2020 Garden Thread

[Country Living in VA]

Some glass gem corn that I grew this year. I will save the seeds once they dry out. We used the stalks for decoration:

 

[SidecarFlip]

Cabbage broccoli and some other stuff tolerate frost pretty well, but, a good lower 30 degree freeze will end their lives. I need to pick what is left of the green peppers today as NWS says low 30's here tonight. I keep contemplating a greenhouse but so fat it has not materialized.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I still have some broccoli to come in, but after about 5 frosts now, everything else is done. DuaeGuttae, in some ways you are lucky to still be getting fresh veggies, I envy you in that regard, but would not want to deal with the hot weather when it is really hot. The hottest it ever got at my this summer was 91 degrees.

Quite frankly, I don't want to deal with the hot weather either, but it is what it is. I try to make the most of this new climate, and at least my mandarin orange tree is doing well. It's about eighteen feet in diameter and pretty loaded with fruit. The oranges are swelling and turning lighter, but they won't be truly ripe till December, I think. We're really slightly cold for a lot of citrus, and I've realized that the previous owners must have planted a bunch that didn't make it as I've recently identified some mystery plants as trifoliate orange that appears to be growing from the rootstock of no-longer present trees.

I pruned tomatoes recently to tone down new growth and suckers, but I'm debating doing a much more radical pruning of tomatoes and peppers to focus the plants' energies on the fruit that's already set. Anyone have any tips or warnings about that?

I have a handful of brassicas scattered about the garden. I think they'll enjoy the cooler weather in the weeks ahead, but they've held their own during some unusual heat this month, too.

 

[begreen]

Things are wrapping up for the season. A cold snap due later this week will wipe out all but the hardy plants. We'll be taking down most plants now and composting them. The cabbage, lettuce, carrots, beets, chard, kale will remain.

 

[gggvan]

I'm looking to grow indoor wildflowers, how deep of a tray do I need.

 

[gggvan]

Does anyone grow inside over the winter? Use grow lights? I'm finishing my basement and want to add some plant life and flower beds.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Unless your basement has a remarkable amount of natural light, you'll surely need grow lights for many kinds of plants.a I've known numerous people who maintain all sorts of plants in the winter, but not usually in basements. Circumstances differ based on what kind of light and heat you have, of course.

I did know an engineer who had a large house and small yard who set up a hydroponic system in his basement and grew large, indeterminate tomatoes with it. It can be done, but it's an investment.

We own two Aerogardens, one received as a gift, one bought used years ago. They seem to have gotten crazy expensive and bigger in recent years, but they are easy and provide some nice opportunities for winter growing depending on what you want to grow.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

The cold snap even pushed itself this far south. We had a much cooler week last week than originally forecast. One day didn't even get out of the thirties for more than 24 hours (that's impressive down here), but thankfully the heat-lovers all survived. I do have some beautiful tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers that I'd like to see mature. The weather will still be cool overnight but back up to the 70's during the days this week.

I planted my garlic yesterday as well as seeding some more daikon radishes as well as lettuce and kale. We don't have rain in the forecast (and haven't had much of anything since September, I think), so I'll have to be pretty diligent on surface watering for some of those seeds.

I seeded some sugar snap peas a good while ago, and the heat in October was really hard on them. They are all putting out new growth now that things have cooled, so there's hope yet.

I have some beautiful cauliflower plants that have been growing for a couple of months, but there have been no signs of heads. I know that they can be temperamental about temperature, and it has been a pretty up and down fall here. Is there hope for head formation now that we've got cooler weather, or do the plants get to the point where they just won't produce heads at all if they're too old? I'm tempted to cut them and cook the leaves like collards if there isn't any chance now.

 

[Riff]

The cold snap this weekend was enough to have a killing frost. We harvested the last of the green beans on Friday. Enough for two meals and have 4 quarts worth of them in the pressure canner right now. Not a bad year for having only put in the garden this summer. Planning to put down some aged manure this winter and expand out the garden in preparation for next year.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

We've had some cool/cold nights, but it has been an above average October and November in general. It has slowed my heat lovers, but they're still in the garden and show signs of some maturing. My eight year old and I harvested one ripe Black Krim tomato yesterday. We had one old seed that we planted inside in the winter. The plant went into the garden in the spring. It bore a first crop in the very early summer. It bore a late crop in late summer, but that was decimated by squirrels to our disappointment. We have fewer squirrels now, and I trimmed the plant back to one strong sucker in late summer. It has grown large again and has a third crop of about eight green tomatoes in varying stages. I'm proud of that one little old seed. This first tomato that we harvested was a bit cat-faced, but it still yielded some nice slices for BLT's (and it got sliced immediately for lunch yesterday, so there is not picture). I also harvested some leaves of Crawford lettuce that had volunteered in the shade and moisture next to one of my ollas. Now that it's much cooler and I'm watering some Daikon seeds in the same bed, and there are lots of tiny seedlings showing up. I hope it's more Crawford lettuce (went let it go to seed there this summer), but it will take some time for me to determine if it's that or weeds.

