Finished the fall garden tonight. Not a very big area, but I need to start somewhere. The tomatoes are doing great. We have more than we can eat. The broccoli never recovered from the woodchuck and caterpillar attacks. Cukes did poorly. Grapes are doing well with the drier weather. Black rot moved in fast but removing leaves around the bunches helped a lot. I did manage to take care of the woodchuck problem. 3 in all.
Some bush peas, bush green beans (left row) and some late yellow zucchini seedlings - should be picking towards the end of Sept until frost in October. Some late-ish winter squash- they're blooming now so I should get something. left to right -two rows of roma tomato, two rows of beets, one row of pole green beans growing on my pea trellis, 4 rows of onion, 2 half row of onion and three half row of late carrots ( the shade cloth was to help stop the seedlings from baking in the sun ), 2 rows of carrots and then some swiss chard and more late bush peas. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part of my front yard gardens. Two rows of peppers. 15 smaller plants in the foreground were some volunteer plants that came up from last year. I was hoping they were chilis or jalapenos but they are looking like my habaneros. A row of zucchini, summer squash and a cucumber trellis. Behind the fence is a row of pinto beans and a row of bush green beans that the rabbits ravished. Tomatoes are out of view on the left. My grapes are starting to turn purple. So far the rot's not doing too bad here, we'll see when it rains again. I pulled all the vines straight up this year to expose the clusters and it seems to be helping at least some of them. I've got peaches this year ! Small but pretty tasty. No brown rot this year . Except the dammed birds peck holes in some of them. I never had trouble with birds before, this year they are sampling everything, even hard as a rock apples ( the few the squirrels didn't pick ).
I usually get vining snow and snap peas . They keep "improving" them and they seem to freeze/keep less well as they do. I bought these by mistake. I really wish they would label dwarf/bush/vining a little bit better. I had to go online to find more info about them because there was NO info (think IKEA style instructions here) on the seed package but some of the reviews claim they get about three feet tall and flop over so I may have to weave some string thru them to hold them up to be a little easier to pick. We'll see.
Nice colors and size !! All the peppers I thought were habaneros are jalapenos and they're catching right up to the ones I started early. I'll be pickling lots of jabaneros.I like them pickled. I had a bunch of volunteer tomatillos that I kept too long in pots because I didn't have a place to put them yet and they took off as soon as I put them in the ground.
Tomatoes are all ripening fast now. We picked all of this tonight. There's some jalapeños and cayenne in there too.
The cure is on! Up until 4 or 5 years ago I would make the house bullchit by chopping and freezing the onions. Miserable half Saturday. A little research and practice later, these guys will last into April. Variety is Stuttgarter. I'll keep them here until a frost warning and then they'll go into mesh bags hanged from the cellar joists. Until then, I'll rotate them every few days.
Question, I'm weeding- have some grass growing in the "planting area" around the patio, starting to wonder if I trimmed the grass instead of pulling it would offer some protection to my plants over the long/winding/cold winters here (zone 4). Any thoughts? In my previous home zone 5 it would have pulled immediately, but things are different here. I have hay to insulate except, it gets blown away as yooperdave pointed out on my grass/sod thread.
I've had these oddball green peppers growing among my other hot peppers. I thought maybe they were just planted in the wrong sequence. Well one of them was ripe today. They're habaneros! Totally forgot Amy bought any of those. These three are the size of a small green pepper! Can't wait till they're ripe!
Not sure what plants you are trying to protect, and am not familiar with your weather, soil, etc., but I wonder if leaving it long to cover the plants might be better?
Thanks, Yes, I think so too, no worries of it choking out the plants LOL I worked some more on the grass from under cement pour from last spring around the perimeter, removed the weeds, and left the different grasses beyond the "planting" perimeter around the patio. I could be wrong but think the longer grass will help.
View attachment 134844 Nice drying benches. Using what you have. .....as I sit in the shade of the trees my dad planted. Nice.
M2theB, how do you keep the onions from sprouting in storage? Is it an unheated basement area? I store a bag of onions in the basement, but the sprout in just a few weeks time.
The grapes are just about ready. The yellow jackets are starting to get on them. The dark purple ones are ready, the greenish pink ones need another week. I'll probably make one batch of jelly this weekend and another the following weekend. If I let them go to long, the birds and squirrels will get them. When they fall on the patio, the yellow jackets become a problem.
6 gallons of grapes picked tonight. The birds were starting to get into them. Rain in the forecast tonight, so I figured time to get them down. Therewere no yellow jackets as I picked these at dusk. Plenty of little spiders dropping down onto me. It is kind of sad seeing the vines bare. Jelly making time in the morning.
I agree with the timing. Pulled the rest of the onions and shallots today, did a good weeding and even got the winter rye in on that part of the garden in anticipation of the rain; about 6 weeks earlier than usual. Planning inside work tomorrow including changing out the stove door gasket.
