Its About Over

[jal_ut]

OK applestar, here is a photo for you. This is the trap that caught the giant grizzly bear known as Old Ephraim. You can look up "Old Ephraim" on Wikipedia.

[jal_ut]

[jal_ut]

[jal_ut]

My garden ready for winter:

[bri80]

Just wanted to share a few pictures of my winterized vegetable garden.

[Taiji]

These two pictures were taken from my yard looking out toward the East. Gives you an idea of the area I live in. I live in a small community, and the city limits line comes through my lot so part of my lot is in the city and part is in the county. You can see the beehives in the picture? Any way it is nice to have part of the lot in the county so I don't have to obey city ordinances about beekeeping in the city.

I especially like the photo looking out toward the highway going up into the hills. I'll bet there's not a lot of traffic on that road?

Interesting about half city/half county! At my spot my side of the road is county, across the road is city. Not that it makes much difference. No ordinances are enforced here in Mayberry unless it's something that will make money for the government!

[Taiji]

Just wanted to share a few pictures of my winterized vegetable garden.

That's really a great little garden! This is my first year of growing crimson clover as a cover crop. (along with some others) I read that it is an annual. Just curious, do you turn it in just before it blooms or wait til it blooms? It also looks like you have it growing down under the kale/collards?

I also do some yellow clover which seems to be really popular around here. It is a biennial so it never blooms since I fork it in long before that.

[bri80]

Just wanted to share a few pictures of my winterized vegetable garden.

That's really a great little garden! This is my first year of growing crimson clover as a cover crop. (along with some others) I read that it is an annual. Just curious, do you turn it in just before it blooms or wait til it blooms? It also looks like you have it growing down under the kale/collards?

I also do some yellow clover which seems to be really popular around here. It is a biennial so it never blooms since I fork it in long before that.

Thanks! Yeah best to turn it in before it blooms. If it blooms the stalks get woody and it takes longer to decompose. And good eye, I do plant it under all my winter crops. It it non-competitive until spring when the kale/collards are done. So then I take out the kale and the clover takes over and then gets turned in, leaving a really nice bed.

Edited: just noticed your username. do you train taijiquan? Been training for 10 years now myself.

[digitS']

Bri80, you have several types of kale in that bed, right? Is that Portuguese kale?

I still have some kale plants but they were really harvested regularly, right through the season. There is likely to be a little in the fridge, as well.

A quick story about kale . I grew up eating kale. I don't remember it in the garden but Mom was a person who frequented the health food stores. When I began to have gardens of my own, I finally grew kale.

I had a big garden at that time, especially for a young guy. It was 150' long and the garden gate was about 30' from my backdoor. I planted the kale at the far end of the garden.

It was a very snowy winter and we had about 5' of snow to deal with. There were those big kale plants, all that distance away! I set off through the deep snow one morning, determined to get some of that kale into the kitchen. My tracks all that distance and through 5' of snow showed for several months. It was such a hard slog I decided it was one of the most ridiculous things I had ever done!

Now these many years later, I once again have kale . Over the last 10 years, or so, I have learned to enjoy it again. Fortunately, the woman who is now my wife likes it, too .

Steve

[jal_ut]

[bri80]

Bri80, you have several types of kale in that bed, right? Is that Portuguese kale?

Champion collards, improved dwarf siberian, dwarf blue curled and red russian are the varieties.

[digitS']

There you go!

Each of those 3 kales are a little/a lot different from each other.

Collards and Portuguese kale are similar genetically. I'm just so unfamiliar with collards, I don't know about taste.

Steve

[Taiji]

Edited: just noticed your username. do you train taijiquan? Been training for 10 years now myself.

No, I don't but it would probably do me a world of good. It's a long story, but suffice to say my cat's name is Taiji. Sometimes she lets me on the forum! But most of the time she's on my lap watching carefully when I post! She is black and white.

[rainbowgardener]

Now it is about over for me. We had a killing frost a couple days ago. I harvested all the green tomatoes and pulled the tomato plants and the basil plants.

