sounds like fun.

Hey, I'm a Northerner, too. I moved down here from New England a few years ago. That's why the "it was brutal" comment was tongue-in-cheek. I tell my husband (a Mississippi Gulf Coast native) he has no idea what cold is. He's seen snow maybe twice in his life and one time a flake made it all the way to the ground(!), where I have stories of playing "Which Mound of Snow is My Car" in a parking lot on post-blizzard mornings when I don't exactly remember where I parked the night before. Shortly after I moved here, I was pulling some stuff out of the back of my car and I pulled this out:

My husband picked it up and looked it over for a minute and then asked me, "What's this for?" The squeegee was the only part he could relate to. The scraper and the brush were lost on him.

Frost covers? Anything I have handy. Bedsheets, shower curtains, shade cloth, landscape fabric -- whatever I have that's big enough and within reach. I like to grab a couple of heavy-duty shower curtain liners when I'm in the dollar store (when I was a kid, it was the five-and-dime. Now it's the dollar store. sheesh) and they come in handy for all sorts of things. I can zip-tie the sides with the holes together and make really big sheets. I group my SiPs together and teepee the shower curtains over the top.

Chickens are a hoot. That's what I call it ... chicken TV. I'll take a break from work during the day and tell my husband I'm going outside to watch some chicken TV. He gets it.

[imafan26]

I have to admit, I wouldn't have known what that was either. All I remember about snow was that black ice is very slippery. Grass is green when it is frozen and turns black when it thaws. Frost on the windows can be a thin layer of ice and windshield wipers make a loud noise going through that. I had to heat my key with a lighter to get it into the frozen lock. Hail sounds like someone throwing rocks against the wall and it looks dirty mixed with mud and it was not white. My hands hurt from the cold and I loved my thermal underwear and fleece socks.

Its has been raining a lot lately, so the weeds are happy. I need a few hours of dryness without the 20mph winds to mow or use Round up. My two green cans are full already and I filled them in less than two hours on one of the few days that the sun sort of came out. The grass was still wet from the night before, but it was my only window since more rain was coming. The electric weed whacker survived. I was amazed. It is a new weedwhacker. The old one bit the dust and the gas weed whacker is too tiring to use.

[digitS']

My bok choy bed is covered with plastic film in the unheated greenhouse .

I really should have pulled a couple of tarps over that film and the pvc hoops the last few nights but it was so sunny on several of the days, I think that there was sufficient "solar gain."

It's been hovering right at or below 0°f on 4 of the last 7 nights. One afternoon saw the thermometers rise to 33°, officially .

My 4 year experience with this "fall growing" here has resulted in 2 December misses and 2 successes. Good thing that after removing the greenhouse benches, not much work commitment is required .

This year will also be a miss, although I can expect Asian greens as usual in late winter. In October 2015, temperatures were so warm, I had no proper size bok choy to move into the greenhouse bed. Instead of moving them, we ate them .

In 2016, October had record rain. The bok choy grew too slowly! Now, the long nights of cold has continued to stymie the bok choy ... Seedlings and transplants are growing at an immeasurable rate!

The February full moon is called the Starvation Moon but I trust that there will be stir-fries .

Steve

[ButterflyLady29]

Ha, I have one like that. Mine's blue, used it a couple days ago on the thick ice on my windshield. But with all the snow and ice we had it was hard to find good footing. My son couldn't scrape one side because when he pushed against the window his feet slid on the ice under him. I rolled the passenger side window down and had a solid sheet of ice standing in the opening!

I never thought of using 2 shower curtains with the holes laced together. That's a great idea! Maybe next year I'll get my cold frame set up so I can get a couple more months of lettuce and kale.

I checked my spring planted kale and bok choi a few days ago. Still alive but very leggy and spindly. I've heard kale gets better after being frozen, maybe. I'll try to get some picked when I can walk down to the garden instead of sliding on my rear.

My mom had planned on having our Christmas dinner today. Here near the big city the roads are pretty clear and have been salted. But she lives out in the country where roads aren't salted and the snow plows might come through tomorrow. Just a little too risky to make that long trip. Maybe next week the weather will be better.

