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Weedinhoe's 2016 & Beyond Garden

314K views 4K replies 79 participants last post by  Weedinhoe 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hello! I am a Georgia veggie gardener and, weather permitting, try to have something going in the garden all year long. I don't have enough space to put up masses of any one thing because I grow a lot of different stuff so the aim is to put up what I can and eat seasonally and fresh.

When I retired five years ago I decided to convert the whole garden to 4'x18' raised beds using 2x8's and lengths of 1/2" PVC pipe around the bed perimeters as stakes to hold the sides and end pieces upright. That will allow me to disassemble and move the beds to another location quickly should the need arise. It's also handy in that I can just remove the end pieces, run the tiller through the beds and then replace the end pieces.

Since I am located on a road and the garden is visible from the road, the plan is to move the beds to the back of the property behind the woods if the SHTF. There's a creek back there for water and a pond uphill from which I can siphon water through hoses.

Here are some shots of my garden.

This pic is from last year but is pretty much what the garden looks like right now:


This is the south side of the garden as viewed from the top of the garden:


And this is a view from the other side:


And finally, this is a view from the bottom of the garden:
 
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#1,285 ·
The last few little things have been planted. DONE! And we got a half inch of rain last night to water things in. Most of the rain passed south of us but we'll gladly take what we were given and are grateful for it. :thumb:

This is the final fall map. For years I have tortured spreadsheets into submission for the task. :D: Overkill? Maybe, but it keeps me organized.

It's to scale with each square being 1'. When I started planning for fall I had to do some general spring planning first, taking crop rotation into consideration. And it also wouldn't do to plant something in the fall that will grow long into spring (like collards and kale) in a bed where something real early like peas is supposed to go! A little note of what's going into the beds in spring is noted in each bed on the map to remind me.

Under each bed I keep what has been grown in that bed to help me with crop rotation. The dark blue boxes in each bed remind me which beds have been forked.







So now the garden is in maintenance mode. One of these days I'll have to sit down and look at this past spring and summer and see what worked, what didn't, lessons learned and new methods to try. All of this is much more fun than going to the movies!
 
#1,289 ·
It's raining! A tropical thing called Nestor. Nestor... really? Never heard of the name. Oh well, I'm just thankful for the rain. :thumb:

The fall garden is coming along with earlier plantings really loving the cooler weather. When the temps dropped they almost immediately started responding.

This is the bed with two staggered plantings of four 'Amazing' cauliflower on the left end and six 'Packman' broccoli on the right. The older ones were planted out on 9/18 and the newbies went in 10/11.



The Contender beans are blooming and I see tiny green beans the size of toothpicks on them. Every evening I let down the deer netting on each side of the two bean beds and every morning I raise it up so the pollinators get in there to do their thing. Skipper butterflies seem to like the bean flowers. The Jade and Strike beans are a bit behind the Contenders.



I had forgotten to assign a space to the scallions! Looking at last year's fall map it appeared I put scallions along the edge of what would be a spring corn bed. If the scallions aren't gone before it's time to plant circles of corn, they won't interfere. One of the spring corn beds has spiny cukes in it now and they're almost done so I raked the vines aside a bit and stuck in the scallions. Mission accomplished. Three varieties; Warrior, Shimonita and a new one I got at the Korean grocery. Can't read the name but the picture on the pack looks nice. :D:



Finally, I had a visitor to the declining zinnias; a Monarch butterfly! I've never seen one in the garden before. It was absolutely gorgeous.




Although they supposedly migrate to Mexico for the winter, I read where there's an overwintering population somewhere in Florida. I hope this one tanked up enough for the long journey, whichever direction it's heading!
 
#1,290 ·
Finally, I had a visitor to the declining zinnias; a Monarch butterfly! I've never seen one in the garden before. It was absolutely gorgeous.
Great pic!

There was a Monarch butterfly at my marigolds yesterday. But when I tried to get close enough to take a pic, it got spooked and flew off. I hoped it would just circle around and come back, but no luck. Last I saw, it was flying over the rooftops to the south of me.
 
