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Post by september on Oct 10, 2017 20:55:47 GMT -5
Well, it finally froze last night, not heavily, but enough to call it quits with the tender stuff. I spent all of yesterday picking the rest of the peppers and the green tomatoes to bring inside. Moved all the potted house plants into the garage. They need a good wash before bringing them back into the house. Supposed to warm up again the rest of the week.
And the thing happened that I would not have believed. Towards evening, one of the larger does jumped over the 7 ft deer fence for the front garden. We did not see her jump in, but my husband was passing by when he saw her try to jump out. She took down the fence by breaking the zip ties holding it to the posts, but still got tangled in it and possibly hurt one front leg. I know she was also in there earlier in the day, because I found some fresh deer poo and then couldn't figure out why the gate mesh panel was missing ... found it over by some evergreens. The thing that's puzzling is that I had the gate open and fastened back during the day, so there was no reason for her to bump into it, she could have just walked in and out while I was in the house.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 11, 2017 23:10:05 GMT -5
I picked a bunch more cherry tomatoes today, with more coming, given the heat in the forecast. I also picked the end of my Thai peppers - the third, smaller crop, all of which will go in the freezer, red and green. I pulled all of the pepper plants that were not in SIPs, and all of the other plants in that row - some blue spice basil and perilla. The blue spice basil didn't thrill me, and I would have pulled all of them before, except that the bees loved the blossoms, which appeared very early in the season. The aroma and flavor was a sort of fruity, rather than spicy, like regular basil - maybe good for something, but not in place of regular basil. Here's a photo showing the large number of blossoms: DSCF0396 by pepperhead212, on Flickr Here's a photo of part of the single perilla plant, that I cloned from a pack of herbs from an Asian market. The plant grew close to 4 feet tall: DSCF0395 by pepperhead212, on Flickr Here's one of the cuttings I took, in the cloner, in place of one of the already rooted basil cuttings: DSCF0398 by pepperhead212, on Flickr Bitter melons still producing! DSCF0397 by pepperhead212, on Flickr
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Post by bestofour on Oct 15, 2017 17:39:12 GMT -5
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 15, 2017 21:01:55 GMT -5
bestofour Perilla is used in Japanese, Korean, and SE Asian cuisines. The red version is usually referred to as Shiso, and is often used to color foods, such as pickles. The leaves are often salt cured, and used in that way. Vietnamese soups are what I use them in more than anything else.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 15, 2017 22:53:33 GMT -5
I pulled a bunch of things out there today. I have 3 trash cans full of garden trash - pulled all of my eggplants, as they aren't doing much, and it's getting down to low 40s tomorrow night, so those and the peppers will be stopped in their tracks! I also pulled my bitter melons (got 9 more small fruits from them), tomatillos, pole beans, and some of the tomato plants, though some are still producing a bunch! Every other day I get more green tigers ripening in clusters, and today I got about 3 qts more of cherries, and about 2 qts were green tigers. The black cherries were almost all fermenting, even though they looked good, at first. My lettuce that I grew from seed, that I saved from that mix, from which one variety went well into July, before bolting. Not knowing what it was, I had to save it - the first time I have saved lettuce seed. Almost every one germinated! DSCF0404 by pepperhead212, on Flickr I harvested some butternuts today. Still 3 large ones out there, that haven't quite ripened yet, and a bunch of tiny ones, that I might pick and use now, since there is not enough time for them to mature. The three by themselves I had to cut up tonight (got 82 oz to dehydrate), as they had holes in them, from some bugs. And the greenish one was already off the vine, so I'll use that first. DSCF0406 by pepperhead212, on Flickr
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Post by paulf on Oct 16, 2017 11:25:22 GMT -5
Harvested another twenty pounds of tomatoes yesterday and terminated another three plants leaving behind five plants If they have at least several 8 to 16 ounce tomatoes on the vine they stay until those are picked. Plants with smaller than 6-8 ounce fruits get yanked. No sense having a tomato plant fooling itself into thinking it can keep pumping out flowers and fruit with winter on the way. If you listen closely the roots tend to emit a quiet scream as they are pulled. I hate to do it but it is time. The last standing survivor gets recognized in the garden journal every year as the toughest, longest lasting variety of the year.
The peppers are still producing like crazy and the zucchini are also doing well. The squash blossoms are larger and prettier than this in the spring and with no frost in the two week forecast maybe we will have zucchini, pepper and tomato salad.
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Post by bestofour on Oct 16, 2017 12:59:57 GMT -5
Raining so not going to the garden today.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 16, 2017 21:33:23 GMT -5
Yesterday I took my curry tree and bay laurel onto my back porch, and today, the lime trees joined them, due to temps forecast in the low 40s tonight. Yet the 7 day forecast shows a high in the 80s again! Crazy weather...
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Saltflower
Pro Member
Posts: 336
Joined: July 2017
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Post by Saltflower on Oct 16, 2017 22:05:51 GMT -5
103 today...ugh...
