September 2013, New England

Sweet CORN! 35 ears picked this morning, THANKS GREEN WAGON FARM! It's all going in the freezer tonight.

My tomatoes are doing the squishy thing, and my self-diagnosis is Anthracnose.

martha wrote:My tomatoes are doing the squishy thing, and my self-diagnosis is Anthracnose.

Mine have had just a touch of it this year.

I'm happy to say I haven't got the squishy thing in my tomatoes in the flower bed yet.  They are still producing, but slowly.

One of my Indigo Rose plants ripening.

And surprise of surprises, I planted this cauliflower in my flower bed last spring.  Its one I started from seed.  All summer my garden has been shady most of the days but there's sunshine for about 4-5 hrs a day, hence the long time for tomatoes to ripen.  

In among the thyme, parsley and marigolds, this Violet Queen cauliflower is growing beautifully.  Its a fall crop started in the spring.  Who would have guessed.  Certainly not me.  I wonder how it will taste when harvested after growing so slowly for so longggggg.  I'll let you know.
You can be sure I'll be putting more veggies in among my flower bed next year.  Its just outside my kitchen door and handy.  The herbs have all done well.

Very pretty!

Camp, Do you blanch and chill before freezing your corn? Thanks

Steamed for 5 minutes then it was allowed to cool then I cut it from the cob.

Camp, thanks.

QB, that cauliflower is amazing!  What a nice surprise!  I have a collard green that behaves like that in the flower/kitchen garden.  It's now 2 yrs old!  I'm hoping it'll become a collard tree:
 It already gave me seeds for next year and now it's throwing off new tender yummy leaves again.  

My SFG is still rolling along but slowing down now that the weather is cooler.  The greens don't pop up as quickly so I'm glad I have so many. Here's a harvest from the other day w/ sprouted mung beans:

Last night I pulled a square of beets w/ greens for dins.  They were golf ball sized but so delicious!  This morning I cut 2 squares of Fordhook Giant chard for supper tonight.  We have to get out there to harvest snow peas this weekend.  I can't seem to snack on them enough to keep them under control...they are everywhere!  Except for 'Janet' peppers, none of the peppers are coloring up, and one plant actually fell over from the pepper weight and is dying.  Guess I'll pick them green. 

The toms are still ripening daily and I have a freezer full for winter:

These cherries were saved from blight by the baby aspirin water application a couple of weeks ago.

I grew a Roma in MM on the porch this summer.  It gave us 11 fruits but only one by one, not all at once as I'd heard they do.  We took the last one yesterday and then I noticed a little side shoot that is flowering & budding prolifically.  I'll take this pot inside once the weather turns, put it under a full spectrum light and see if I can get some fruit this winter.

Has anyone tried that yet?

CC

CapeC, I admire your garden still doing so well.
I brought in a potted tomato plant the year before last and it produced well into winter so I wouldn't be surprised if yours will, also.  
My Feherozon Dwsarf potted peppers produced til Dec indoors, too.
As for green peppers, I grew some Redskins this year and they were marvelous and sweet still green so picking green might be a benefit for you with yours.
Good luck.  My hat's off to you with your great garden this year.

All of my tomato plants are finally succumbing to the blight so I harvested many pounds of green tomatoes this afternoon and probably the last of the green beans. Boy, have I got a lot to do before snow flies.

Aw, sorry about the maters, Camp. I'm still squeaking by with mine but it's day by day.

Exhausted now.  Divided, transplanted & gave away a ton of perennial & strawberry plants this weekend.  Those Shasta Daisies may be pretty but they do not want to give up the new ground they've gained!  

Also, just came back from another seaweed run since that cold front just moved thru here today.  Between the seaweed & all the gardening debris my new 'holding' pile is now bigger than the finished compost pile.

Harvested some kale this morning for dins and decided to take the covers off the SFGs & buckets so they could catch all the rain predicted for today:


We ended up with 1/4 inch rain.

Bush beans still producing with a new crop behind them, & sugar snap peas going up the trellis:
I found that the bush beans grow better for me spaced at about 4/sq.  I need to remember that for next year.  

Remaining SuperSonics on 1 of 3 plants:

These guys are still around & happy:

Has anyone noticed at what temp basil gives up the ghost? I want to bring mine in before that happens...

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:

These guys are still around & happy:

Has anyone noticed at what temp basil gives up the ghost? I want to bring mine in before that happens...

CC

Don't let frost get it, bring it in before then.

CC, what camera/lens did you use to get that photo of the bumblebee? That is a gorgeous photo!

CapeCoddess wrote:
I grew a Roma in MM on the porch this summer.  It gave us 11 fruits but only one by one, not all at once as I'd heard they do.  We took the last one yesterday and then I noticed a little side shoot that is flowering & budding prolifically.  I'll take this pot inside once the weather turns, put it under a full spectrum light and see if I can get some fruit this winter.

Has anyone tried that yet?

CC

I saw a video on youtube from a gardener who took a tomato plant indoors over the winter and had it survive just fine. I'm thinking of trying the same thing myself -- moving it in and out of the garage to keep getting sun, but to also stay reasonably protected. It's supposedly cold-hardier than most, if I remember correctly -- Blondkopfchen.

Good luck on that! I'll be curious to hear how you do. So if you are successful, it might even be nice to have a separate thread on it so people don't miss out hearing the results.

martha wrote:CC, what camera/lens did you use to get that photo of the bumblebee? That is a gorgeous photo!

I use a little pocket Kodak.  But I recently read somewhere that if you take a photo on the highest resolution, you can then edit the photo on your computer by enlarging it and then cropping it.  That's what I did with that photo.