#1,291 ·
Weedinhoe, i have had trouble with cauli no matter where i lived (zone 4 or zone 8a). I am now in GA and rely heavily on my winter garden to supply my brassica. I researched & found a supposed "winter" cauliflower seed, bred for overwintering in the past, but if water is inconsistent, it will still pour and make dinky heads, or none at all. I usually end up eating the greens instead. No problem, I have plenty of other brassica that does last all winter. Kale even grew in zone 4 in the snow! How much more it loves georgia winters. Summers are the bad season for me - nothing survives but okra, sweet potatoes and peppers! No problem, I use early spring (plant in march, harvest by July when the heat starts up) as a bonus season for short season varieties of crops that cant handle heat OR cold. I just can/freeze/dehydrate year round to keep our supply of vegetables somewhat balanced. Love your pics of your gardens. This rain today, steady and gentle, has been long needed. Our winter garden is 50% in - the tranplants of broccoli, cabbage, kale, collards, lettuce, mustard greens & bok choy are in, and the seeds for spinach, carrots, green onions, turnips and succession plantings of radishes & lettuce are waiting for the rain to pass. My mouth is already watering!
 
#1,292 ·
Weedinhoe, i have had trouble with cauli no matter where i lived (zone 4 or zone 8a). I am now in GA and rely heavily on my winter garden to supply my brassica...I have plenty of other brassica that does last all winter. Kale even grew in zone 4 in the snow! How much more it loves georgia winters.
Welcome to Georgia! Brassicas do indeed do well here in the winter. The kale and collards out there now would last well into summer but with loss of tenderness and a stronger taste. That means I will set out new plants in February and when they're ready to start cutting on in late March, the old ones will come out.

Summers are the bad season for me - nothing survives but okra, sweet potatoes and peppers!
Have you tried field peas (also called cow peas or southern peas) for summer? They love the heat! Just to give you a frame of reference for timing in case you wanted to do some: I planted some in a bed in June on 6/7, with the first picking 7/30. The large patch of Big Red Rippers went in on 7/19 where the corn rows were and the first picking from them came on 9/25. So easy to either can or freeze.
 
#1,293 ·
We ended up with 2.2" of rain in the gauge from TS Nestor and not a puddle in sight anywhere. The ground just sucked it all right up! No real wind at all, which is a good thing.

This morning's garden patrol showed more deer munch in the field peas. They're doing the edges only. I wonder if they don't like getting hooves tangled up in vines when they try to get to the middle of the bed.



They've also started on the outside of the trellised peas and fortunately got the puny plants on the left side last night. The right side has some really nice fat seed pods that I want to collect when they dry so they need protection. Salvaged Magic Curtain panels and clothespins to the rescue! There were enough to cover the very area I wanted to save. They have also come in handy in the past for various other garden projects like shade, etc). Like I said, "Ya make it up as ya go along." :D:



Recently planted things are coming up. The Asian turnips and daikon radishes were up a few days ago. Now the beets and regular radishes (French Breakfast, Opolanka) are up. Then there's the first... garlic!



That's Shilla (of Korean origin), one of four varieties planted and from the bulbs I harvested in May. This is only six days after I planted them 4" deep and at planting the cloves showed no evidence of trying to sprout. But then my records from the past three falls shows that's about how fast they've always come up so I guess it's not unusual. I need to mulch them this afternoon with wheat straw.

And finally, even little things flowers are pretty, even Contender beans. :thumb:

 
#1,294 ·
There have been hardly any fire ant mounds around lately until the big rain two days ago. It's been too dry for them to be active but now that the ground is moist, here they come. Time for "Death From Above", gallon jugs of water with 1/4 cup of dish washing liquid mixed in each, one jug per mound. Two jugs if it's a big mound.



Slowly poured from about 4-5', the mix pounds down into the mounds and disappears into the ground. It doesn't kill the colony (not much does) but it will kill a bunch and they'll have to relocate. With cats around I don't want any Amdro or similar ant bait getting licked off their paws. But this soap mix is veggie plant friendly and so it's good for getting any mounds that pop up inside garden beds.

The cabbages are loving the cooler weather. Those are some Stonehead at the top and Charleston Wakefield at the bottom. Both are just starting to wrap. There's deer netting over them and all other brassica beds.



This is a sample of one of the Big Red Ripper pods I'm keeping the deer from. This one has a way to go to dry out.



I think I might be able to make the first light picking of Contender beans tomorrow. Oh boy!
 
