Fall Gardeners Unite!

[matt231]

I love these chicks, and start to miss our farm now.

[jal_ut]

Interesting to see what you are growing. Here at this 5000 ft elevation garden, the only thing we will be growing from now till April is ice. Plan to stick in some garlic cloves, but they are not likely to do much till Spring.

[rainbowgardener]

So most of the cool weather stuff I planted in early September burned up as we had 3 more weeks over 90. The broccoli made it through and is now doing well. The spring planted swiss chard barely hung on to life through heat and drought, but has now perked up and is doing well.

I meant to replant in October when the weather broke, but we were busy then refinishing our 400 sq ft of deck... So I just planted garlic today and will tomorrow or very soon will try planting some spinach.

I am learning something about "long growing season." I still have peppers and tomatoes going. The peppers, especially jalepenos are doing great. The tomato plants are covered in green tomatoes, that are just sitting there and sitting there and sitting there.... Temps are still in the 80's with lots of sun, should be good for tomatoes. BUT... the days are a lot shorter and the sun is a lot lower. The back fence (western boundary) has a row of scrub trees and brush. The low sun angle means that the sun goes behind the trees very early. So I think despite warm sunny days, the tomatoes just aren't getting enough light.

In the spring I was thinking about taking a lot of that stuff down. Then I realized in the heat of the summer, the shade was helping. Now that I have seen fall, I think I will eventually take a lot of it down and just use shade cloth in summer. ....

It's all a learning process at this point.

[imafan26]

It is strange that you had hotter weather than I had. We did get more tropical storms so we had more rain like an el Nino year but it seemed like it was not as hot as last summer. Now we are getting some rain, sometimes it can last a day or so, but nothing torrential. I don't think it got over 90 this year, it just got close.

[Taiji]

"It's all a learning process at this point. "

I am kind of in the same boat. This was my first year at a new property and I am still learning too. It's much colder here because of elevation differences, so I have later last frosts and earlier first frosts!

I made gardens in 2 areas on this property and the one I expected to do the best was the worst. There is a seasonal stream/wash down at a lower area and the soil there was so rich and black I thought, wow, this is going to be great. Fenced in an area there, added amendments, but the results were disappointing. I think because of the tall trees things just aren't getting enough sun. I don't wanna cut them down because they give some privacy, and I have more space elsewhere. So, I eliminated that garden and am expanding the other that did well.

I stuck in some garlic about a week or 10 days ago and it hasn't shown yet, but I'm not worried! Have planted some kale, chard and arugula recently that are all coming up. I wish I could find some onion sets left over in the stores for green onions all winter, but can't find any.

[applestar]

Onion bottoms. Cut a generous pyramid from base of onions you use for cooking and plant them. -- I do this all winter in the house. You can do the same with garlic bottoms -- garlic for planting should be biggest cloves, so these are only for the garlicky greens.

Onion bottoms will grow greens that you can trim (and eat) all winter, then can be planted out at proper time in spring. If they are right variety for the region, they will grow on to make bulbs, but if they were initially/already too big, will simply bolt, bloom, and make seeds.

You can either let them go on and make seeds to collect and plant later, or you can eat the blossoms as soup, omelet, and salad garnish.

[imafan26]

I never even thought to plant bulb onions like green onions. I usually only plant the bunching onions, but it is a great tip.

[Taiji]

That is a good idea. I remember you posting about that before. The only thing is that my Candy onions are so big and it takes such a long time to go thru one there won't be that many little pyramids available!

I guess I could always plant some onion seed for winter greens, but I hate to use my precious Candy seeds for that purpose. But, I think I'll look at one of the stores for some cheaper seed for any old onion (whatever that means) and plant those.

[pepperhead212]

Great idea, apple! I will definitely save and plant that root section of all of my onions!

[Allyn]

I picked some more tomatoes today -- not the ones I started last month, but from the plants that survived the intense heat of summer and are now rejuvenated with the cooler (mid 80s day and mid-to-high 50s night) temperatures. Some of the lettuce I replanted last month made it. I found a spot that gets afternoon shade and the lettuce did okay there. My peppers -- green bell and Thai -- are going like gangbusters. My husband loves my green pepper casserole, so the more peppers the better. Melons are doing surprisingly well, but I only managed to get one bean plant to grow.

[lakngulf]

I do not often have good Fall Tomatoes, but this year has been unbelievable. I had not been to my Mother's house for a couple of weeks. Was shocked to see how many green and ripening tomatoes were on the vines we planted in August. Great to have some fall tomatoes.

