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rainbowgardener
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fall chores

So summer lasted until into October. We went to California to spend time with twin granddaughters (just turned one year old and adorable!). When we got back it had suddenly turned in to fall and the rain finally came back.

So now I am planting for fall/winter. Started planting seeds of cool weather crops on Oct 17 and already have tiny seedlings of broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce. The broccoli and cabbage won't be fall crops, because I couldn't plant for so long, but will over winter. Also planted spinach, chard, garlic, onions, kale.

Strangely enough the thing that made it through all the heat and drought the best were potatoes. So I have three beautiful potato plants from potato eyes that were planted mid summer.

In the meantime, I am busy repotting/ up potting all the 20-some containers, many of have trees. Brought in two containers of houses plants after repotting. I had three containers of house plants (unfortunately our house doesn't have much in the way of good windows for house plants). But we have been refinishing our deck, so I took all of the containers off the deck. The chickens decided they loved the stuff in one of them and ate it all up! So I need to get something else for that pot. One end of the deck has trellis and a bench with pots of vines growing up it. To refinish that part of the deck, I had to untangle all the vines from the trellis!

Harvesting and drying lots of herbs. I had a bunch of hot peppers left over, because the peppers survived heat and drought better than a lot of stuff. So I dried them and ground them up for pepper powder.

Starting to prune some of all the trees and shrubs. We have: apples, peaches, apricots, figs, avocado, banana, sweetspire, serviceberry, dogwoods, azalea, camellia, viburnum, blueberries, beautyberry, Carolina allspice, Florida anise, lorapetalum, scarlet maple, hazelnuts, elderberry, hawthorn. So I am studying up on how and when to prune everything. The azalea is a re-bloomer and covered in blossoms now. The camellia is covered in buds and the beautyberry is covered in those brilliant colored berries. So none of that gets pruned now, but a lot of the other stuff can be, now or soon. I should really make myself up a calendar of what to prune when.

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rainbowgardener
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So I bought four new large containers, to house my growing collection of trees-in-pots:

Two of the 22" wide by 21" tall:
Image

and two of the 18" wide by 16" tall:
Image

They come as two packs for very reasonable prices - $40 for two of the giant ones (I was surprised how big they are! I should get a picture of mine that shows the size!) and $30 for two of the large ones. They are called Sonora, by Suncast. They are nice looking and seem as sturdy as any other plastic resin pots. You have to drill your own holes, but it isn't hard. I turned a 12" pot upside down in the bottom of the giant ones, just not to have to use QUITE so much fill stuff in it.

So then the ones those trees were in are freed up for other stuff. Two redbud trees and a buckeye volunteered themselves this year that I am digging up and potting, while resisting keeping more of the maples and oaks that constantly volunteer. If there were a market for tree seedlings, I could be rich!!

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applestar
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Nice decorative design. :D What will you be using for drip pan?

I’ve given up on decorative and am using square washing machine drain pans — very functional. Individual large round container might benefit from hot water heater drain pan. I like that both are very sturdy and won’t crack or break from the weight of the plant containers.

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TomatoNut95
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Last week after work, I stopped off at Dollar General; they had their garden stuff 90% off! :bouncey: I grabbed up all the uncracked pots I could find, after all they were only 10 cents each, even the 2 packs! I felt so greedy, but hey never pass up a bargain on something you need! But sadly, they all need holes in them to. It's on my 'Gotta do this Winter in Preparation for next Spring' list. :roll:

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rainbowgardener
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The big pots all stay outdoors all winter/ year around, so no drain pan needed. They have my new trees from this spring in them: two fig trees, a banana, and an avocado. Next step is to rig up some kind of ersatz greenhouse around them. Has to be soon! Starting tomorrow night, we have low temps forecast from 34 - 36 for four nights and then some warm up. These pots are lined up against the south facing garage wall.

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TomatoNut95
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A banana tree? Awesome! Wish I could grow one, but it would die during the wintertime.

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rainbowgardener
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Why? You are in zone 8, I am in 7b.

Here's some info about cold hardy edible bananas

https://www.thespruce.com/hardy-banana-trees-3269728

Mine is a cavendish banana, which is allegedly hardy in zone 7- 10 and produces edible bananas.
https://www.willisorchards.com/product/ ... bnR0-hKiM8

I just bought mine this spring. It grew well and produced lots of pups. We will see what happens now.....

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TomatoNut95
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Most interesting! Thanks! :) Years ago I had one of those kiddie kits that you could grow your own banana trees from seeds. The seeds never germinated. Bananas must not grow from seed too well.

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rainbowgardener
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I finished all the re-potting and the pruning I can do for now. A number of things can't be pruned until they are fully dormant.

I am weeding out and thinning all the little seedlings of cold weather plantings. One of the circle garden quarters will not get planted this winter. So I am dumping a bunch of mulchy stuff on in (bedding straw and fall leaves) and turning it under a little while I weed the bed out. Then I left it open so the chickens can get in and work that bed for awhile and leave some little fertilizer balls in it ( :D ). Eventually I will close it back up again and let it rest until late winter.

Haven't quite completed the deck refinishing project. When that is done, I will (finally!) build the third quarter of the circle garden. Somehow there has always been something else that needed doing.

Here's when the second circle quarter was just being built, with strawberries, asparagus and rhubarb in the first quarter.
circle garden Part II.jpg
I couldn't seem to find a good picture of both of them now. Here's one last year when it was all full of corn and squash
IMG_1805.JPG
So hopefully, I will build the third quarter this fall and winter and finally finish the circle next spring!! This project was started spring of 2017!! The circle is 24 feet in diameter....

HoneyBerry
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nice garden

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rainbowgardener
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Here's five more veggie beds:
overview 5-28.jpg

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TomatoNut95
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That is beautiful! Love that fence!

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rainbowgardener
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It was a necessity to keep the dogs and chickens out of the gardens! :)

imafan26
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You have done a lot of work on the house and garden and it all looks great. The thing with garden and house chores is that there are always more chores to do.

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TomatoNut95
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@Rainbowgardener, what is that blue looking plant in the bed in the back? Is that purple cabbage?

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rainbowgardener
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TomatoNut95 wrote:@Rainbowgardener, what is that blue looking plant in the bed in the back? Is that purple cabbage?
yes

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TomatoNut95
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It's pretty! I'd like to grow some, but I don't think I have seen transplants for it. I'll see purple ornamental cabbage or kale and I'm like, where are people buying this stuff? I only find green.

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rainbowgardener
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I start almost everything from seed. It is easier to find a big variety in seeds than plants. The cabbage is easy to do from seed planted directly in the ground.

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TomatoNut95
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I believe I have tried growing cabbage from seed. I think I'm just jinxed when it comes to growing cool-season crops. The easiest thing I have grown is lettuce. But this year hasn't been good for lettuce either! I planted red Romaine transplants, and planted green Romaine seeds. The red got frostbitten, and the green seeds never germinated. My green thumb seems to be turning brown. I have had good success with Black Seeded Simpson in the past, but I gave up on that variety since it bolts too fast.



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