[RadRob]

Besides a few(3) nights with temps about 32° the weather has been great for the fall garden. I've been loading the freezer with collards and broccoli and finally harvested the first cauliflower yesterday. I still have tomatoes going in the greenhouse too. Just couldn't ask for better fall/early winter weather.

[applestar]

Wow -- they are beautiful harvest!

[imafan26]

It is beautiful I bought a chili pepper, eggplant, italian parsley,, and sage. I got two bareroot roses to replace a couple in my front yard. They are already starting to break, which is unfortunate but since it is so cloudy it may be ok. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that the snails won't come out and eat everything before they get a chance to grow.

When I used to order roses, they seemed to time them to arrive on Christmas day. The hardest thing here is to find potting soil in December so I have to stock up on the big bags of peat and perlite around September to carry me through the holidays. The stores are a little better now. They used to put the seasonal stuff in the entire garden department, but they are keeping some of the chemicals and the outside garden still has some of the big bags of amendments although they have fewer choices. They have Big R but no Kellog's compost. They don't have the big bag of MG potting soil but they have the horrible Hyponex that kills everything in sight. I went out today and had to wade through the after Christmas shoppers, but they had enough cashiers inside, it was just a little harder to find a parking space. The hardest thing was getting past people just standing in the aisle not moving.

It has been drizzling rain all morning. I am going to try to go out this afternoon and pull a few weeds and see if I can get the holes dug for the roses today. I should have done this yesterday when it was nice and sunny, but I cleaned the house instead.

[ButterflyLady29]

I am perplexed that in an area where outdoor gardening happens all year, the stores don't carry gardening materials all year. I can understand that in the frozen north gardening supplies are not big sellers all year but even here there are stores that have the material year round (except for seeds, the garden centers clear out the seed racks for the Christmas displays). I just bought a big bag of potting soil the other day at Lowes and our major department stores still have pots on the shelf.

I just potted up some of my rooted cuttings and the mandevillas I dug from the yard before the big freeze hit. Next to be planted are the seeds that need a chill period before they will sprout. I'll probably go through a couple big bags of potting mix before March.

[rainbowgardener]

Yup! We had a beautiful fresh picked head of broccoli with our dinner tonight. It was bigger than the spring planted ones ever got, because it got too hot for them and they were bolting. This was the first of the fall planted broccoli heads and there's maybe ten more to come. Also no trouble with cabbage worms or slugs, etc this time of year!

[lakngulf]

Yup! We had a beautiful fresh picked head of broccoli with our dinner tonight. It was bigger than the spring planted ones ever got, because it got too hot for them and they were bolting. This was the first of the fall planted broccoli heads and there's maybe ten more to come. Also no trouble with cabbage worms or slugs, etc this time of year!

I know that was some tasty broccoli. Some things just ooze with flavor this time of the year.
We have had a few frosts, but I do believe the late tomatoes on my pier are gonna make it to the new year. Also have some collards and turnips doing well.

[imafan26]

I can only plant broccoli around September since they have to be heading up November-May while it is cool enough. Those do look good. I can only grow a few heat tolerant varieties that make a lot of side shoots, but small heads.

Space is a problem for most of the stores. Almost 90% of all goods have to be brought in by ship or air. That is 9 days at sea. Shipping here can cost more than the cost of the goods. Larger stores have their own containers and they buy in bulk. Smaller retailers and farmers have to buy from the larger retailers, ship on space available or act as a coop so they can share the cost of a container. There are also minimum buys so the retailer has to buy a minimum amount to make shipping it in profitable. That means that the retailers have to have a lot of storage space. Land and storage space is a premium, so when seasonal things like Christmas comes around, they have to make room to store it in the retail space and usually that is in place of the garden and outdoor furniture. Those orders get cut because the Christmas things take up the space in the container to ship it over and the storage areas once it gets here. In the mainland some companies shut down when midsummer rolls around because they have fewer orders all over the country so sometimes there isn't anyone to order from. Some of the garden catalogs and seed houses stop taking orders around May. I tried to order some chive seeds from Territorial a few weeks ago, but they said they would not send it until January when their new seed catalog comes out, and I needed the seeds a month ago. Some of the seeds in the current catalogs were back ordered and some are finally coming in now.