#1,295 ·
Fall Potato Planting Experiment

I’m trying a fall potato planting method I read about. It’s just an experiment with three hills, two of which are Yukon Gold and one is Red Pontiac. These are sprouty potatoes, the last from this spring’s harvest.

Basically you put in a layer of mulch (old leaves, grass clippings, etc), the potato, more mulch and top with soil in an 8-10” hole. It supposedly gives the roots a big head start during the winter and results in an earlier harvest.

Here’s the full article:
https://www.backwoodshome.com/plant-your-irish-potatoes-this-fall-or-winter/
 
#1,296 ·
A lot got done in the garden this morning. Clean Up Day.

The four fall tomatoes in buckets got moved to pallets on the sunny side of the garden and I took up the old pallets they had been sitting on. Fire ants had started a mound in one of the buckets. That's the first time ever and it's probably because there had been no tarp put over the pallets.

Speaking of pallets, while I was dealing with soaping the ants I heard 5th Gear laughing and hollering for me to come look. She was busy taking down the tomatoes on pallets by the house. Lo and behold, she had discovered a possum party in one of the pallets! She pulled the tarp off and there they were, three of them squeezed in side by side between pallet top and bottom, taking a snooze!



5th Gear had to upend the pallet to dump out the possums and they scattered, leaving a nice cozy little nest of leaves and pine straw they had made. Never a dull moment!



Back at the garden, the broccoli plants were pushing up against the deer netting so I deployed some hoop extenders I had rigged up two years ago for big old field peas.



The 1/2" hoops normally fit inside 17" lengths of 3/4" pvc pipe pushed into the ground as anchors. To make it all taller I had cut some lengths of 1x1's and tapered one end down to where the end would fit into the 3/4" pipe. Wood into the ground, 3/4" on top of that and hoop end into the 3/4" pipe. It was too high so I just pushed the wood pieces 6" farther into the soil and that fixed the problem. The cauliflowers at the other end of the bed are short enough not to need taller hoops.

More ants... this time building in a corner of the turnip bed. Death From Above coming in the form of a jug of soap water.



The pea plants have been pulled and pea fence rolled up until spring. They just didn't perform well. It was just too hot early in their life.

There were a few small garlic cloves left over from garlic planting so I stuck them in their own space; 7 Siberians and 14 Russian Infernos.

I am out of pipe anchors for deer netting hoops and I need to cover the turnip bed. There were hoof prints in that bed this morning and fortunately no baby turnip greens munched. There's some old black irrigation pipe of various sizes out back in the possibles pile so I'll see if there's anything I can cut and use.

Finally, we had an awesome sunset last night. October and November have the prettiest ones of the year.

 
#1,299 ·
The days are getting shorter. It doesn't seem long ago that I could escape the heat of the day by playing in the garden until 9pm. Now 7pm is about it but there's really no need to since the hot weather is gone. Thank goodness!

The garden is pretty much on cruise control right now. The deer will have to do without. I put deer netting on the last bed which has the turnips and daikon radishes in it and am glad I remembered how the deer like both of those.



I've picked a bit over a pound of Contender green beans so far (above, right). The Jade and Strike beans are still just thinking about turning flowers to beans.

Two of the four garlic varieties (ones grown here last year) have all poked up through the mulch but none of the new ones I bought have yet.

We had 1/4" of rain last night. The carrot seeds have finally come up so this rain will make them happy. The carrots have been planted down the sides of one bed. There are 9' each of Tendersweet and Yaya on one side with 10' of Bolero, 4' each of Danvers and Napoli on the other side.

I think this year's cabbage plants are the largest I've ever grown. They survived the heat of September and early October with some shade put over them and now they're going crazy in the cooler weather. Some of the cabbages are starting to wrap. This is Charleston Wakefield followed by Stonehead:





And finally, I've been smelling something in the air in the garden. Something sweet. Yesterday I figured it out. It's the Fragrant Tea Olive (Osmanthus fragrans) near the bottom of the garden. It's in full bloom!


 
#1,301 ·
It's a rainy day in Georgia; a steady light rain with mild temps that the veggies are just loving. I just came in from a slow stroll through the garden and the pitter patter of rain on the umbrella was peaceful. Nice!

