September 2012, New England

Got 1 1/2 inch of water from the storm that blew thru last nite. It knocked over 2 tom plants, top heavy, in the Florida weave but they didn't break so I put them back up to finish their job of ripening the green toms still on them. Too windy at my house for FL weave.

How'd every one else do with that storm. Is all OK?

CC

Fine here, but I'm a little worried about the cold tonight.

So far, so good, I noticed something's in the cabbage, I'm sure it's cabbage worm, so next year if I grow cabbage (hmm) I'll do the nylon.

Just picked some green beans, couple tomatoes. Yesterday I picked an eggplant (small), some tomatoes (big and cherry), a zucchini, cucumber, and added my different colored potatoes to ship off to my mother in law.

I have these cherry red peppers that are really good. Wasn't familiar with them when I bought them as transplants, but they're actually really good. Sweet, not spicy. Other than that, my green peppers are still out there, I'm seeing how much bigger they might get.

I don't know when to start being concerned about the cold. I was thinking any nite that'll be below 40 I'll cover.

At what temp do you cover?

CC

Ugh. Now that you mention it, I see on the NOAA weather site there's a frost advisory for us tonight. Oh no, I'll have to cover. Bleh.

NHGardener wrote:Ugh. Now that you mention it, I see on the NOAA weather site there's a frost advisory for us tonight. Oh no, I'll have to cover. Bleh.

Yup me too.

CapeCoddess wrote:Got 1 1/2 inch of water from the storm that blew thru last nite. It knocked over 2 tom plants, top heavy, in the Florida weave but they didn't break so I put them back up to finish their job of ripening the green toms still on them. Too windy at my house for FL weave.

How'd every one else do with that storm. Is all OK?

CC

Everything help up well, now to cover because of frost advisory for southern NH overnight.

Wow. That was a task. I have large sheets of black polyethylene over all my beds. When you include the trellises, it's quite a feat.

Isn't the first frost date the 21st? And with climate supposedly getting warmer, I was kind of hoping for a delayed frost this year. Hmm.

this may or may not be a dry run

It's only forecasted to get down to 39 here. You'd think we'd be safe from frost. But then, my place seems to get frost more than neighboring places. It's in a bit of a downslope. Better safe than sorry I guess.

Let me know how it turns out, ladies. Hopefully we won't see frost for a few weeks yet. Would you mind sharing photos of your covers please?

On a more fun note, IT'S CRANBERRY HARVEST TIME! We pick wild berries in the abandoned bog down the road a piece.


Note the bulging pockets. The harvest was unplanned, hence no bags, but we still ended up with at about 3 lbs between our 4 pockets.


We will freeze some. The others will be run raw thru a meat grinder with peel-on organic orange slices, add sugar to taste, stir a ton, and let sit over nite. I eat it right out of the bowl sometimes.

CC

Woohoo! Nice on the berries.

I already pulled my covers, but we had black polyethylene sheets from Lowes that we had used to spread on the ground and kill the undergrowth to plant wildflower and hopefully more veggie spots. They're pretty heavy duty-ish and I just unfolded those and draped them over all my boxes.

Last year my garden was smaller and all I had were spare (junk) sheets, so I used those. From what I hear, anything over the top is fine, doesn't have to be touching the plant, it's just to keep the frost draft off I believe.

Can someone clue me in about that again - my memory isn't the greatest, but I seem to remember it's about providing overhead covering, not necessarily needing to physically touch the plants. So I drape mine.

And I'm glad I did because either I had heavy dew this morning or light frost, not sure which, but at 7:30 a.m. I was out there taking the plastic back off. Hope to not have to repeat that process for a while!

For a frost, a light covering will suffice (cotton sheets, a light plastic sheet). For a freeze, you will need to enclose a hoop and ensure that the temp in the hoop will remain warmer than 32F.

Does that help?

What's the diff between a frost and a freeze? Duration?

temperature and moisture and.... well you can read about it here, and follow the links.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t11904-freeze-vs-hard-freeze?highlight=frost+freeze

Oh! I never knew that before - thanks.

When the hard freeze comes, it's goodbye till next spring on my end.

me too, I am almost looking forward to it

It's consuming, isn't it? Amazing how one smallish plot keeps us busy.

BTW, heard great things about the EAS (?) at the bee club meeting tonight. Sure sounded like a great experience.

Basic harvesting tips, an article by my local gardening writer.

Feeling mighty chilly out there, but I guess no frost warnings, so so far, so good.

Still pulling some green beans, tomatoes, small eggplants and peppers, one squash yesterday, digging up some potatoes and leaving the carrots till frost. Also got one pea yesterday, there are a couple small pea vines that "took", don't know how much further they'll go. White pumpkin is still hanging out by its lonesome.

Still having good harvest days here. Today I got 3 real big girl carrots, my first bell pepper, 2 pumpkins that were supposed to be cantaloupes, lotsa pole & bush beans, tomatoes, swiss chard, kale, jalapenos, chives and snow peas. My fall garden of lettuces, greens, beets, radishes & carrots are doing great but not the turnips, broccoli and kohlrabi. They just sit there.

And I still can't get the spinach to grow. It starts, then it, too, just sits with the first 2 to 4 leaves. Crazy.

And what's with the sugar peas having such a slow time of it in the fall? My neighbor say the same thing. She says every fall this happens with hers. In spring they seem to jump out of the ground & up the trellis, but now they pop out then just sit there. Anyone else noticing this?

CC

PS I canned my cranberries today...

This may answer some of your questions about growing peas. As for the spinach, it may still be a bit too warm. It will probably do better when it gets cooler and you can put up a hoop.

http://www.gardening.cornell.edu/homegardening/scene9697.html

Anyone know why I can't find garlic bulbs on Johnny's seeds site? I want to get some in soon, and am looking for them. I guess the best place to look at this point might be buying it at farmer's markets?

Try hood river, johnny's may be sold out. I know territorial is almost sold out as of last week. I am not putting my garlic in for another 5 weeks. Are you looking for a particular variety?

I don't know enough about garlic to know varieties - just general. I'm thinking the hardneck, but I don't know if it even matters.

I looked at hood river but under their seed garlic nothing is showing up - I'm thinking they may be out?

Wow. Garlic appears to be a hot item.

For garlic, try a local Farmer's Market and buy fresh garlic from an organic gardener. Use the biggest and best cloves in the bulb for your next year's garden. In the north, they are usually hardnecks because they grow best in the north. They also keep longer in storage for winter.