I kept thinking that I was going to do more fall planting, but between having a lot of non-garden projects to do and terrible drought making it all kind of discouraging, that didn't happen. The fall planted broccoli is doing well and starting to make heads (and bigger than it ever got in the spring, when it bolted too soon, when the weather warmed up). The chard is still doing well. The garlic sprouts are doing well and the perennial herbs are still going. Otherwise, not much left in the garden. I am starting to work on putting the garden plots to bed - give them a layer of composted manure from the horse ranch, a layer of my finished garden compost and a good layer of fall leaves and just let them sit for a couple months. Planting cold weather crops will probably start in February, which isn't that long from now.

[jal_ut]

[jal_ut]

[jal_ut]

[jal_ut]

bri80, thanks for your pictures. Fun to see what others are doing!

[jal_ut]

I did plant some garlic cloves and a row of spinach seed. The spinach came up, but don't suppose it will make anything this fall. My hope is that it will overwinter and make some early spring greens.

[jal_ut]

Quote: "I especially like the photo looking out toward the highway going up into the hills. I'll bet there's not a lot of traffic on that road? "

That road is the farmer's driveway. He put a house up on the top of his acres overlooking the valley.

My lot is on the edge of town and like I said part of it is in the county. The road I am on has 4 houses along it. Two of the houses are vacant. The road leads to nothing but an intersection to go to the West. So there is hardly any traffic on my road either. Maybe 4-6 cars a day?

This morning 34 degrees F and overcast. Supposed to be a storm coming in for the weekend. Likely have some snow in it. Let 'er rip!

[Taiji]

Gotta love a road with hardly any traffic.

Here's something else to do in winter:

Ruth Stout books were my mom's. She loved her. I can be sitting alone in the house and laugh out loud at least once every page when reading Ruth Stout over and over again! Really entertaining.

I used to like Roger Swain on the Victory Garden. I learned a lot from him. I just got his books on ebay the other day.

[applestar]

I love vintage books. Even the sometimes musty smell.

[jal_ut]

Books: Sitting near are the Sibley's Guide to the Birds, and the Webster's Dictionary. These are about the only books I look at any more. Its just too easy to have Google look up anything you need info on.
As far as a story book, my tired ol eyes have a hard time reading it so I seldom try.

Anyhow, have fun!

[jal_ut]

10:30 AM, its sunny and 36 degs F. We had 3 inches of snow a few days ago, some is still hanging on in the shady spots.
Our community fire fighters sponsored a Trap Shoot this morning. I grabbed my shotgun and went up, but my tired ol eyes could not see the birds. So I came home.
So I sit here in front of the computer ...............

[applestar]

James, you might consider getting a tablet -- I have iPad Pro which is larger (approx. 9" x 12" guesstimated) and comfortably displays double pages like a book, but you can take your pick. Then you can download e-Books and adjust font size any way you like. There are free ones with just text for most of the older classics, too.

I was deciding whether to buy copies of three-volume scifi novels that I had not read in a while. I have them in paperback but could only find the middle one and suspected the -first- volume was in storage -- was it worth my time to go rummage and search? Then I peeked in the yellowed pages of the 2nd volume I had and the print was tiny! HA -- I bought the ebooks on sale.

Some other advantages are -- you can search for remembered or relevant passage related to current page... and even better, you can look up definitions and brief encyclopedia descriptions of words and concepts, and go on to search for more info. Re-reading old favorites has become an enjoyable past time because I'm getting a lot more out of them than I did before.

[applestar]

LOLOL -- I just realized I posted what seems like mutually exclusive comments ...but truth is I do enjoy reading. I read more during the cold months.

[Gary350]

Winter is here for sure it was 20 degrees this morning when the sun was coming up and going to be 60 today and 75 Wed.

[jal_ut]

21 degrees F this morning. 0.21 in the rain gauge. Overcast. No snow yet. The mountain tops are snow covered.

[digitS']

Winter is here for sure it was 20 degrees this morning when the sun was coming up and going to be 60 today and 75 Wed.

Big temperature swing, early morning to mid-afternoon ...

This sort of thing I could expect in James's high elevation, arid conditions.

I think your lingering drought must be pushing cold temperature conditions.