Yesterday I picked one pound of Contender green beans. Today I see that in a few days the first "Jade" green beans will be ready. The first few Russian Inferno garlics have poked up but not a sign of the Siberians yet. And I spied a 2" wide broccoli button so it won't be long until there's a head to cut.

I've been picking dried Big Red Ripper field pea pods, shelling and sorting for next year's planting seed. The last big saving and sorting of these was 2017 and being that there was a lot left that's not needed now, I cooked them! Good stuff!



Things grow wherever they can. There's been a half bucket of the compost load we bought in the spring and it's been sitting around awhile. Yesterday I noticed that it decided to grow its own garden. A couple of tomatoes, what looks like a squash plant (or a flower?) and a few unknowns. Maybe I should pot up one of those tomatoes and bring it indoors just for grins and giggles.



One of the weather sites is forecasting a low of 37 and 38 for Sunday and Monday. Average first frost here is Nov 15 so the time's coming.

And finally, Camellia time is beginning, first the sasanqua varieties with their smaller leaves and flowers and later in January/February the big leafed and big flowered japonicas will kick in. Today I leave you with a sasanqua called 'Apple Blossom'....


 
#1,302 ·
Yesterday afternoon a cold front blew through, donating 8/10" rain and knocked that 86 degree high right on its butt. This morning it was 38 and there was frost on the vehicle windshields but not on the grass. Regardless, I got dressed quick, went down to the garden and hosed off the peppers and beans before the sun cleared the trees, just in case there was any frost. They look fine this afternoon.

There's a frost advisory for tomorrow morning so after lunch 5th Gear and I did a quick switch of row cover for the deer netting on the two bean beds. This evening I'll lower the sides to tunnel them.



The peppers are looking kind of old now but they're still making peppers. 5th Gear picked a pound of jalapenos this morning and will try her hand at making cowboy candy. I have some old bed sheets that will be draped over the plants tonight.



A while ago I posted about sweet potato vines all over the compost pile and yesterday I noticed that the vines were starting to die back.



Time to turn the compost pile and see what's there. Nothing but a few rotty old sweet potato discards. I guess the vines started and then just rooted themselves all over the place.

Three of the four kinds of garlic planted Oct 14 are up. On the left side of the bed are two kinds, Maiskij and Shilla, that were planted using bulbs I grew last year. On the right side are Russian Inferno and Siberian, two new ones I bought to try this year. The first ones that came up were my own stock. So far only half of the Infernos and none of the Siberians are up yet.



The Roselle plants I'm growing are annuals.





In case we have more frost than they think, I went ahead and cut the calyxes off the plants and will dehydrate them to make tea with. There were 204 calyxes on three plants!

There are muscadine grapes defrosting in the kitchen so I can make grape juice this afternoon and jelly tomorrow. A nice fall project!
 
#1,303 ·
There was more scattered frost yesterday and this morning but the row covers took care of it. However the cold weather is really slowing down the beans. Lots of babies on them and a ton of flowers and I'm hoping they will continue to produce. We'll see.

The peppers are now sporting bed sheets overnight. They should have been dressed like this for Halloween. :D:



The other fall things in the garden are doing just fine and loving the cool weather. These are the eight cauliflower plants; four planted Aug 14 and four (in front of the larger ones) planted out Aug 31. The earlier ones are looking nice but no buttons yet. Keeping my fingers crossed!



These are the broccoli plants in the other half of the cauliflower bed. The four early and four later ones were planted out the same time as the two sets of cauliflowers. The broccoli plants are a lot bigger than the cauliflower plants.



One of the older plants has a nice 4" head coming along, two other plants have different sized buttons and one hasn't decided to participate yet so it looks like the heads will be staggered well.



This is the spiny cuke bed with scallions down the left side. Three varieties of scallions. I had forgotten to assign a bed to them and then decided to rake the cuke vines to one side and stick the scallions in there with them. That bed won't be needed until late April when popcorn will be planted there. By then the bed will be empty.



Pot roast for lunch today! Man, the house smells soooo good as it simmers on the stove. I'm making green bean casserole fresh with beans from the garden and baking the first sweet potatoes from the new crop to go with it. Good stuff! :D:
 
#1,304 ·
Since last week, garden chores have mostly consisted of patrolling for any problems, watering once and getting ready for colder weather. It's so nice to not see a ton of bugs out and about! :)

On Thursday I picked what is most likely the last 2 lbs of green beans. 5th Gear has the canner going putting up those last four pints of beans for the year. I also picked the last of the peppers, both sweet and ancho. They'll probably all get dehydrated.