Its is scary, but if there is a major disaster that makes it hard to get planes or ships in and out of Hawaii, we have less than a month of food reserves, maybe only days for some things.

[rainbowgardener]

Another reason you all should be growing your own. At least you have a year around growing climate.

[rainbowgardener]

Out doing yard work and discovered that amongst the leaves mulching one of the garden beds, there are a bunch of little lettuce plants. I did grow lettuce in that bed in the spring and let some of it go to seed. Now all these months later, some of those seeds have sprouted and I have nice little leaf lettuce plants!!

[gumbo2176]

Out doing yard work and discovered that amongst the leaves mulching one of the garden beds, there are a bunch of little lettuce plants. I did grow lettuce in that bed in the spring and let some of it go to seed. Now all these months later, some of those seeds have sprouted and I have nice little leaf lettuce plants!!

I call those little gifts "volunteers". I'm finding them all the time in my garden and around the compost pile. I know I'll likely find a few dozen tomato volunteers in the spring and I'm always getting sweet basil popping up where it was planted in the spring.

[lakngulf]

I had one of thse "gifts" this morning. I was reworking a raised bed, moved some soil and there were three NICE sweet potatoes!

[rainbowgardener]

I always have lots of baby tomato plants volunteer where ever I put down compost and sometimes squashes as well. I don't let the tomato plants grow and only occasionally the squash. Basil very rarely volunteers for me, even when I have deliberately let some go to seed. The baby lettuces weren't from the compost, they were from lettuce in that bed that I let go to seed. I even do a little shaking the seed heads out, to try to help make sure it re-seeds. They are kind of coming up in clumps though; I may transplant them out to better spacing.

Garden looks better now at New Year's than it did in September in heat and drought!!

[gumbo2176]

I always have lots of baby tomato plants volunteer where ever I put down compost and sometimes squashes as well. I don't let the tomato plants grow and only occasionally the squash. Basil very rarely volunteers for me, even when I have deliberately let some go to seed. The baby lettuces weren't from the compost, they were from lettuce in that bed that I let go to seed. I even do a little shaking the seed heads out, to try to help make sure it re-seeds. They are kind of coming up in clumps though; I may transplant them out to better spacing.

Garden looks better now at New Year's than it did in September in heat and drought!!

I'm probably mentioning something you already know, but just in case-------lettuce plants do very well when transplanted and I have a very high survival rate when I do this. I probably have close to 200 lettuce plants of differing varieties in my garden right now with the main one being Black Seeded Simpson. I love loose leaf lettuce.

[applestar]

I haven't been posting in this thread because I'm not "officially" fall gardening, but I do have a few things here and there that are still growing/surviving. And today, I went out and harvested some nice Fun Gen looseleaf Chinese cabbage leaves from under a, well-covered against flying menaces but *very casually* covered with patchy plastic, low tunnel.

[rainbowgardener]

Beauty-full! What a blessing to have good food coming out your (zone 6!) garden at Yule-tide.

[jal_ut]

You zone 6 ers are drivin me nuts. Here it is 16 degrees F this morning and a foot of snow on the ground. The only thing growing is ice. Supposed to be another snow storm coming tonight.

[rainbowgardener]

These days I'm in zone 7. 60 degrees here today, although we do have a cold front coming with up to one inch of snow predicted for Sat. (It will be gone by the next day).

[Gary350]

About 15 years ago I had a very successful winter garden in flower pots. I planted, lettuce, kale, carrots, potatoes in flower pots. Every morning when the temperature was above freezing I put the pots outside so they got sun light all day. Every evening before temperature dripped below 32 I had all the pots in the house. I had 3 kinds of lettuce in 3 large pots and kale we had the best salads every day all winter. After several months we had 11 large carrots and a dozen potatoes. It was a lot of work to put the pots outside every morning then bring them inside every evening.

