PNW - 2015 October

Howdy all Pacific Northwesterners, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea! The month according to gardenate.com in two of the zones that represent our area pretty well but can't cover the whole of it, which goes from lush to desert, seaside to high mountains, can't grow the same plant because it's either too hot OR too cold:

7a and 7b:

Beans - broad beans, fava beans (also Fava bean) Plant in garden.
Chives (also Garden chives) - Plant in garden.
Corn Salad (also Lamb's lettuce or Mache) - Plant in garden.
Garlic - Plant in garden.
Jerusalem Artichokes (also Sunchoke) - Plant in garden.
Kohlrabi - Plant in garden.
Onion - Plant in garden.
Radish - Plant in garden.
Rutabaga (also Swedes) - Plant in garden.
Shallots (also Eschalots) - Plant in garden.
Spinach (also English spinach) - Plant in garden.
Spring onions (also Scallions, Bunching onions, Welsh onion) - Plant in garden.

The two zones don't always have identical recommendations, but they do this time.

Wow, that's a lot of planting for this late in the year. When is your first frost date again? I think I need to move.
:/
When would those beans and onions be harvested?
CC

I'm not sure what broad beans are, but fava beans overwinter and then produce beans in the spring. A friend of mine does that very successfully.

I was disappointed with corn salad/mache when I planted it a year or two ago. It's a tiny plant and doesn't produce much at all for the real estate.

Marc Iverson wrote:I'm not sure what broad beans are, but fava beans overwinter and then produce beans in the spring.  A friend of mine does that very successfully.

I was disappointed with corn salad/mache when I planted it a year or two ago.  It's a tiny plant and doesn't produce much at all for the real estate.

broad been is another name for fava bean

Any photos here in the Pacific NW?  I like to see what you're all up to since I'm sometimes doing the same thing.

And where's Boffer?  
Hey Boffer...what's happening in your garden???  I know you're up to something fun...whatcha doin'?

CC

Marc Iverson wrote:Howdy all Pacific Northwesterners, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea!

 WOW
I wonder how many here on the forum has ever heard that in reality ?
If I recall correctly I did just about every evening, date ?   nope not saying that one.
However wasn't it Mr and Mrs America ?

Okay I've been inactive on this thread, so there is a lot of catching up to do. 

Peppers are still alive and been doing great 





... but I picked most of them by now. Some of these pics are from the beginning of the month.  I'm wondering if I can put some of them someplace warm to wait out the winter, because they've been wonderful producers.  And sanderson, among others, says overwintering peppers is possible, and they can produce a second or even third year crop.  I've always had great luck with banana peppers.

The beans back home are dying out and have for the most part been pulled out.  I'm still keeping a lot so that their seeds will fully mature, though.  But I want to take up their space with some kale I've had growing for a while.

Here's some pics of some of my backyard greens garden:










And here we are a couple weeks later. Lettuce bigger, kale coming back from the dead after severe pest infestation...



A box with an unknown but probably fire lettuce accidentally mixed into the four-pack I bought, with Flashy Troutback lettuces:



Winter Density lettuces:



Newly transplated mammoth red kale:



Lemon thyme for whatever reason growing explosively





New Flashy Troutback transplants

Marc, are the cups a watering system? Are those banana peppers? Do you pickle them or eat them plain?

Okay so what's with the red cups? They're part of my worm odyssey.  I put some worms into each planter a while back, and dropped some more into or beneath the cups I planted.  What I'm wanting to do here is create a super-cheap "worm tube" that I hope will be workable in a smaller area than the successful worm tubes/large beds I've read about here.  Since I've read others claiming worm success in even tiny indoor houseplant pots, I thought it was worth a try to see if I could go small and still have worm success.

First I got a solo cup (yay dollar store!) and cut out the bottom.



Then bury that with the lip a bit above soil level and shovel some kitchen scraps into it.  



Then I cut around another solo cup so it will fit into the cup that's already been sunk into the soil:



Then poked some holes in the top VERY carefully with a nail:



... and pushed the top cup down into the bottom cup:



So anyway I'm on my second round of kitchen scraps as the old ones in the cups rot. I'm not sure, but I think I should be pleased -- the scraps are rotting and shrinking fairly quickly.  The lettuces are growing like crazy, but I wouldn't ascribe that to worms just yet. Too early to guess.  But I'm going to continue the experiment.  Maybe next spring I'll find lots of worms in here?  Maybe this winter I'll have lots of nice lettuce even through the harsh season?  I dunno, but I'm curious to find out.

sanderson wrote:Marc, are the cups a watering system?  Are those banana peppers?  Do you pickle them or eat them plain?

Banana peppers.  Eat them plain, at any point after yellow.  Cups are a worm-feeding system!