Speaking of dehydrating, I picked about 200 roselle calyxes and got the pieces dehydrated for tea. That's a ton of Vitamin C and a lot of other good stuff in two quart jars. :thumb:



After several scattered light frosts, we'll probably be getting the first killing frost Tuesday and daytime highs in the 50's. The brassicas should be able to take that with no problem but they haven't had much time to acclimate between warm and cold. Just to be on the safe side we swapped out the deer netting for plastic on those two beds. The turnip bed got covered too as those plants are still young and rather tender. The cabbages will be fine by themselves. Tough customers they are!



This morning I opened the sides and ends and will probably leave them up until Monday when those upper 20's will probably happen Tuesday morning.



Yesterday I cut a mess of kale and tomorrow will make a great kale-chorizo-white bean soup. It's sooo good and my favorite use of kale. I've not yet made any kale chips worth talking about. :xeye:

Starting at noon the rest of today will be devoted to football. Some great ranked vs ranked games! Next week is soon enough to begin the chore of clearing the garden. ;)
 
#1,305 ·
I’ve been playing with tunnel temps. The day after we put the plastic on I didn’t get down there to open the ends until 10:30. It was already 85 in the tunnels. Oops! Opening the ends of the tunnels and a cool breeze blowing through quickly brought the temp down to 75. It was amazing how much heat that breeze coming in one end was pushing out the other! Then I raised one side a little to keep the breeze from billowing out the sides and the temp dropped to and settled in at 68.

Things are looking good. The turnip greens are getting pretty. This is the kale (just cut) and collard end of one bed:



And this is the cauliflower end of another:



But things that weren’t covered were smacked down by yesterday’s heavy frost. It looked like it had snowed out in the pasture. It was last rites for the beans, peppers, spiny cukes, roselle and asters. The tomatoes were done in a couple days ago. Poor little spiny cukes…



The asters now have just a few surviving blooms left and there were several butterflies and assorted flying things getting in one last snack:



And finally the roselle is done. It was a pretty successful experiment and will be a permanent addition. I have plenty of seed so if anyone wants to try some, just PM me.



Tomorrow morning will only get down to 53 with light rain but that will be the high of the day as temps fall into the 20’s overnight. I had forgotten about covering the little baby (2” tall) carrots and radishes so I’ve just come from sprinkling leaves and pinestraw over them. I sure hope that does the trick!
 
#1,306 ·
There's not much going on in the garden today. It's lightly raining and everything's buttoned up even though it's just 59 out there. That's as high as it will get today as the temps will drop this afternoon into the 20's tonight. It's already 47 one hour west of here and 36 two hours west of here in Atlanta so it's coming.

Last evening as I was closing the tunnels I remembered the carrot seedlings (up 2") and radishes. They ended up getting some pine straw sprinkled over them. It will have to do.

But yesterday was nice and the porch garden liked it.



In the back left corner is a pot of rosemary and one of mint. To the right are various Little Gem romaine lettuces and dwarf bok choy plants we've been munching. I don't know if the bok choy is "cut and come again" but we'll see! Unseen to the right are the window boxes of mixed lettuces and the parsley. I'm going to dump those lettuces as they're the wimpy type with no crunch. Being just pretty doesn't cut it. Out they go and I'll start more Little Gem.

The camellia is 'Yuletide, one of the small leafed sasanqua types.



It usually blooms around Christmas and would this year if it were in the ground and not still in the pot. Gotta get that sucker in the ground.

Y'all stay warm today. :thumb:
 
#1,307 ·
It was pretty chilly for the second week of November in this part of the country. The temp dipped to 27 before the sun cleared the trees and didn't get above 46. The wind chill had to have been colder as there was a stiff northeasterly breeze blowing. Still, at 10am I opened the tunnel ends to dry up the condensation in there to prevent fungus.