We had low 40's last nite.  I put a couple of buckets over my basil but noticed this morning that they started turning black on the ends of the leaves, maybe where they were touching the bucket.  So I potted it up and brought it in during lunch break today. Smelled so good!  I think when I get home I'll cut them back, too.  There's room in the freezer for a bag of it.  

Marc, I wonder if I should pull the suckers off that Roma for winter growing.  Did the video mention that?  If not, what will you do if you try it?

CC

I think I'll pluck most or all of the flowers off it, CapeCoddess. I'm just curious to see how long I can get it to survive. I'm also going to keep it to one main stem, I think. I started it way late in the season, just to see how it would do in our very hot, dry summers from seed, and then how long it would hang on in cold temperatures. It's supposed to be so cold-hardy. I also planted it in my first-ever home-made self-watering container, made from 5-gallon buckets with a PVC trellis secured inside. It sure didn't need the trellis!

All in all, I just planted that one much too late to expect much success. Now I'll just see how tough it is.

For me the season is winding down. Since I can't handle a fall crop any longer, I'm turning my attention to which pots or plants to bring indoors for as long as I can this winter.
That means herbs, for sure, and I've got a couple of nice Redskin peppers plants in pots already. Then adding one or two pots with freshly sown lettuce seed, under the lights, and I might get a bit of fresh crop this winter. We shall see. Limited space is also a consideration.

Except for Swiss chard and Siberian Kale, my garden is pretty well done for the season.  Today I harvested the last of the golden turnip and my carrots.

These are Cosmic Purples, and Rainbows which are asstd colors in white, yellow and orange.
There are two turnip in the mix, too.
I have teensy weensy eggplants on the vines that will never grow.  Its much too cold.  Same for the peppers, tho I have one pot of Redskins I plan to bring indoors today so I will hopefully get a few more fruits other than the two that are still green.
How's everyone else doing now that we are heading into Oct mighty soon?

Well, for some reason my eggplants have been doing really well, so I've been throwing them into freezer bags and into the freezer. The tomatoes are finally turning altho many are slug-eaten. I think I have a mole/vole in the garden too because I can hear something scampering under the, well, I won't talk about the weeds, they won't be there next summer.

My peppers have also been growing, altho it took them a while to get in gear.

Potatoes were so-so, when everything dies back I'll rip the beds up looking for them. 

Had a few small broccoli heads (really small) yesterday. 

Still have a good supply of celery growing. I hate to lose that because it took a good while for that to get going; wonder if I can keep it going all winter indoors in some water...

Cukes died a while back, they didn't do well this summer, CC they looked like your photos, kind of pinched at the end.

I'm waiting for some hard frosts so I can really go in there and clean up. Garlic planting will be in another month. I never trimmed the strawberry plants too well, so they really need to be thinned and cut back. Looking forward to mowing up leaves and filling the beds with those. And hoping to go on a seaweed trip.

The lettuce plants have gone to seed and I wonder, if I keep them in the beds, if they will sprout on their own next year.

This next week looks like it's going to be around 70F, so I'm not pulling anything out yet. 

And that's the summary here.

The Cape seems to warm up later that you guys but gets cold later also.  I seem to be 2+ weeks behind all the time. 

We had the first of a few sucker tomatoes last night for dins.  I never remember which suckers I put where but this one tasted like a very yummy Beefsteak:

The pak choi under cover is coming along now that I have the slugs under control...sort of. This one is just about ready to harvest:

Not sure what the corn is doing but whatever it is I'll go along with it:

The green peppers are starting to turn red the day after this photo was taken.  I'm psyched about that since I want to save seeds from a Bull's Horn & wasn't sure which plants they were:

These little yellow ones, Banana I think, are about ready to pick:

The cherries are still coming after the aspirin water halted the blight:

This is the last of 3 butternut squashes hanging in the rhodi shrub:
The first 2 were roasted and delicious.  We eat the skins, too.

These are volunteer tomatoes from a box of rotten veggies I got from a local nursery and threw onto the compost pile last year.  There are a lot of these strands on 3 different plants and the toms are golf ball size.  No idea what kind they are and I'm not sure they have time to finish since I don't know how big they get but I've got my fingers crossed:

But I suppose it doesn't matter as I have a freezer full of red tomatoes now.  I beheaded the toms last week so that's probably why they are ripening up so quickly now.  I likey!
All the beans, peas, carrots, parsnips & leafy greens are still chugging along.  I even have some spinach.  The lettuce is growing but slowly.  Nothing from the kohlrabi yet & my radishes were a bust in the spring and are bust in the fall.  Not sure what the tiny cucs will be doing, especially since all the leaves have PM or are dead, but I don't need the space so I'll leave them up.  

I hear we're in for a winter like '04.  Gruesome.  But I have plastic at the ready to try to extend the season for as long as I'm willing to go out in it.

CC

NHG, did you grow your celery from seed?  How long does it take from planting to harvest?

CC

CC,

Just how gruesome was the winter of 2004? And where did you hear this prediction?

Just curious; I've been thinking the same for months now.

Donna, if you go to weatherspark. Com, you can look at the weather history.

No. No gruesome winters. Don't even mention it or you'll jinx us.

Wow CC, that looks great - and those butternut squash! You grew them in the rhodo bushes? What's that about? None of my vine crops made it, butternut, pumpkin, squash, zucchini - but I had them in a new spot in a field that is too waterlogged, needs raised beds. This fall I'm starting mounds for all my viners. 

Is a sucker tomato when you pick off the sucker and replant it? I hadn't heard of that.

The celery I planted indoor from seed, sometime around the same time I planted the tomatoes and peppers indoors. I've been picking at it outside for a month or 2 - you don't have to wait until they're full grown stalks, if I needed it, I just pulled off whatever I could, it all grows back. I love that about celery - it's not picky. You wanna pick me now, fine. You wanna pick me later, fine. I'm easy. 

Can't wait to start over next spring!