The next year I planted a garden on a 4'x8' 2 utility trailer. Every morning I pushed the trailer outside for the plants to get sun light all day. Every evening I pushed the trailer back into the garage and closed the door. Temperature inside the garage was usually 35 to 40 degrees all night, we had 17 degree weather a few times the portable garden did good. Garage was attached to the house there was enough heat from the house to keep things from freezing. We had, lettuce, chard, kale, beets, tomatoes, onions, garlic, carrots in large pots. Like before I had to move plants outside very morning and inside every evening. It was an interesting experiment that turned out good.

Today it is 19 degrees and we have 1" of snow.

[rainbowgardener]

I am still eating last year's spring planted swiss chard and fall planted broccoli out of my garden! We did have a couple nights where it went down to around 15 degrees and I thought everything was done for. It looked pretty bad the next day, all wilted, etc, but then it came right back. Some of the leaves have frost bite marks, but the plants are doing great! I never even covered anything, since I thought it was done for.

The broccoli is bigger (plants and heads) than it ever got planted last spring (when it rapidly got too hot for it). And the spring planted broccoli had slugs and cabbage worms. Nothing is bothering the winter broccoli! For those of us with climates where this works, this is really the way to grow all the winter stuff!

[Allyn]

We had a total of about 24 hours of freezing temps spread over maybe 5 days that were sprinkled between overnight lows in the 50s and highs in the 70s. That has been the extent of our winter. I've got seedlings up already for flowers, tomatoes, lettuces and beans for spring. Some of the marigolds are already blooming. My peppers have overwintered and are setting blossoms again, though my Thai peppers never stopped producing. I guess the Fall garden is officially done and it's time to start the Spring garden. I'll see if my flytraps survived and figure out a way to cage them so the chickens don't eat the few I managed to save last year.

[Gary350]

I had vegetable beef Stew for breakfast and coffee. Corn, peas, Lima beans, carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, I love vegetables. It is 7 am and 60 degrees, going to be 70 and sunny today. It rained almost 2" yesterday lots of mud in the garden. Garlic, onions, lettuce, herbs are looking good in the garden. 3 more months I can start planting the garden. I think I will make a loaf of sunflower seed bread today.

[gumbo2176]

I had vegetable beef Stew for breakfast and coffee. Corn, peas, Lima beans, carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, I love vegetables. It is 7 am and 60 degrees, going to be 70 and sunny today. It rained almost 2" yesterday lots of mud in the garden. Garlic, onions, lettuce, herbs are looking good in the garden. 3 more months I can start planting the garden.

Sounds like you eat as unconventionally in the mornings as I do. I had a bowl of split pea soup with ham chunks for breakfast, sandwiched between cups of coffee to get the day started.

It just drizzled a bit yesterday and I had time to work the garden a bit and plant some parsley I had started in small pots into the garden, harvest the Brussels Sprouts, trim off dead leaves on the broccoli plants that are making plenty of side shoots and doing some weeding before cutting the grass and trimming the yard. Then I took all the garden waste and ran over it with the mower to chop it up a bit to put in the compost pile.

My lettuce and other salad greens took a bit of a hit with 2 days of below freezing weather early last week and they are making a great recovery with new growth getting bigger by the day.

[gumbo2176]

Well, we got some heavy rains this morning and when it quit I got out in the garden to pick collards. Nothing like picking two 5 gallon buckets worth and it counted out to 175 nice leaves to get cleaned, cut and cooked down with some seasoning ham, onions, a bit of garlic and a few other spices. That amount of greens will probably yield about 3/4 gallon of finished greens since they cook down so much.

[Gary350]

I had vegetable beef Stew for breakfast and coffee. Corn, peas, Lima beans, carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, garlic, tomatoes, herbs, I love vegetables. It is 7 am and 60 degrees, going to be 70 and sunny today. It rained almost 2" yesterday lots of mud in the garden. Garlic, onions, lettuce, herbs are looking good in the garden. 3 more months I can start planting the garden.

Sounds like you eat as unconventionally in the mornings as I do. I had a bowl of split pea soup with ham chunks for breakfast, sandwiched between cups of coffee to get the day started. .