But I did find that the one broccoli head I've had my eye on was ready to cut with another not far behind. Here's the first Packman of the fall, 7" wide and the plant will continue to kick out side shoots. :thumb:



With nothing decent on the tv last night it was a good time to go through the seed box and do an inventory. The box used to be a mess until I started putting similar items together in small ziplocks. Tomatoes, eggplant and peppers share a bag, root stuff like turnips, beets, and carrots are in another. There's a gallon sized ziplock for beans, peas, innoculent and corn but the bush beans and pole beans have their own separate small bags inside the larger bag. That old metal bread box has held seeds for years.



After the inventory there were packs of seeds that for various reasons won't be used next spring. A few years ago I decided to stop tossing out seeds I didn't want any more and put them in a "vault" in the freezer instead. You never know when you might want to try them again. And when there are more seeds in a pack that will never get used before they go bad, half of them go into the vault.



The seeds are in small coin envelopes with the purchase or collection year and other info written on it. The envelopes go into a zip lock bag (you just know they're in alphabetical order by seed type :rolleyes:) which goes into a plastic container with a snap on lid. Yesterday's additions made expansion to a third box necessary, taking up more freezer room. One of these days I'll just have to stop being the pack rat and toss out the seeds for stuff that I know won't do well.

I do have an excel spreadsheet with all of the vault contents on it. It's a simple copy/paste of the lines from the current year's garden spread and is now 97 lines long! Looking down the list was like a walk down memory lane... "Oh, I remember that one. Good carrot but weak tops."



Time to go feed the cats. My favorite big boy has become diabetic. Fortunately we caught it before it got bad so now I have to give him an insulin shot twice a day. I get him when I set his food bowl down and he's so eager to eat that he doesn't notice the shot! The things we do for our furry ones. :D:
 
#1,308 ·
After a morning low of 31 and not the predicted mid 20's, I think we're over the hump. It's been another rather raw day, a breezy 42 with a kind of damp feeling. Still, temps will be slowly increasing over the next week so I removed the plastic tunnels from two of the three beds. The plastic sheets were hung on the line to dry so that no mold etc would form if they were folded up and stowed away wet.

One of those sheets was a 8'x25' thing which was a pain in the patoot to hang with the breeze blowing. A giant billowing sail! :eek: Since two sheets filled the lines, the third will have to wait. I opened the ends of that tunnel and raised the sides a little, hoping it will dry itself before rain comes in tomorrow. If not, it will wait a few days.

I need to start doing an end of year review, looking over the good, the bad and the ugly. There's never a year when I don't learn something out in the garden. Time to go over the lessons because it's almost time to start planning for next year! :thumb:
 
#1,309 ·
Tomato Growing Revised For 2020

Garden debris removal has finally begun and I can probably finish it up today.

5th Gear and I have been discussing tomatoes for next year. This year we had one each of 15 varieties going. The problem was that there were never enough tomatoes ready all at once to get any decent canning done. Many didn't hold well once picked so a lot went bad while waiting for more to ripen. In addition, there were a lot of new-to-us varieties, some of which didn't do so well. Thus, a shortage of canning tomatoes.

The new strategy will be to grow several plants of each of two or three determinate varieties up at the house for canning. Early Girl, Rio Grande and Red Siberian (the last two of these were newbies here) did well this year. Most indeterminates will be grown in buckets in the garden.

For good or bad, I found a tomato seed SALE! :D:

https://www.tomatofest.com/Tomato_Seeds_on_Sale_s/43.htm

After browsing through their hundreds of varieties all evening, there will now be seven new tomatoes for spring with the emphasis on their ability to do well in hot climates and being dual purpose, for canning and fresh eating. Plant descriptions are excerpted from the Tomatofest catalog.

Porter Days: 72, Indeterminate, Red, Mid-Season
A good choice for a salad tomato, canning, tomato sauces, eating fresh or making tomato juice. A good container tomato for hot, dry growing conditions. Porter also does well in hot humid areas.

Santiago Days: 68, Indeterminate, Red, Early Season
From Guatamala..Among the first to bear fruit and one of the last of the season to be harvested. Plant produces a prolific amount of 8-10 oz., flattened, and lightly fluted, red beefsteak tomatoes that have a good tart and very pronounced sweet flavors. A very good canning tomato, and wonderful snacking fresh off the vine. This tomato variety seems to do very well in hot climates.

