When do you guys call it quits

[lakngulf]

Uncle!!!

[applestar]

Quits? I was just coo-ing over and weeding around the radish, lettuce, and spinach seedlings that have sprouted this morning....

[jeff84]

well outside I let the plants tell me when they are done, but several plants come inside for the winter, so I guess it never really ends.

[ElizabethB]

My plants tell me when to quit. My lovely heirloom tomatoes, planted in the spring, stressed out in late summer. Time for fried green tomatoes.

I am blessed with a year round growing season. Plants die - I plant new plants or I mix things up with cool weather crops.

I am not emotionally attached to my plants so I have no problem pulling them when they approach the end of their life cycle.

There is always something else to plant.

[jal_ut]

"We still have highs in the 80's and lows in 60's for the next week."

Awesome!

Here at noon today its 51 degrees, overcast and breezy. No rain yet. I put on a jacket and went out to put some seed on the bird feeder.

[xtron]

I have called it quits on the vast majority of the garden. the only thing left is the okra, which is just now starting to produce heavily, the brussel sprouts, which are one frost from being harvested, and a few late arriving tomatoes.
I have chopped and tilled everything else....but SUPRIZE...there is a huge mass of volunteer radishis near where I grew somr last year. the only thing I can figure is there was a few volenteers that came up in the weeds and went to seed...which I spread when I mowed them down.
any way, it looks like I will have fall radishes to eat and give away.

[jal_ut]

I got the garlic planted. Brought in all the tomatoes I had ripening under the cover. These can finish ripening in the house. I am ready for winter. No snow yet, but I reckon the next storm we get will likely have snow.

[rainbowgardener]

Pulled a couple more of the tomato plants. I have only two left now, one of which is a volunteer that popped up mid season, but is now producing.

But beans are still going to town. We've been eating them AND I have quarts of them frozen and they are still coming. Peppers are still producing a lot. And we have started harvesting the first of the fall chard and spinach. Broccoli plants coming along.

Been harvesting and drying lots of herbs. Basil is finished now.

In Cincinnati, there did get to be a point where I put the whole garden to bed and called it finished for the year. And then it would spend some time under a foot of snow. Here in zone 7b, I don't think there will really be a "garden is over" time. It will just keep changing.

[SQWIB]

The original thread was meant to see when folks called it quits on summer veggies not the garden... as we all know there is no end to that .

Anyhow keep it coming I love seeing what everyone else is doing with fall crops and cover crops etc...

I still have a few tomato plants, my Corno Do Toro Giallos are loaded and ripening I have a Jalapeno that is kicking butt and a Tabasco that I think is almost done. A lot of my poblanos are hanging in there, I'm letting the peppers turn red and will smoke and dehydrate them next weekend.

I have a boxcar willie that still has red tomatoes, ate one last night working in the yard.
My eggplants plants have 3-4 eggplants per plant but aren't even the size of a baseball yet, just too cool I guess.
My Matts wild cherry will not quit and I have a celebrity that is hanging in there (I thought the celebrity was a determinate)?

I have a lot of parsley coming back.










This picture is 10 days old and the plant just wont quit there's over 30 peppers on this one plant , I am hoping to go another week, then pull the entire plant and make some Chicken Taco ABT's, this will make my 4th harvest for this one plant alone.





Got more garlic planted and a few sunchokes



Oats and Crimson Clover







I learned to cover with cardboard till you get sprouts or the birds eat all of the oats.






Broccoli is hanging in there, Kale was decimated by something, sprayed with neem oil and Btk, now its coming back, Some romaine is perking up, spinach is hanging in there, I'm gonna let this go the winter and see what happens.
My zucchini plant is still growing with plenty of female flowers, no fruit yet.

Turned off and started breaking down my Irrigation, I will now water by hand if needed.