We did harvest one of our earlier Daikon plantings the other day. (The photo shows the lettuce as well, hiding by the pot.) We didn't have a lot come up from the first round, but we wanted to try one. Since I was motivated to plant them to help our soil, I kind of felt bad about harvesting it, so I ground up the leaves in the blender and poured them back down the planting hole. The sliced and salted Daikon was a hit. Now we have about two dozen newer seedlings growing for the winter.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

We cut and mulched the asparagus today in preparation for "winter." (It hit 82 today, and the sun was out while I was spreading mulch.) We also moved some of the containers of brassicas out of the empty raised bed frame we had built earlier this year to make room for organic matter in preparation for planting onions next month. I had expected the tomatoes to be dead by now, but they still are ripening on the vines, and the vines are so twined into the trellis that we didn't want to disturb them. We're about at the time of average first frost, and there is a cold front moving in tomorrow, I think, but I don't expect frost for a while yet this year.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

We went hog wild on garlic this fall. We intensively planted 2 beds with them. Hundreds of plants, lol! I wonder what their growth rate is? I wonder how big they'll be if I start harvesting in June?

I ran into a time constraint again this year. 2nd year in a row. Even with the wife working from home. I think I need to reevaluate what I'm planting and how I plant.

 

[begreen]

Looks right tidy mam.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

It looks like some cold and wet weather may move in this weekend with the possibility of a hard freeze on Monday. We took the opportunity of having a day off today to harvest most of the heat lovers and clean out the garden. Sadly something had been eating most of the well-formed sweet potatoes. The nibblers left me the little ones and ate into most of the good-sized ones. I'll cure them, but I was disappointed.



This is my second batch of fairly ripe tomatoes this week. The first got turned into some pretty yummy tomato basil soup. These will sit on the counter for a bit and will probably become sauce for pizza or pasta.

We also harvested the rest of the tomatoes and peppers as well. We cleared off a shelf in our pantry, and we'll see how they do in there.


The only plant we tried to transplant out of the garden was our fish pepper. I pruned off the vast majority of its foliage when we picked the peppers, but it had some nice young growth at the base, so we figured we'd see if we could overwinter it inside. We really just enjoy seeing the variegated leaves. (Its peppers are also striped; they're in the box just beyond the purple jalapenos.)


We also spent a lot of time adding new mulch around the inside and outside of the garden fence. Weeds and grass had been growing in some spots, and I wanted to get it under control before the rain. My husband made me nine cart loads of cedar mulch, and I got it all down. There's still more perimeter to do, but we've got plenty more brush piles to tackle.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

We got our rain. I'm so thankful as we have been in a drought for so long. It was just over an inch, and we could certainly use more, but it was the best we've had in the past two and a half months.

A surprisingly hard freeze (for us) is forecast for Monday night into Tuesday morning, and it has the potential to be low enough and long enough to damage the satsumas on the trees. We therefore harvested the majority of them this afternoon. I have no idea how many there are, but it's a good-sized box and eight paper bags about half full each. I have an old refrigerator in the garage that doesn't cool well enough for our regular groceries, but it can maintain a temperature in the forties, so I anticipate using it as storage for lots of oranges for the time being.

 

[begreen]

We got our rain. I'm so thankful as we have been in a drought for so long. It was just over an inch, and we could certainly use more, but it was the best we've had in the past two and a half months.

A surprisingly hard freeze (for us) is forecast for Monday night into Tuesday morning, and it has the potential to be low enough and long enough to damage the satsumas on the trees. We therefore harvested the majority of them this afternoon. I have no idea how many there are, but it's a good-sized box and eight paper bags about half full each. I have an old refrigerator in the garage that doesn't cool well enough for our regular groceries, but it can maintain a temperature in the forties, so I anticipate using it as storage for lots of oranges for the time being.

View attachment 267957View attachment 267958View attachment 267959

What a treat!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

What a treat!

It is a treat, @begreen. My kids got fresh-squeezed orange juice for breakfast this morning. Tomorrow they'll have marmalade and English muffins with their poached eggs.

My compost bin is suddenly so full of orange peels that I'm wondering if I'm going to cause myself some sort of problem. We have plenty of shredded leaves piled up that can be added to increase carbon if necessary (we usually have way more carbon available than nitrogen in our yard), but are there other factors I need to consider? This is a bin that we just emptied recently, so it's getting a fresh start. Right now it's basically shredded oak leaves, sweet potato vines (cut), and orange peels. I think the orange peels will be accumulating daily for a while.

 

[begreen]

Today I harvested the third and last potato crop. They have been under cardboard since August. I knicked a couple with the pitchfork but we got about 35lbs from this bed. My wife picked a half-dozen tomatoes from the greenhouse. The Early Girl is still producing.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Today I harvested the third and last potato crop. They have been under cardboard since August. I knicked a couple with the pitchfork but we got about 35lbs from this bed. My wife picked a half-dozen tomatoes from the greenhouse. The Early Girl is still producing.

View attachment 268603

Very nice potatoes, Begreen. I'm also impressed that your Early Girl is producing. What kind of temperatures is your greenhouse seeing these days/nights?

