December Salad

It's 20 degrees outside which is 20 degrees warmer than it was about a week ago. We couldn't pick anything when it was that cold. Everything was frozen, but when the sun comes out and warms up the place the greens revive.

November 8

The temps have not dropped much past freezing so the salad garden is doing very well.

Propagating

I am trying my hand at propagating plants that I would buy more of if money grew on trees. It's pretty much free. I did have to buy a couple bags of soil. I took 7 geraniums from the church window box that were clearly done for the season. I cut the root half off and most of the plant. I planted those 7 in new pots and I will return them in the spring. All the branches turned into starts for me. There are a LOT of starts!

Well, then a friend said she does the same for lavender. I looked it up and well.... now we have rosemary and sage in the works, too.

 

 That would be lunch in those pictures.

We had our first frost yesterday at 6 AM... then today at the same hour it FROZE hard.

Last week of October garden.

October 21

 I wish my phone took better pictures. 

It is what it is.... as they say, it could be worse.

Mid October

Fall seedlings...

Had some help pulling up tomatoes and their stakes today. We haven't had a frost yet, but the tomatoes were pretty much done. There were hundreds of pounds of green ones left, as usual. Vanessa picked a few boxes. There's really no place to keep that many, so that's that. The weather is beautiful. Perfect for working in the gardens.

Stopped by the farmers market today and picked up some garlic to plant. The gal I bought them from doesn't usually plant until November, so we're good still.

End of Market Season

The tomatoes are done. 

A man who traded me green tomatoes for peaches

has come and gone. He didn't clean out the patch much.

I guess he was surprised at just how many tomatoes there were still there.

So, I have called in the troops to glean.

If cared for properly people can glean the ones with a bit of pink and ripen them 

slowly over the next few months.

Lazy Compost

We have access to free apple cores, broken apple pieces, skins, apples that didn't core right.... They are close. Just 2 miles from the house. Pull the trailer in, they load you up with bins, and you drive away and bring the bins back later. The middle garden is in need of more compost materials and so we dumped 8 bins of apples on the rows. If we were to compost this in a pile it would be impossible to turn and compost properly... so we spread it out. Next we will add manure and moldy hay and straw and whatever I can get my hands on in layers. I may cover with black plastic to speed up the heating process.

Seedlings - 1st Wk of Oct

I know, I know!! Running VERY late. Technically speaking we should not be doing this.... 

BUT I don't think I'll regret it.

the kind of tomatoes I don't like to grow!!

Bosc Pears. My favorite!

sweet yummy peppers... but I can't figure out what seed variety they are!

The end of the zucchini ....

Cleaning Out the Garden - 1st of October

I don't have a camera as Brianna is in Oklahoma with the Nikon so all I have is my phone camera. It's not great, but I am trying to keep a garden record. Pictures remind me best . . .

Pulling weeds and old crops out by hand is not too bad after a rainstorm.

LATE!

Cleaned out the greenhouse and prepared the soil for winter planting in the last week of September. Much later than I had hoped to do so. Better late than never.

The Joke is on ME

I waited all summer for these beets to grow beet roots.... We ate the tops mixed with other greens, but I never noticed that they were not beets at all. Obviously, I was not paying attention. Chard will never grow good beets. I thought I handed Vanessa beet seeds in the spring

and I never considered that they might be something else all these months.

chard seeds

Sweet Peppers

Found these in my garden. Yum. So sweet and good.

Harvest is On!

Call Vanessa this evening or in the morning if you want some.

Early May Update!

I can't believe it's been three weeks. Those plants have transformed.... and my greenhouse is nearly empty. Nearly everything is planted in the ground or sold.

Cool Nights

 This cool week has been cooler than I like for my tomatoes at night

even in the greenhouse.

The frost fans have been blowing all night every night for the last three nights.

Tonight is suppose to be the coldest,

so, we've been transporting the plants up to the house in the evening

and taking them back out in the morning.

 The outdoor rows are doing well!

 Salads at our house these days 

are delightful!

Our market garden patch is all prepared and waiting. . .

My Best, But Oh So Inefficient Helper

Sprouting Up