Super Sioux Days: 71, Semi-Determinate, Red, Mid-Season
From Nebraska. Perfect variety for hot and dry climates. Indeterminate, regular leaf plant produces big sets of crack-free, thick-skinned, round, red fruit. Good acid levels makes it even a better variety for canning.

Ten Fingers of Naples Days: 72, Determinate, Red, Mid-Season
Compact, determinate plants that yield huge crops in long trusses of 5-6", 3 oz., elongated tomatoes with a pointy end. Sweet rich tomatoey flavors rival the best of the best-tasting paste tomatoes for making an incredibly delicious sauce. A great canning tomato. Disease resistant.

Camp Joy (Cherry) Days: 81, Indeterminate, Cherry, Mid-Season
Heavy bearing open-pollinated variety; 1" cherry tomatoes with huge, well-balanced, sweet tomato flavors. Strong disease resistant.

Early Annie Days: 60, Determinate, Red, Early-Season
A short determinate heirloom variety with regular leaf that produces high yields of 4 oz., round, meaty fruits with few seeds. Particularly good for canning. Fruit sets all at once.

Mom's Paste Days: 84, Indeterminate, Red, Late-Season
A beautiful large red paste with a pointed plum shape borne from a wispy, regular leafed plant that get to 12 oz.. Delicious! A very tasty, meaty tomato.

I'll be interested in watching the 'Early Annie'. If she does well, she'll join the others up at the house in 2021. For cherry purposes, 'Camp Joy' will replace 'Juliet'.

It's amazing how just going through a catalog will get tired gardening juices revved up! ;)
 
#1,310 ·
Well, the debris clean up didn't happen yesterday. The first leaves have been coming down but have been wet with the occasional rain shower. Yesterday they were finally dry enough that the leaf bagger on the mower could hoover them up so with rain coming in later today, I decided to do that. It's a nice start to remaking the garden mulch pile. :thumb:



This pile is maybe a quarter of the size it will be with another same sized pile up behind the house. In fact, I need some of it for mulch right now.The good news is that most of the leaves are still up in the trees so there will be plenty to gather.

We just cut the second broccoli head two days ago but #3 and #4 are about ready! :eek:



The turnips are coming along. This is the old Purple Top on the left and that unknown Korean turnip seed I bought at the Korean grocery. The Korean ones are developing a bit of a purple tint on the leaves. I think they're also smaller since they were seeded about 2 weeks after the Purple Tops.



The cabbages are doing great this fall. On the left, the first four are 'Stonehead' with three 'Premium Late Flat Dutch behind them'. On the right are four 'Charleston Wakefield' with three 'Red Acre' behind them.



Today I cut the first Stonehead and it weighed just a tad over 3 lbs. 5th Gear is going to make kimchi with it.



And finally, last spring I read an article on planting potatoes in the fall. The idea was that they'll just sit down there growing roots all winter so that when it warms up in spring, they'll pop up earlier than spring planted ones and produce more. OK, I'll play. A month ago I stuck three potatoes in the ground; two Yukons and one Red Pontiac. Today I noticed that they're coming up. :xeye:



I guess I'll just have to start hilling them and hoping that as it gets colder they'll slow down and go to sleep for the rest of the winter! :D:
 
#1,311 ·
Season Summary - Part 1: Successes

It's time to look back at this year's garden and see what worked and what didn't. I'll start today with the successes. Later postings will deal with Not So Goods, Failures, Experiments and some thoughts about things to change for 2020.

Overall, this year’s winners were corn, cukes, fall cabbages, carrots, collards, eggplant, field peas, kale, okra, peppers, potatoes (both Irish and sweets) and summer squash. Special mentions:

Cabbages – This fall’s cabbage plants are the prettiest we’ve ever grown. A couple of ‘Stonehead’ and ‘Charleston Wakefield’ are ready to cut.

Carrots – This was the first time I tried ‘Yaya’. They worked really well in spring and as they’re in the fall garden, we’ll see how they do over the winter.



‘Romance’ carrots also did well, another first timer.



Corn – ‘Silver Queen’ planted in double rows 4’ apart worked great but 4' is too much. maybe back to 3' or 3.5' next year. Got three good pickings (that was a first!) and maybe could have had a fourth of small “nubbin” ears if I had paid attention. Hardly any smut this year.





