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Mike Nolan.
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October 7, 2021 at 6:43 am #31673
We are having some lovely weather these couple of days - dry, low-70s, and sunshine - I'd given up hope of ever seeing the sun again, it's been so long! I'm working on harvesting everything and putting the gardens to bed for the winter. We are still picking raspberries, 1-2 quarts a day, by far the best crop we've had in 35 years. Our average first killing frost date is October 15. And we still find a few tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli. Plenty of lettuce and greens. The winter squashes are picked and drying on the deck, and I've processed all the peppers. Between the drought and the heat, it was a very poor garden this year. Once I write up my daily garden log and planting lists, I'll start to think about changes for next year.
October 7, 2021 at 10:25 am #31676Accuweather is calling for a high of 91 on Saturday here, and we thought the 90's were done for the year!
They're not showing a frost until early November, which would be OK with me. I think we lost a lot of grass in August, I may reseed those areas if I can water them in for 4 weeks so they sprout.
I'm still planning to do some lettuces in the Aerogarden so we have fresh greens over the winter, I think I'll probably wait another week to start them. The tomatoes we put in are kind of weird, and they're not really 'bush' plants as one of them was climbing up the window and was close to 8 feet long when I finally cut it off. There are still a few green tomatoes on it, I'll probably wait until after those ripen to rip it out and put in a second set of lettuce plants. The roots from the tomato plants seem to have gotten into the water level sensor, I'm not sure if they've gotten into the pump housing as well, wouldn't surprise me though. Tomato plants have aggressive root systems.
October 12, 2021 at 9:31 pm #31739They're now calling for lows in the upper 30's this week, I'm not going to strip the tomato plants quite yet. We gave several bags of tomatoes to one of my wife's colleagues, they made some tomato relish with it and have already eaten a bunch of it.
We did bring the big rosemary plant in for the winter, now can I keep it alive?
October 13, 2021 at 5:56 am #31742Will and our friend Richard cleaned out our plot at the community garden two weeks ago - Will wanted to be out by October 1st as he is leaving town for a couple of weeks tomorrow. We are going to do a test raised bed on the east Side of the condo - not connected to the building and will start with some lettuces and winter greens. Hopefully, we will get enough sun so we can put up two or three more boxes. He has already planned to get netting and stakes to try to prevent poaching from the deer and squirrels.
October 13, 2021 at 9:14 am #31743The squirrels have been feasting on our tomatoes recently, we are finding half-eaten ones all over the back patio and in the yard. It is supposed to get to 37 tonight, I may pick everything that's ripe or close to ripe later today. We had an inch of rain overnight so right now the ground is still a bit too soggy.
Squirrels can slip through some pretty small holes, even chicken wire might not keep them out.
October 21, 2021 at 7:24 am #31765The HOA board approved our raised beds on the side of the condo - we will start with one and do winter friendly greens which includes lettuce here.
Some of my neighbors are hoping it works because they'd like to do the same thing.
October 28, 2021 at 10:57 am #31855I'm moving the Aerogarden down to the basement. Now that we've been through two cycles of it, we have a better idea how often it needs to be tended to or harvested from. It doesn't need to be in a south-facing window, or in a window at all.
And this way the rosemary plant that we brought in for the winter can get a south-facing window, so maybe we can actually keep it alive over the winter. I think most of the time we lose the rosemary plant because we forget to water it. But our plant guy passed away earlier this year, so I'm doing the weekly plant watering.
Once I get the Aerogarden set up again, I plan to start some lettuce plants. Based on the last time around, we should be able to start picking lettuce around the end of November.
They're now calling for a low of 28 Friday night and lows in the mid 20's most of next week, so the outside garden should get its killer frost soon. I did manage to get another quart of tomato juice canned from the tomatoes I picked last Thursday.
October 28, 2021 at 6:05 pm #31858We had a threat of frost earlier this week, so my husband picked any tomatoes that seemed ready, as well as our second hybrid spaghetti squash-pumpkin. (I need to cut one of those open and see if it is edible, and if so, for what.) Oh, my husband also found two more green beans! They will go into the soup that I am contemplating for this weekend.
October 28, 2021 at 6:55 pm #31861We had our 2nd light frost last night. The first one was 30* and did no damage except for a little ice on the windshield. Last night was 30* again, and it killed the petunias on the deck, but not the lettuce. I'll be setting up my Aerogarden soon, and also starting a flat of mixed lettuces under the Gro lights but not until I return from a trip the weekend after next. I need to water daily until they germinate. I'm hoping to keep a lot of things growing over the winter, but even with a passive solar sunroom that has 8 south-facing floor to ceiling windows we don't get enough sunlight for good growth. I might end up with another set of shelving with more Gro lights!
November 1, 2021 at 7:36 pm #31910I am in Lexington, Ky at my father's house. I picked all the lufa squash and bitter melon and took them to his church. Dad broke his leg on October 15th and since has been in the hospital and the rehab center. I don't have time to deal with his garden and needed to do something before the upcoming freeze. I hope the lufa squash is still edible -- its a vegetable and not sponge when young.
Theoretically I could cook all of these but I don't really have time. I kept some of the squash to experiement with -- its much like zucchini but with a much tougher skin so it needs to be peeled first. I hope his church members like them.November 1, 2021 at 8:26 pm #31914It's supposed to hit the mid 20's here tonight, we may finally get our killer frost.
November 2, 2021 at 11:13 am #31920Although Accuweather says we hit a low of 24 last night, it doesn't look like we got a killer frost here. We're a bit south of the official reporting station at the airport and the garden is somewhat protected
November 12, 2021 at 8:04 pm #32016I started some lettuce plants in the Aerogarden today, some black seeded Simpson, some Rouge d'Hiver, one romaine, all from Aerogarden. I also did some self-planted buttercrunch lettuce, parsley and spinach. I don't know how well they'll do, but its better than having empty slots.
I was going to start them last week, but when I set up the Aerogarden after moving it, the right set of lights weren't coming on correctly. Fortunately, it was still under warranty (until the end of November), so I had to wait until a replacement console arrived, then I spent 2 hours taking off the old one and putting on the new one. Those things are solidly built.
November 22, 2021 at 12:04 pm #32116My husband and I bought a pair of grow lights from Gardener's Supply Company, which arrived last weekend. He built a wooden frame and attached the lights. We will see what happens with his spinach crop. I persuaded him to give it a try after his first attempt at spinach did not go well. We are hoping it will also help us start plants earlier in the spring.
November 22, 2021 at 3:33 pm #32117I planted 11 pods from Aerogarden, all of them have sprouted. I also planted 13 self-planted pods. I put in 2 pods of spinach. One of them has sprouted, the other didn't so I reseeded it the other day. These seeds were from last season.
I also did 6 flat leaf parsley and 5 buttercrunch lettuce, but in both cases the seeds were from 2017, so they might have been too old and dried out. I've replanted those with fresh seeds (same types).
Almost time to start a new gardening thread for 2022. 🙂
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