[Allyn]

I do not often have good Fall Tomatoes, but this year has been unbelievable. I had not been to my Mother's house for a couple of weeks. Was shocked to see how many green and ripening tomatoes were on the vines we planted in August. Great to have some fall tomatoes.

Those look fabulous!

[Taiji]

Those are some great tomatoes. Mine have slowed, but am still getting some at my lower elevation garden, mostly cherry, golden jubilee, and roma. Higher garden has frosted many times; no warm weather stuff left. All beds in cover crops now.

Found some onion sets for half price at a big box store. Yippee. Green onions for winter and next spring.

[Allyn]

The temperature is supposed to get :::gasp::: into the 30s tonight for a quick, one-night cold snap before it warms back up. I brought the banana trees inside and picked the tomatoes and peppers that could be picked. Everything else was moved (I love my SiPs) to a protected area against the house out of the wind. The weather has been lovely -- mid 80s during the day and mid-to-high 50s at night. It should return to that after tonight. I'm not done yet.

[gumbo2176]

Glad to see you have banana trees in pots as those things just love to take over a yard. I had a good bit of the rear of my property in banana plants that were 15+ ft. tall when I moved here in 92. When I put my garden in, I decided they had to go since they offered way too much shade in the area so I cut them down to ground level and made many runs to the dump with the trunks and leaves. Instead of digging all the roots up, I decided to stem photosynthesis in the plant by immediately cutting any growth as it emerged from the ground. It worked, but took the better part of 2 years and the root system finally died out with no more plants emerging.

Digging them up would have been far too labor intensive.

As for my garden, I have tomatoes coming in, still have some green beans but they are waning, collard greens are going nuts, as are the broccoli that I've already picked 2 main heads that were delicious. Cabbages and cauliflower are all doing well and my leafy salad greens are really taking off. Beets have been picked and a new bunch are now emerging along with the garlic and onions I have in the ground.

No pests, but not much rain and far too much oxalis sprouting everywhere in the garden. If we have a bit of a frost, that should be the end of the oxalis-------------until it warms up again. I hate that stuff with a passion.

[Allyn]

These are dwarf Cavendish banana plants. They're not supposed to get very tall -- like 5 or 6 feet, I think -- and make little dwarf-sized bananas. Seems perfect for containers. I bought one plant. I've cut six pups off of it and potted them and there's three more waiting to be cut. Do you want some? I'll meet you at the Pearl River.

Something has been eating the leaves on my tomato plants. I'm hoping the cold snap will take care of whatever it is.

[jal_ut]

About onions: Here if I plant onion seed I will get loads of green onions and if let go full season I will end up with a bunch of small dry onions from marble size to maybe as big as a walnut. For large onions I go to the garden store and buy a bagful of onion sets to plant. These sets are just small dry onions about marble size. If planted in a row and spaced about six inches, these will make some nice large onion bulbs.



Allyn, I refuse to use chemical insect control substances, but have found that Diatomaceous Earth will discourage many insects. This is a naturally occurring substance and consists of the shells of the diatoms, which have very sharp edges. Look around for some. Perhaps you will need to find it online and mail order?

[Allyn]

Lovely onions!

....Allyn, I refuse to use chemical insect control substances, but have found that Diatomaceous Earth will discourage many insects. This is a naturally occurring substance and consists of the shells of the diatoms, which have very sharp edges. Look around for some. Perhaps you will need to find it online and mail order?

I have chickens; I know all about DE. I took a hen with me to sit among the tomato and bean plants. The culprits are little green worms with dark/black heads (I didn't have them before they rode into my garden on some tomato plants from my FiL). They fold a piece of leaf over themselves and make a little hiding place. The hen waited for me to open each fold (there were several dozen of them) and she pecked the worm off the leaf for me. Maybe not the most efficient way to handle the pest, but it was an enjoyable activity.

On an aside note, the wind we were supposed to get with the cold the other night didn't happen, so we had a frost. It was early for a frost, but it's warmed back up nicely. I lost a melon plant and a branch of a pepper plant that ended up exposed when a corner of my frost cover fell down. According to the forecast for tonight, the overnight low will be 60 degrees F (16 C).

[Allyn]

My peppers are still doing well. I lost two tomato plants and a bean plant when it got cold a few nights ago. Overnight the temp hit the freezing mark and stayed there for a couple of hours! It was brutal. (Yes, I say that tongue-in-cheek.)

Anyway, the tomatoes weren't as protected as I thought they'd be and they're looking rather sad right now. Oh well. It's time to start thinking about spring. I have a couple of weeks to sort things out and get some seeds started.

[ButterflyLady29]

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.

[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.