Steve

[jal_ut]

"Its About Over"

It is over. Cold and windy here today, likely to get snow soon. Won't be growing anything for the next 4 months.
I do not grow in the house and don't have a green house, so guess play on the computer.............
shovel snow, sharpen tools, look at seed catalogs, maybe order up some seeds and make plans?
What do you do in the off months?

[applestar]

22°F this morning. Yep. "It's over" here as well.

I cook and bake more during the cold months -- I have a bunch of recipe's I "clipped" to try. Also get my hands on some craft projects that had been on hold....

But you know I grow a whole mess of stuff in the house, too -- usually something new or on further trial every year. As well, there are cultured foods that can be better managed in the cooler indoor temps since I don't have a basement/cellar where such projects might be grown. This year's New Experiment! have been micro-greens and kefir

[Gary350]

Everything in the garden survived 20 degree weather. Broccoli, Peas, Kale, Beets, Swiss Chard, Lettuce, Napa Cabbage, had ice on the leaves but they all lived. Wonder how cold it has to get to kill these plants. Many years ago I grew Kale it lived through 3 winters the 4th winter -17 below zero killed it.

[bri80]

Trying something new this year. Just hate every year where I go without fresh salads from December-April. Something about fresh lettuce just makes me crave it, store-bought lettuce can't come close - I don't even eat salads from lettuce I didn't grow anymore.

Soooo.... even though it will be more work and expense (lights, electricity, etc), I decided to try and grow some indoor lettuce over the winter. To me it is worth it to have homegrown salads! A few staggered container plantings should do it. Here is the first batch! I'm going to start harvesting from it after another week or so I think.

[applestar]

Oh drool! They look great!

[jal_ut]

Here tonight 22 degrees F with 4 inches of snow on the ground. Nothing growing except ice.
I have got 2 seed catalogs this week.

[Taiji]

18 degrees here at my higher elevation garden this morning. Had about an inch of snow a few days ago. It's mostly gone now.

Last weekend got 2 free huge heaping pickup loads of horse manure from a horseman close by! It's so exciting! (It doesn't take much to make me happy!) It should be good, its been sitting about a year.

Am going to call today about some more at a source a little closer.

I like the looks of that lettuce. It gives me an idea. I recently closed in a south facing porch with windows. It gives a tremendous heat gain for the house. I think I'll just use the sunlight coming in for the light source. Hope it's enough. Don't really want to set up the light system til I start the seedlings around Feb.

[gumbo2176]

Here tonight 22 degrees F with 4 inches of snow on the ground. Nothing growing except ice.
I have got 2 seed catalogs this week.

I've noticed you've been posting a lot more than usual so that tells me your garden is done for the year for sure. Well, with 2 seed catalogs and months of garden dormancy, that gives you plenty of time to get next years garden planned---------yeah, like that is hard work for you by this stage in life.

I won't tell you in a response post just how my garden is doing right now. Just suffice it to say I love this time of year outdoors.

[jal_ut]

gumbo2176, Today overcast and 21 degrees F with 4 inches of snow on the ground. I don't grow anything indoors, so its definitely over until about April. To have something to do in winter, I do feed the birds and can spend some time watching what comes to the feeder.

[jal_ut]

Friday December 9, 2016
Might look like a re-run of my last post. 4 inches of fresh snow this morning. I got the snow shovel and cleared the walks. I put some heat on the tractor and will go see if it will start after a bit, then clear the drive way. Still getting loads of the Eu doves on the feeder. Not much of any thing else. A couple Starlings, one Junco and one House Finch. don't know what has happened to the small birds. Usually have a bunch of House Sparrows around, but they are MIA.

[jal_ut]

I do need to go find my seed box and go through it and catalog what I have, then make a list of what to buy from the store. I like to get my seed bought while its cold out and no one thinking about gardening. The line at the store is non-existent. Wait till a nice day in April though and the line starts up the street. Yes, I buy my seed at the local seed store not online or mail order.

Lessee, Dec 11, Sunday Morning, its 27 degrees and clear skies with about an inch of fresh snow on the ground. Calm.