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 17, 2017 9:32:23 GMT -5
Whew, where are you located to get 103 temps in October? In the desert SW somewhere?
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Saltflower
Pro Member
Posts: 336
Joined: July 2017
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Post by Saltflower on Oct 17, 2017 12:31:36 GMT -5
Southern California.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 18, 2017 11:31:46 GMT -5
Yep, that explains it. Hopefully it's a dry heat!
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Post by horsea on Oct 18, 2017 12:28:45 GMT -5
Lots of nice photos. September commented:
Towards evening, one of the larger does jumped over the 7 ft deer fence for the front garden. We did not see her jump in, but my husband was passing by when he saw her try to jump out. She took down the fence by breaking the zip ties holding it to the posts, but still got tangled in it
Hey, that happened here, too, a couple of times over the past few days. Nice & warm here and the deer are getting nervy. They virtually never jump the fence during the growing season but now that there's nothing left but carrots and I'm cleaning up, they are jumping over the fence and when they see me coming from the house they run into the fence in a panic and as you say bust the zip ties and tear the fence down. Happened 2X in 2 days.
I thought it would be a solution to use real thick tough wire to attach the fence to the posts, but then the deer would just keep ramming themselves into the fence and possibly get badly hurt. In any case, the fencing gets twisted out of shape. Anyone remember the film The Yearling? They solved their problem...I think the story ends differently in the original book, though. We read it in school but I can't remember much.
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Post by bestofour on Oct 20, 2017 21:46:46 GMT -5
Gathered some basil seeds and that's about it.
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Post by ladymarmalade on Oct 21, 2017 17:56:32 GMT -5
Well, I am wiped out! I had planned to spend my day sorting and packaging seeds, but a check of the weather forecast had me bustling over the community garden to put as much of the garden to bed as I could. Pulled out all the tomatoes and tomatillos and got the trellises back home and put away, and also got all the landscape fabric pulled up and put in the trash. I have quite the pile of tomatillos! I've made enough green salsa already this year, so I may just freeze the rest to use in green chili this winter. Or I might can them if I can muster up the will power to do so. I still have the kale growing strong over there- I'll let that go for a while yet. I plan to harvest some this coming week to blanch and freeze, but mostly I'll leave it there as long as it will let me harvest it. The S word actually popped up over a couple of days in the new forecast. Guess my glorious summery fall is coming to a close. Tomorrow I'll see what I can harvest here at the home garden yet, and decide if I want to spend the week covering and uncovering my lettuce bed. There are quite a few tomatoes and peppers yet on the vines here at home.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 21, 2017 23:54:19 GMT -5
This Indian summer has kept a lot of things producing! I thought I'd had my last lentil salad a couple weeks ago, but I made another today. with all those cherry tom's, chives, and habs. DSCF0418 by pepperhead212, on Flickr DSCF0417 by pepperhead212, on Flickr I also got more of my indoor herbs fixed up, but I still want to try cilantro again. I'll never give up! I do have some of those elongated, golden seeds (found almost exclusively in Indian groceries), which I finally got from a place that I sprouted some from. No place that I have ever ordered cilantro or coriander seeds from, even indianseeds.com, had these, and all of the ones I have gotten from groceries before this were sterile - I figured that they were radiated, or something like that. And I've been wanting to try them, as I figure if these are the main variety used as the spice in India, they must use it as cilantro, which is another thing used a lot in their cooking.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 22, 2017 12:43:15 GMT -5
Elongated cilantro seeds? I've never seen those. I'm interested to hear how the taste and productivity compares to the more common cilantro varieties.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 22, 2017 14:13:04 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL Here is a photo of the different types of coriander. The upper left is the one I referred to - the elongated one, found in Indian groceries, and the viable seeds I got from spicesinc.com. The upper right seeds are the ones most people are used to, and what I've seen in every cilantro packet; in fact, that's where I got those! The lower seeds, smaller and reddish, are Thai coriander, which tastes much like the regular, but more intense. The Indian variety has a different flavor, with sort of a grassy flavor mixed in with the coriander. I don't even have any of the regular any more - when I learned about the others, and compared some fresh ground seeds of all of them, I was amazed at how "bland" the old stuff seemed! DSCF0421 by pepperhead212, on Flickr I first learned about the Indian variety in the book Cradle Of Flavor, by James Oseland - a book on Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singapore cooking, which are fusions of Chinese, Thai, Indian, and other cuisines. This is also the book that got me looking for curry leaves, and eventually growing them!
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Post by september on Oct 23, 2017 9:21:47 GMT -5
I didn't know there were different kinds of coriander/cilantro. I've only run into the round seeds. For a bunch of years, I let them go to seed because they didn't time well with my tomato harvest, so had lots of volunteers the next year. But then I learned to pull and freeze them, root and all, so now I have to remember to buy seeds every year.
