California - What are you doing this month?

sanderson wrote:Suspense - how does it taste?

Patience, Grasshopper. I'm gonna let it ripen for a few more days.

You guys!  We love your Renaissance!  

We are on the down trend...living vicariously through you starting in October,  we still have beans maters, taters, and fall showings of spinach, lettuces, radishes.

Scorpio Rising wrote:You guys!  We love your Renaissance!  

We are on the down trend...living vicariously through you starting in October,  we still have beans maters, taters, and fall showings of spinach, lettuces, radishes.

By the end of our 10-day forecast, we'll be back up into triple-digits. We are so loving this tiny glimpse of nice weather. 

Just returned from a vacation in Idaho to find that the house sitter didn't keep up with the 3-4 day picking schedule for the tomatoes- so they shut down. The zucchini plants each had 18" zucchini fruit hanging out the boxes and they too stopped flowering. (They look like big green scuba tanks!). I hope it stays warm so the plants will start pushing flowers, but I don't hold out much hope of seeing any more tomatoes this season- it will be too late for them to ripen as the fall chill approaches. I will now have to pull up the tomatoes and get the beds ready for fall planting. The only thing left to harvest besides the existing veggies are lots of apples- got to get what I can before the blue jays and sparrows start pecking them all over.

countrynaturals wrote:Funniest thing, most folks gripe when it gets "up" into the 90s. We celebrate when it gets "down" into the 90s. 

gruesome.
CC

Yardslave wrote:Just returned from a vacation in Idaho to find that the house sitter didn't keep up with the 3-4 day picking schedule for the tomatoes- so they shut down. The zucchini plants each had 18" zucchini fruit hanging out the boxes and they too stopped flowering. (They look like big green scuba tanks!). I hope it stays warm so the plants will start pushing flowers, but I don't hold out much hope of seeing any more tomatoes this season- it will be too late for them to ripen as the fall chill approaches. I will now have to pull up the tomatoes and get the beds ready for fall planting. The only thing left to harvest besides the existing veggies are lots of apples- got to get what I can before the blue jays and sparrows start pecking them all over.

*deep sigh* I feel your pain.  I have good watering from my house sitter, but never get the fruit picked adequately either.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:

Yardslave wrote:Just returned from a vacation in Idaho to find that the house sitter didn't keep up with the 3-4 day picking schedule for the tomatoes- so they shut down. The zucchini plants each had 18" zucchini fruit hanging out the boxes and they too stopped flowering. (They look like big green scuba tanks!). I hope it stays warm so the plants will start pushing flowers, but I don't hold out much hope of seeing any more tomatoes this season- it will be too late for them to ripen as the fall chill approaches. I will now have to pull up the tomatoes and get the beds ready for fall planting. The only thing left to harvest besides the existing veggies are lots of apples- got to get what I can before the blue jays and sparrows start pecking them all over.

*deep sigh* I feel your pain.  I have good watering from my house sitter, but never get the fruit picked adequately either.

Could you replant the toms in containers and bring them inside to extend their production?

If they're leggy, it can be caused by letting the transplants', or seedings' watering intervals go too long and they dried out too much before the next dowsing. Not enough light can cause legginess too, but I'd put my money on inconsistent coil temps- the temps have been up and down from day to day and dawn to dusk. If it were up to me, I'd mulch around the plants ( don't let the mulch get too close to the plant's stalks) to keep soil temp more consistent and keep the soil moist.

This week it was 4 major growing operations, a couple weeks or so back 4 more (one of which was my housekeeper *smacking my head over that one!*)

Besides the obvious illegal part of that activity, most of these operations are hijacking water from wells etc.  GGGGRRRRRRR

Temper tantrum over...

All of my radishes are up -- including black Spanish and daikon. White egg turnips just sprouted today, too. 

Oh jeez!  This thread!  Lol! I have zero experience with what you guys are dealing with. Too hot for my stuff.  And I am lazygardener.