Very ingenius, marc! Plants look great! I have always had good luck with banana peppers too, until this year. So sure I was, that I only put one plant in my SFG, and I got I think 3 pepper total, including the one that was a baby when I bought the plant! So bummed.

How cold does it get where you live?

You have some real healthy looking lettuce growing.  Good luck keeping it all alive over the late fall and winter.

Scorpio Rising wrote: Very ingenius, marc! Plants look great! I have always had good luck with banana peppers too, until this year. So sure I was, that I only put one plant in my SFG, and I got I think 3 pepper total, including the one that was a baby when I bought the plant! So bummed.

How cold does it get where you live?

Well, a couple of years back we had a record-breaker, but it only got down to about 8 degrees. Usually we rarely and barely hit freezing; snow falls but you have to rush to see, because it turns to water almost as soon as it hits the ground. Maybe it sits on the ground for an hour once in a while, but an actual pile of snow isn't something we see many winters at all.

That is a bummer about your pepper. What happened? I've had peppers poop out on me in old, disease-ridden soil, but generally I find banana peppers especially sturdy and productive. More so than tomatoes.

yolos wrote:You have some real healthy looking lettuce growing.  Good luck keeping it all alive over the late fall and winter.

Thanks. Most of them are "winter density," which do have a good reputation for hanging on through winter. I have some cloth to put over them, and may try that too.

I know! I have never had such a terrible pepper year, even in my old garden! I don't know what happened, brand new MM in deep boxes. Next year!

Yup, another year will come along, generally sooner than we expect.

So often I've lost plants to bugs and disease ... I tend to overplant now, just in case.

SR, I'm finding that my MM gets better each year as I add new homemade compost. More worms and microbes?

Me too, I think. Looking at the MM in my burlap bags, for instance, I keep thinking, jeez, this has been around for a couple years now, it must need supplementation badly. But it's a rich dark brown/black that seems to retain moisture very well without drowning the plants come our frequent PNW rain. And it seems to keep growing stuff very well with minor supplementation that's simply dumped on the top of it rather than worked in.

Well that is good to hear! I am going to put the whole thing to bed and get ready for an early start in Spring. And I see a lit of folks doing a variety of containers, I want to do some of that too. That way I Don't have to limit myself so much on what to plant.

Containers are fun. A lot more fussy than a bed, though, since they get more easily affected by heat and cold, and sometimes both adequate watering and proper drainage can be issues. Fussy.

I kinda like how they keep the critters like moles and gophers and such from disturbing and eating roots and plants. I haven't seen one try to fight its way through a plastic bottom yet, or dislodge a pot.

Marc
Your right on, containers are fun. Can be moved around, protected, easy to take care of..and as I said fun.
I enjoy planting special items in them..everything shown here is planted in Mel's Mix.

I usually do annuals in planters, mostly terra cotta, which do dry out more than Earth. But they are fun and pretty. I do not water anything in Earth. It either lives or not. Survival of the fittest.

I have never grown any veggies in containers however! Wanna try it some place convenient, where Imam watering the flowers....

Jimmy, I's so glad you posted that photo of the hanging flower containers. I will soon have a set up that will just scream for them come spring. My computer is in the shop or else I would post the photo. I did post it in the northern Cal topic.

sanderson wrote:Jimmy,  I's so glad you posted that photo of the hanging flower containers.  I will soon have a set up that will just scream for them come spring.  My computer is in the shop or else I would post the photo.  I did post it in the northern Cal topic.

From now on, wife will be planting her own hanging baskets. This past season she again purchased some from garden centers. They did poorly, so she made some up with impatiens, for just a couple of dollars and what we already had they turned out great, matter of fact even in the cold weather they did nicely on our porch.
26 deg did them in yesterday...

wanted to stop by and say hi!.....still going thru surgeries....one more to go in the next few weeks....but...so far Im doing really well recovering from the last one

can you all believe the weather?....we still have not pulled up our tomato plants I don't think we are going to get any good large ones any longer but we are munching on the cherry size here and there...but....the cherry plants are looking bad and are going to get pulled....the larger tomato plants look green and lush still....wait...WHAT?....yup...but the tomatoes seem to be rotting on the vine ....so tomorrow we will go out and decide if we should pull them...I think we should if its not raining

over all..... the summer gardens did well this year....we didn't put up as much of the harvest as we would of liked to, (because of my health issues) but we share LOTS of fresh veggies with our neighbors, friends and family  and the hens and dogs ate like Kings and Queens so no complaining....we knew this was going to be the case this year as I knew I needed some surgeries and such.....hubby & the kids were true gardeners this year and did the best they could and IM so proud of them!

the SFG fall/winter garden is doing very well too...its on the small side this year....(planed it that way) we have been enjoying a few fresh veggies from it...we also planted for the hens for fresh greens for them over the winter...so far its working out well

we put the back garden to bed for the winter and are looking forward to next year!
happy gardening
rose