I am tired of the traditional breakfast, bacon, eggs, sausage, toast, waffle, pancake, muffin, cereal, after eating this for 60 years I can't stand it anymore. These days I often eat what ever was left over from last nights dinner, tomorrow morning will be meat balls with spaghetti sauce. Yesterday was enchiladas, one day was Swiss steak, before that chili, before that Rubin Sandwich, tacos, cabbage rolls, stir fly, gyro, beef stew, chicken salad, peanut butter sandwich, baked beans and coffee. Sometimes breakfast is a mix of anything I can find in the refrigerator that is not high carbohydrates. I sometimes search the internet to see what people in other countries eat for breakfast. I emailed a friend in Germany he said he had Bratwurst and coffee for breakfast. A few weeks ago I had left over India Food take out from a local restaurant. I would eat India food more often if I could afford $12 for lunch every day. I still love biscuits & gravy but not enough protein for breakfast it gets my blood sugar out of control.

[digitS']

Americans tend to NOT eat anything green for breakfast.

Few of the other world's people think that green is worth avoiding. But ... ask an American if they want a salad or green beans on the side or mustard greens ... . Okay, try this -- chopping an avocado into some scrambled eggs. Huh? How about guacamole in your breakfast burrito?

I can't quite get to green beans and mustard greens ... &, if we don't get some sun into my greenhouse house, I might have to go another month without bok choy ... for lunch! Or, dinner! Anytime, except breakfast .

Steve

[gumbo2176]

Much like Gary350, I will often eat some of what I had the night before for dinner for my first meal of the day, and that is usually around 8 a.m. after several cups of coffee and seeing the wife off to work. Yes, I'm retired and the wife hasn't reached Nirvana yet and plans to put in a few more years before hanging them up while I take care of all the things that need to be done around the home.

Just this morning I ate a small bowl of fried rice with tons of vegetables that I cooked while the Patriots were destroying the Steelers in Foxboro on Sunday night. The only time I really eat a traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon or sausage, hash browns or grits with toast is on the weekends when my wife and I can share this together. During the week when she leaves for work, I'll usually pack her an English Muffin with ham and cheese and some fruit to eat once she gets to her desk at the office while getting her day planned out.

[Allyn]

I love a traditional breakfast.....but not for breakfast. We'll have eggs, bacon, grits or hash browns, or maybe french toast or biscuits and sausage gravy...whatever, but for dinner. Like some of you, we just heat up last night's leftovers or make something easy like pasta and red sauce for breakfast. This morning I had a garden salad and a piece of garlic bread for breakfast. The salad had a chunked-up hard-boiled egg in it. Does that count as eggs for breakfast?

[lakngulf]

So, I'm supposed to have more than coffee for breakfast?

To me eggs, grits, bacon and biscuits are best at 10am or 6pm

[Gary350]

I love a traditional breakfast.....but not for breakfast. We'll have eggs, bacon, grits or hash browns, or maybe french toast or biscuits and sausage gravy...whatever, but for dinner. Like some of you, we just heat up last night's leftovers or make something easy like pasta and red sauce for breakfast. This morning I had a garden salad and a piece of garlic bread for breakfast. The salad had a chunked-up hard-boiled egg in it. Does that count as eggs for breakfast?

I love breakfast in the evening for dinner too. I can not eat carbs for breakfast it sends my blood sugar out of control but I can eat all I want for dinner about 5 pm. There are certain things I never get to eat a few weeks ago we had, pancakes, hash browns, biscuits & gravy, sausage, bacon, ham for dinner with REAL maple syrup and hot chocolate.

[Allyn]

...I love breakfast in the evening for dinner too. I can not eat carbs for breakfast it sends my blood sugar out of control but I can eat all I want for dinner about 5 pm. There are certain things I never get to eat a few weeks ago we had, pancakes, hash browns, biscuits & gravy, sausage, bacon, ham for dinner with REAL maple syrup and hot chocolate.

Oh please! It HAS to be real maple syrup. It can't be that artifical maple-flavored corn syrup that most people think is maple syrup. I introduced my husband to real maple syrup and real American cheese (not that individually-wrapped cheese-flavored food-like substance he always thought was American cheese) and he's never going back.

That sounds like a yummy breakfast-for-dinner dinner.