California - What are you doing this month?

cute!

I'm so atypical - I'm running around in my flip flops in 30 degree weather and snow, LOL!  I love the cold.  

Me too! Much rather do chores when it doesn't make me feel like the heat is gonna get me, and anyway I find cold invigorating and love breathing in that crisp cold air.

Cold and sunny, good. Especially if the wind is quiet. But wet, windy....yuck!

I spent the morning doing more clean up in my garden.  Pulled a couple more squash plants and put them on the compost pile.  Put the mini greenhouse cover on one of my 4x4 table tops after planting seedlings in it.  I mainly have the cover to keep the grasshoppers out.  They keep decimating my seedlings.  

Greenhouse is cleaned up and ready.  I have 7 different tomato plants with 3 or 4 different kinds for winter harvest.  A couple red bell pepper plants, a couple mini bell peppers, several hot peppers, some herbs and I've planted some green beans.  It's a little late for them but they will grow in there.  

Lots of seedlings started that will go into the various greenhouse areas as they get larger.  

I love this time of year!

I'm getting acclimated to the cool weather now, but boy, my summer pjs and flip flops just don't cut it now. I do agree that cool/slightly cold weather is good for heavy work outside. The only thing I got done today was some pruning of the wisteria. I like the leaves in compost.

I thought we were going to Sac this weekend but the 2 rugrats came down with colds. I have some heavy dental appts and I don't need to intentionally get sick, especially the bone graft. Dstack is sending me some seeds and I'm looking forward to trying them.

oooooooooh!  So sorry on the dental work.... ick!  I had a root canal earlier this year - so fun!  We're supposed to get down to 34 tonight.  I need to cover some of my large squash that are still growing tonight.  I'm hoping to get some late harvested spaghetti squash if I can get them past the first cold.

I'm going to evict my tomatoes and zucchini plants this week(weather permitting). They've lived a long and productive life, but alas, our time to part has come. The only thing I'm not too sure about is whether to trash them or compost them; I don't think my compost bin will be getting hot enough to kill off any pathogens the "carcasses" may harbor.Looks like a cold, wet winter ahead.

Like old food in the refrigerator, "When in doubt, throw it out."

I like that, S. Thanks! More food for the landfill

Today was sunny and crisp, just perfect for working on the 2 compost piles.  I posted about the Berkeley pile for the Veggie beds under Compost: Bekeley 18 day [hot] method.

This is the junk pile for the flower beds.  I had some left over chicken wire and welded-wire fencing and made a medium compost cage a bit ago.  Today, I removed all the product and whip-stitched the chicken wire to the bottom of the cage with wire. I fluffed and mixed the ingredients (grass clippings, pepper plants, kitchen scraps, bedding straw mulch, leaves, horse poo and Starbuck's) because the bottom mixture was too wet and slightly septic and the top was too dry.
Everything is back in and will just do its thing over winter.  There were quite a few worms in the bottom material (and grubs the size of my pinkie) and the cardboard floor was gone!

I'm showing this for any beginner who wants to compost but keep things corralled. You can be creative using different materials to create embarrassing looking cages!

Ibu is calling. . .

This week I've amended a 4'X4' bed and planted some Silver white softneck and Russian purple hardneck garlic cloves. I'm going to dust off my heat mat and grow light and start some Romaine lettuce and cross my fingers that things won't get too cold for them to get established. The recent rains have encouraged the snails to migrate in search of new feeding and breeding grounds, so I'm doing a daily search-and-destroy mission. Snails be warned; witness the wrath of my grubby old garden shoes as I dance on your slimy carcasses. ("Dancing With the Stars" contestants could learn some new moves from my vengeful fury.)

We had our first frost last night - it wasn't supposed to get that cold and I forgot to cover one patch of my spaghetti squash and it will highly likely be done.  Oh well... it was really slowing down with the shorter days anyway, it was an experiment.

The rest was ready and will do well.  I have massive patches of cherry tomatoes that will be done as well.  Normally I harvest a lot of the green ones to ripen over the next two months, but I have lots growing in my greenhouse so I'll only grab some of them this time.  The rest will just compost right where they are an my next batch of "volunteers" will come up right there again next spring.  I rotate things elsewhere in my garden but this patch has been doing really well for a couple of years with no effort so I'm letting nature rule there :-)

Yardslave, I HATE SNAILS!!!!  Growing up in San Diego they were our constant nemesis, fortunately they don't live where I am now.  We have a few slugs but no more than we can handle.  Yuck!  I understand that vengeful dance all too well!

My bigger nemisis is grasshoppers.  I get the same satisfaction in crushing them to death under my feet... only a gardener would understand the "protective mother's love" of her seedlings, LOL!

Let's see. Snails/slugs, grasshoppers and freeze. Yep, that sums up this time of the year. Sweetie caught and dispatched a grasshopper this morning. Good Kitty. The slugs in the backyard are pretty much staying out of the boxes now that they are raised and there are leaves and wood chips on the ground. I got the tomatoes moved into the little greenhouse. Waiting on the first-ever sweet potatoes. I'm excited to see how they turn out

I lucked on the frost - it must have been just early in the morning, my tomatoes and squash look like they made it through.  Everything is tucked in tonight.  We'll see how my mylar survival blanket covering works just over the ground and plants.

We don't usually get frosts until March in my area, but we've seen 2 days of it already. Looks like the weather pattern is now 4 months ahead. Until now, the weather pattern's been 2 months ahead- I hope the fruit trees don't start budding too soon if the temperatures go back up. 2 years ago the same thing happened (early frost, followed by a late spring frost) and almost all the fruit dropped dead on everything but the apples.

YS, I fret over my single Dwarf Naval tree that way. Yet every Christmas I end up with enough oranges to share. You don't get frost until March?? Or is that a typo? Wow.

Finished the green house today.  Just need to put a lamp in there on a timer before Sunday night.

NICE!

Very nice sanderson. I want one.

Very primitive but it works.  I was trying to make an access hatch on hinges but the rain and cold caught up to me.  Maybe next winter.

Ken is in the background, cutting off the tops of the 4x4 posts of the inner privacy fence. Before cutting:
After topping the posts:
The plan is to hang flower baskets from the top rail, maybe tall sunflowers and zinnias planted in the BTE run or in pots. Next spring.

Yes, if you think the inner fence is a little crocked in spots, you are right. The hard pan was a nightmare to drill in 20 years ago, to the point that I told Ken to not worry about total straight, that the eventual star jasmine would cover it.

After yesterday's rain, today was sunny and crisp.  The cabbages at sunset in 2' x 3' TT:

Chard and Kales in 2' x 8' TT:

Winter garden, west to east:

Orange tree; looks like oranges for Christmas:

Beautiful!  My cabbages never sprouted, yours look great and your chard and kale are gorgeous!  Well done :-)