We are facing a major cool down in a couple of days, so I spent yesterday soaping down my orange and lime trees so I could bring them back in the house. I still have the lemon tree to do today, and a few amaryllis pots that went out for the summer. Still debating about bringing that one perky little pepper plant inside. I keep checking it for aphids and still have not seen any on it. But I did find one aphid on another potted pepper in the greenhouse ...
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Post by paulf on Oct 23, 2017 14:44:22 GMT -5
It looks like about four growing days left before the first frost/freeze here. Pulled the remaining tomatoes and zucchini. I let the peppers go until the last day, then harvest. Dead plants pull pretty easily. I helped my wife ready the potted plants that will be inside for the winter. It gets to like a jungle in the house. I hear, "I'm not bringing all that many inside this year." Usually we end up with just as many every year. All the plants have been trimmed, cleaned, watered and repotted if necessary. Tomorrow they all come inside.
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Post by september on Oct 27, 2017 9:55:42 GMT -5
First snow started yesterday afternoon, got about 3 inches overnight. This morning, here is the view from my computer corner window to our wood burning furnace. I ran around yesterday putting away last minute outdoor things, as well as finally getting my garlic in the ground. The garlic bed got a nice thick cover of shredded leaves, so hope it gets some roots down before the ground freezes. My garage is piled full of tuberous begonia and fuchsia pots that need to be prepared for dormancy. We had warm weather so long, that I hated to cut the blooms early.
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Post by ladymarmalade on Oct 27, 2017 9:57:44 GMT -5
Holy cow! I'm definitely not ready for that icky white stuff!
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Post by meandtk on Oct 27, 2017 11:03:15 GMT -5
I replanted skippy spots in my heading collards, planted three more varieties of collards, two varieties of lettuce, some bunching onions, and carrots today. I am awaiting my garlic order. I hope to plant it Monday.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Oct 27, 2017 23:02:10 GMT -5
I pulled up almost all of my irrigation lines, and removed the timers. The cold crops will be watered as needed. I got one of my kaffir lime trees inside; the other, plus the curry and bay plants are on my back porch, until I can get them all in. That lime tree grew so fast since trimming and repotting that I trimmed more off this time than the first time!
I got several of the "regular" slo-bolt cilantro seeds planted, and one of the Vietnamese variety that Renées sells - looks small and red, like the Thai I showed above. I also have several of the Indian type with a hint of a sprout, but I didn't plant any yet. I'll see if any seem to grow better in the hydroponics.
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Post by meandtk on Oct 28, 2017 11:43:24 GMT -5
12lbs of garlic arrived today. I can see that Monday will probably be a busy day.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on Oct 28, 2017 13:56:05 GMT -5
That's a lot of garlic to plant! What kind(s) will you be growing?
I'm only planning to plant a pound, but if it does well it will keep my family in garlic all year. My garlic is still vernalizing in the fridge. I will plant it sometime between mid-Nov and early Dec., depending on temperatures. (If it's cooler, I will plant earlier.)
The lemons on my potted Meyer lemon are coloring up. There are only five of them, but I'm looking forward to them.
I am seeing a little blush on a couple of my fall tomatoes, but they are not going to make very many fruits. The peppers are hanging in there, but I will only get a few more here and there before frost, except for the jalepenos, the fall-planted bell pepper plants, and the Trinidad Perfume and Roberto's Cuban Seasonong; those last two are loaded up pretty well. The okra plants are finishing up. I have a couple of volunteer Asian long bean plants that are producing their little hearts out, and the chard needs to be picked.
The Roselle plants are blooming; I need to figure out when to harvest the calyces.
The broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are doing pretty well for the most part. It's still quite a while before any of them will be ready to harvest, though.
Last but not least, I ordered some strawberry plants: Chandler and Sweet Charlie, two of the most-recommended varieties for my area. They should be here Monday. For strawberries, in my area fall planting is best. Depending on the weather I should get fruit in beginning in January or February...or March if it's an unusually cold year. I'm going to try these in some of my Earthboxes and see if I have better luck with them there than I have in the ground.
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Post by meandtk on Oct 28, 2017 16:13:12 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, It is all California Late White. It was the best price I could find on one suited to my area. Hopefully I'll get a good yield, so that I can save most of it for seed. The next year should position me to begin taking it to market.
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Post by ladymarmalade on Oct 28, 2017 17:18:42 GMT -5
Laura_in_FL, It is all California Late White. It was the best price I could find on one suited to my area. Hopefully I'll get a good yield, so that I can save most of it for seed. The next year should position me to begin taking it to market. Have you attempted garlic on such a large scale before? I only ask because paquebot gave some great tips about spacing buried in the Garlic 2017 thread. He certainly knows his garlic growing and it would be something to keep in mind while making your plans.
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Post by meandtk on Oct 28, 2017 17:37:15 GMT -5
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Post by daylilydude on Oct 28, 2017 17:37:46 GMT -5
Having a freeze tonight so i'm thinking it's all done for me here so come on spring time...LOL!
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