[quote="sanderson"] The leggy plants are still in the recycled pony packs.  When I plant them in a 2-4 weeks, can I submerge them up to the lower leaves? [ /quote]

Depends on what you're planting, Sanderson. It's my understanding that anything with hair on the stems can be deeply planted. I plant lettuce only to the same level as it was in the pot but will deeply plant peppers and tomatoes. I also deeply plant dog legged kale, collards and other greens. I'm not sure if we're supposed to do that but it works for me. What is it your looking to plant?
CC

Look what I found.  I forgot I receive monthly emails from garden.org.  Put in your zip code and get a planting calendar.  http://garden.org/apps/calendar/
I just love these things.  

Mellen wrote:Look what I found.  I forgot I receive monthly emails from garden.org.  Put in your zip code and get a planting calendar.  http://garden.org/apps/calendar/
I just love these things.  

Great resource! It says we can garden all the way to the end of November, here. YEE-HAH! Life is GOOD! 

We are Zone 8b-ish and have experience a killing frost anywhere from mid-October (of course followed by perfectly warm weather that our veggies could have continued to grow had they survived!) to Mid-December first frost.  Most often it's averages around the end of November to early December. 

However, huge amounts of plants will grow all winter if you have started them growing well before the days begin shortening.  They slow down during the short days of winter and pick up quickly when February rolls around. 

Even things that can handle freezing temps will do significantly better under plastic, so if you have the money to spend on hoop houses (simple covers on plastic pipe arches work well.  I even left my ends open on them last year and found them very productive.  With the ends open the heat didn't build up too much if I forgot to open them up.

Sanderson: Thanks, I bookmarked it! How is your garden doing? Photos?

I have nothing to photograph.  The summer garden is done.  My Celebrity tomato did marvelously.  I have four 1-gallon bags of frozen, "food-saved" in my freezer.  That's all that was left after eating and gifting.  I thought it was pretty good considering I had only one plant. The Roma did nothing; never recovered from BER.  I just read that before I plant I need to put a tablespoon of Epsom Salt in the bottom of the hole, cover it with a little dirt & then plant the tomato.  Anyone heard about that?

I finally pulled the yellow squash out because I was so blasted sick of it.  I picked in the evening, went out the next evening and there were a dozen more.  I refused to freeze any more of it. My family started running when they saw me coming so I threw the tomato's at them (not really, but it sounded good, huh?    )  I got nary a potato. (? )    My "salad box" is presently resting.  It will be replanted tomorrow.

I always have great plans on the way home from work; I hit the house, hit my chair and it's all over.  Weekends the past month have been family & work.  No excuse.  I just run out of energy (& am lazy).  

I have some garlic I want to plant tomorrow after I finish the salad box.  I have some string & bush bean seeds left.  I think I'll put some of them in also. The way everyone is talking, they practically grow themselves.  I don't want to do a lot of fall / winter gardening.  I'm just starting this new career and don't want to overwhelm myself.     .

Onward & upward.  I retire 12/30.  Can hardly wait.  I expect great things of myself come spring!

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:Even things that can handle freezing temps will do significantly better under plastic, so if you have the money to spend on hoop houses (simple covers on plastic pipe arches work well.  I even left my ends open on them last year and found them very productive.  With the ends open the heat didn't build up too much if I forgot to open them up.

Ooo, good idea. I already have frames up with shade cloth. It's only about $20 for a huge roll of plastic. I could just drape it over the existing frames and call it good.

Ooooo, Sanderson, that sock pic could start a riot with some of our Yankee friends. Maybe you should lay low for a while until things settle down.  

Triple digits heading our way again this week. I thought we were done with all that for this year.  

Today I'm bleaching my milkweed plants to (hopefully) get rid of this $%&*%$! OE. My dream is that it also gets rid of the aphids.  

Still getting lots of Armenian cukes and even a few lemon cukes. Getting lots of tomatoes, too, but so far nothing I like. I knew there were many varieties, but I thought they would all be nice and sweet if left on the vine long enough. Wrong again! They're all sour. Hubby likes them, however, so that makes it worth it. Next year I'm going for sungold and anything else with "sweet" in the description. Live and learn.