A low of 46 is forecasted for Monday, so I'll definitely pull everything next weekend and fire up the smoker, dehydrator, firepit and schwenker, dutch oven and cook, freeze, stuff, eat, what ever I have left.
I'll pull some Leeks (from the pots) and make some Leek Potato soup but will leave some in the ground a few more weeks,

[digitS']

SQWIB, my leeks are all chopped and in the freezer . Soup for lunch has already been started and using the leeks was tempting but I have only made this cream of carrot soup a few times so decided to stick with the sauteed ginger, garlic and onions the recipe calls for rather than being too adventuresome.

I checked and it was 15 September when the overnight temperatures dropped out of the mid-40's. I don't have the big veggie garden on my own property so I don't leave anything standing for the tractor guy. I hope that the property owner doesn't call him in this fall. Some of my cilantro plants should make it through the winter and be harvested before he gets there in 2018! Sowing cilantro seed in the sweet corn during the heat of summer and then hoping it will grow after the corn is out of the way didn't work well this year. There was no August cool-down; instead we went from 90° to *cold* like a switch was thrown! Salsa making may still be possible in the spring since DW likes to do it with the cherry tomatoes in the freezer, anyway.

I did venture to add mustard to my cream of carrots. We will see how that turns out. This was again a poor pepper year although the narrow bed of Thai peppers in the greenhouse are really kicking them out! No heat in there so it can't go on forever but Good Heavens, I've got 'em this season!

They are not the varieties I had hoped to smoke, however. Those others should have been indoors as it turns out. Production of the Italian sweet peppers in the garden didn't amount to much. I bought a smoker last year to use in the kitchen like Ming Tsai uses in his show. I've never used smoked peppers and bought a bottle of smoked paprika about the same time to try. ... maybe I should have put some in that soup??

I will tell you what. I'm trying to wean us off so much cured meat. We are gonna miss the smoked flavor and I thought peppers might provide some help. I like sweet peppers and I'm really kicking myself for not putting them in the greenhouse through the summer.

Steve

[jal_ut]

Beautiful day here. Sunny 65 degrees. I walked out through the garden plot and over to the beehives. The bees were out flying.

[KitchenGardener]

Ughhhh! I'm so ready to call it quits and have on some things such as peppers and tomatoes as they surrender their last. And I want everything OUT! so I can clean the garden out, amend the soil and till it for some cold weather crops. But the cukes won't stop producing, and the winter squash plants are not cooperating in ripening their fruit fast enough. Not only that, but the vines have spread everywhere and because of the cool weather and shorter days, the plants have a good amount of (ugly) powdery mildew. I am excited to let my butternut squash and pumpkins ripen fully before picking them, but I am so impatient. I also have 10 padron pepper plants that are still perfectly healthy looking but not producing nearly as much since the season has ended, but despite diminishing returns, I feel bad cutting them down since they look so healthy, and yet I need to clean out the bed!

If you were me, what would you do? Brilliant ideas for hastening the ripening of the squash and pumpkin? You think there might be one last gasp for the peppers, or should I pull the plug? We are officially at 10+ hours of daylight...

[rainbowgardener]

So we had a hard frost last night, down to 30 degrees and a good layer of frost all over everything when we got up this morning. The tomatoes and peppers which still looked good yesterday are now a wilted mess. Some of the beans too, but it looks like some might have pulled through. That was just a little cold snap and the temps are bouncing right back up. By thurs the high is back up in the 70's and stays there the rest of the ten day forecast. So maybe I will get a few more beans yet.

I will be out pulling everything else and replanting with cold weather stuff...

[Gary350]

It was 31 degrees this morning with a light frost. It warmed up to about 65 today, sunny & nice, no clouds in the sky. I planted onions today. As long as I can still grow something I will. Kale, onion, broccoli, bok choy, several plants do good in 25 degree weather. There are crops that do good in 15 degree weather and crops that do good in 5 degree weather. I have them all planted.

[jal_ut]

26 degrees F here this morning. Nothing growing but ice. No snow yet though. I walked out and took a picture of the sunrise. Now guess I will go feed the birds. ........... guess I ain't smart enough to post a picture? Try again. ........ Nope!

[jal_ut]

grdn115 by James_40 Lofthouse, on Flickr

[jal_ut]

Wow! It worked. That is my garden today, 39 degrees and overcast, so I sit here and play on the computer.