The green tomatoes and peppers that we brought in before Thanksgiving started ripening almost immediately. I think that being in the warmer house at night sped things up. Not all of them had hit the green mature stage, though, so I don't think they'll all ripen. Maybe I need to find my recipe for green tomato cake that I made years ago.

 

[Dobish]

we had a few flowers come up (not the peonies though... they never bloomed)

and we got our garden boxes (phase 1) built and in. The yard is sloped, with a 10' wall drop on the other side of the garden, so we wanted to limit the ability to walk behind.



We also had to get creative with our trellis for the squash. It actually worked out pretty well



we had a rogue watermelon plant that made it through 2 freezes, and a hail storm. We got 6 watermelon, but they were not ready to eat, or they were rotted. it was a nice experiment though!


I had to get creative during a few hailstorms and sudden freezes.... Fortunately I thought about it when i was putting in the garden boxes and put some PVC that I could slide some supports into.

we ended up with tons of lettuces, greens, carrots, radishes, beets, kale, hot peppers, sweet peppers, zucchini, butternut squash, yellow squash, eggplants, tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers..... mmmm thinking about it is making me crave fresh salad. Tons of basil pesto, carrot top pesto, and mustard greens (SO MUCH MUSTARD GREEENS!)

We ended up getting free greenhouse in the summer, so we will utilize that this spring. We also tore out a lot of weeds and put in some native drought resistant plants. I started building the stairs to the wood pile, but that got delayed (i found more boulders, project got bigger)

 

[DuaeGuttae]

we had a few flowers come up (not the peonies though... they never bloomed)View attachment 268794

and we got our garden boxes (phase 1) built and in. The yard is sloped, with a 10' wall drop on the other side of the garden, so we wanted to limit the ability to walk behind.
View attachment 268801

View attachment 268800
We also had to get creative with our trellis for the squash. It actually worked out pretty well
View attachment 268795

View attachment 268796
we had a rogue watermelon plant that made it through 2 freezes, and a hail storm. We got 6 watermelon, but they were not ready to eat, or they were rotted. it was a nice experiment though!
View attachment 268798

I had to get creative during a few hailstorms and sudden freezes.... Fortunately I thought about it when i was putting in the garden boxes and put some PVC that I could slide some supports into.
View attachment 268799
we ended up with tons of lettuces, greens, carrots, radishes, beets, kale, hot peppers, sweet peppers, zucchini, butternut squash, yellow squash, eggplants, tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers..... mmmm thinking about it is making me crave fresh salad. Tons of basil pesto, carrot top pesto, and mustard greens (SO MUCH MUSTARD GREEENS!)

We ended up getting free greenhouse in the summer, so we will utilize that this spring. We also tore out a lot of weeds and put in some native drought resistant plants. I started building the stairs to the wood pile, but that got delayed (i found more boulders, project got bigger)
View attachment 268797

Thanks for the update and the photos, Dobish. If that garden is just phase 1, I can hardly imagine how grand future phases will be.

Hail and drastic temperature swings cause me to have to protect my plants down here in Texas, too. We haven't had a devastating storm since I've lived here, but everyone tells me tales of a huge, huge storm that hit the area about a year and a half before we moved. Our insurance rates down here tell me that story, too. I had never used frost cloth before moving here, and I'd never even heard of shade cloth or hail netting. Now I use the first two every season, and they help protect against the light hail we've had. I figure that if we have a devastating storm, there isn't really much I can do.

 

[Dobish]

Thanks for the update and the photos, Dobish. If that garden is just phase 1, I can hardly imagine how grand future phases will be.

Hail and drastic temperature swings cause me to have to protect my plants down here in Texas, too. We haven't had a devastating storm since I've lived here, but everyone tells me tales of a huge, huge storm that hit the area about a year and a half before we moved. Our insurance rates down here tell me that story, too. I had never used frost cloth before moving here, and I'd never even heard of shade cloth or hail netting. Now I use the first two every season, and they help protect against the light hail we've had. I figure that if we have a devastating storm, there isn't really much I can do.

phase 2 involves some bigger trellis, some plexi sides, and a roof. Also, will probably be adding 2 more beds, and some more potted plants.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

phase 2 involves some bigger trellis, some plexi sides, and a roof. Also, will probably be adding 2 more beds, and some more potted plants.

Those are grand plans indeed. We have some cattle panel trellises that we have really enjoyed, especially the ones that arch and create some shade between the beds during the height of summer.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I've thought of planting pole beans in a way that will provide shade for cool season stuff that likes to bolt early.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I've thought of planting pole beans in a way that will provide shade for cool season stuff that likes to bolt early.

I had some potted plants in the arches this summer to benefit from the shade. They were actually peppers that were getting sunburned, and they did much better under the arch than against the southern side fence. Texas sun is pretty vicious in July and August. We actually moved our whole garden area after our first summer because we learned that even though garden sites (even in Texas) recommend full sun, it's just not ideal here for any plants. Now that it is December, my self-seeded lettuce is coming up nicely.