Cukes – The ‘National Pickler’ cukes in one bed made a ton and we gave a lot away. 5th Gear planted the last of the ‘Marketmore’ seed need the bean trellis.., oops! What a mess on the trellis. :eek:

Eggplant - One plant of ‘Millionaire’ grown in a bucket made all we wanted and more all summer until almost frost.



Peppers – Alma and Feher Ozon paprikas, Ancho, Big Jim, Gypsy, Mucho Nacho and M jalapenos, Jupiter bell and sweet banana all did well. Too many peppers! Next spring I’ll probably drop the Big Jims, Jupiter, sweet banana and both paprikas. Gypsys and Anchos:




Potatoes – Both Irish and Sweet did well but we cut back on how many hills of sweets were planted simply to match what we’d actually use from storage. I’m not real pleased with the texture of home canned sweet potatoes.

Field peas – The ‘Red Rippers’ always make a bunch. No different this year. But for the first time I tried the little Lady Peas with seed sent by a friend. I thought, “Good grief! It’s gonna take a ton of shelling just to make a half cup of peas!” Well, they yielded a bit better than that but they were so good I saved seed and will plant again.



Okra – The okra struggled in July’s heat which is unusual. I kept pouring water on them while hoping it wasn’t nematodes.



By the end of August they had come out of it and were producing well.



When I finally pulled the plants out I found that they did have some nematode damage on the roots but somehow as they got older they somehow did well anyway, which really surprised me as okra is really susceptible to ‘todes.

Summer Squash – Usually squash vine borers decimate them. Just to make sure we got at least some to eat I seeded 8 hills. Of course, don’t you know they all made! This was the best production we’ve had in ages. The interesting thing is that in the end they all had nematoded roots but they still produced. They were all planted a bit earlier than usual and I’m wondering if the roots matured enough before the ‘todes woke up that the roots withstood some of the damage. Something to keep an eye on.
 
#1,314 ·
Season Summary - Part 2: The Not-So-Goods

No two gardening years are the same. Even some things that usually aren't a problem do have problems now and then, especially when I start tinkering and experimenting. :rolleyes:

Corn – ‘Sweet Treat’ planted in a bed has always done fine until this year. Sweet Treat was selected for its ability to germinate well in soil temperatures cooler than what’s usually needed for corn. Depending on the source, soil temps should ideally be at least 70. I decided to push the envelope and planted it on April 6 with soil temp at 60. :eek:



It came up sparsely and then I waited a week or so before resowing to see if any more would come up. By the time that came up there were plants of all different sizes. The stressed Spring Treat started throwing tassels at 2' tall. Not good. Ears were small and because plants were all different sizes and maturity, pollination was affected. What corn made was good, just not a lot of it.



Lessons Learned: Don’t plant so early even if tempted by a short warm spell. Replanted skips never do well so plant extra right off the bat. Extra plants can always be thinned out. :thumb:

Asparagus – It’s an old bed, mostly female plants and annual yield is decreasing. We’re considering letting it go. It’s too close to a pecan tree (partly under the canopy) and probably choked with tree roots. There are other male plants set out here and there outside the garden. We might add to those this year.

Bush Beans – 'Duke' bush beans were planted on April 28 along with most of the rest of the garden. However, there was a germination problem in that bed even though a subsequent germination test of the seed showed 95% good. Soil temp was OK. Go figure.

Then after a time nematodes affected the right half of the other bed. These yellowing plants and 'toded roots are Golden Rod.




Garlic – This was the third year planting garlic and after two great years, this one had problems. Early on there was yellowing of leaf tips and plants were thinner.



The bulbs were a lot smaller this year, not the nice 2-2.5” bulbs I’ve been getting.



Still, quantity counts too!



Tomatillo - This was Year 2 of trying to grow these. Last year they all died of some kind of wilt even though they grew in a bucket. This year they grew and even set fruit although not a lot. Many husks never filled out. Still, one picking is better than none!



This year will be the third and last try, using a different variety. And the root ball didn't even fill half of #15 bucket. A #10 or even a #7 will do this year.

Into each garden failures will happen and so in the next post I will make my confession. And although failures are disappointing, they are always learning experiences. It's that old, "What doesn't kill ya makes ya stronger" thing, I guess. It makes the victories ever sweeter. :D:
 
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