New England: October 2013

There is still some life in my garden, October 17,2013.

Ooh. Looks positively alien.

I'm not seeing any hammer yet.

Camp, What is photo #3 and #4??

camprn, I sure wish I could get that pile of pumpkins for my compost pile. Do you get any of those?

I'll have to find some pumpkin festivities in my area. They probably just throw them in the garbage.

SO it seems that everyone is holding their breath.... waiting for a frost, but hoping not to get one.
Same here
I did all the harvesting fully expecting frost, have only had one real frost so far and now lovely days.
This is a very different year up hear in western Canada as well.
Great photos. fall pictures are the best.

GWN, I saw your squash harvest in the Butternut Squash thread and in your avatar.  WOW! Amazing what happens when you go away for a month.  I love the hands off approach.  

Yup, I'm getting nervous about frost since we were touched last week with an unpredicted one.  After work today I'll be harvesting the beans, peas and red toms & bringing in the winter tomato plant but not covering the winter garden.  It's hard to even imagine though with the weather we're having today - sunny, 70's and gorgeous - that it's heading into the low 40's over the next few nights.

I'll probably take in the 4 Brandywines that are blushing, like this one:

And the few remaining yellow & red peppers, like this one:

I also have 1 large & 2 itsy bitsy butternut squash that I learned I should bring in before frost from reading GWN's post.


Camp, looks like someone got a new camera?  You're macro photos are awesome!

I picked up 25 gallons of organic chicken poo this weekend for the compost pile from a friends coop & yard - 10 gallons were mixed with wood chips and the rest was broken down into chunks & powder.  This weekend is mow-the-lawn-and-leaves weekend, so then I can mix the greens pile (which is practically usable compost already), poo and leaves to begin my new compost pile.   The daytime weather could be almost like today.   I've got my fingers crossed.

CC

cc
Are those the red bull peppers I sent you? They are beautiful.
Mine were a disaster this year, well for me.... I think my friends all enjoyed my peppers while I was gone, and the ones that were left in the garden, really did not turn out well because it got late in the year.
My big crops this year were winter squash and beans for drying.
I am just out planing garlic now as well. Went to a garlic festival this summer, so have plenty of varieties.

Yes, GWN!  The Red Bull's Horn!  I'm saving seeds from them.  I love them!  I also have the smaller yellow ones of the same shape you sent that were so prolific for you last year, but you couldn't remember the name of.  They're doing well, too.  I learned too late though that I really need to cut the pepper plants way back, below the V, to get bushier plants.  There's always next year.

Do you need seeds since yours didn't do so well?  If so, PM me. 

CC

I have lots of seeds thanks. I DO prune the peppers extensively. Had a great system going. IT was just a year that nothing really ripened much before late august/september... which really did not work into my travel plans  
In previous years I have had good success when the frost came cutting the plants off at the ground and putting the whole plant in buckets (like a vase) no water though..... and ripening them that way
This year I have them all in buckets, but nothing seems to be ripening though.

37 tonite but no frost warning...yet.  I brought in the winter Roma and it has PM all over it so I bathed the leaves with baking soda/water.  The PM is really bad this year.  I've never seen it like this... it's even on my red maple and the needle leaf coreopsis.  So strange.

Forecast for Friday nite is 30.  I guess I'll have to pick the remaining tomatoes & peppers since I don't feel like covering them. 

What are you doing to get ready for frost, anything?

CC

I want to plant garlic!!! Hurry up tomato vines, shrivel up, I need the bed.  I have amazing tomato plants all over the garden - volunteers, so green, so thriving, lots of blossoms, many didn't have time to fruit. Wow do those seeds grow. Maybe one trick is to plant the seeds in the fall to germinate in spring? They seem to overwinter pretty well. 

Do pepper fruits ruin if they are left in the frost? I have several small peppers out there that I'd just as soon let grow just as long as they can. I'm thinking if they freeze I'll just slice them and put them in the freezer.

No, I'm not covering anything. I'm done for the summer. There are leaves everywhere and it's time to put the beds to bed until next spring.

I pulled all of my tomatoes last week as well as the poblano peppers. I am going to pot up one of my smaller pepper plants, as well as some basil and bring it into the house. I have to dig up my daliahs and prep the tubers for storage. this afternoon it's all about mowing the lawn and picking up leaves and building a compost pile. I will cover just a few things but it's going to be probably a hard freeze tonight.

NHGardener wrote:I want to plant garlic!!! Hurry up tomato vines, shrivel up, I need the bed.  I have amazing tomato plants all over the garden - volunteers, so green, so thriving, lots of blossoms, many didn't have time to fruit. Wow do those seeds grow. Maybe one trick is to plant the seeds in the fall to germinate in spring? They seem to overwinter pretty well. 

Do pepper fruits ruin if they are left in the frost? I have several small peppers out there that I'd just as soon let grow just as long as they can. I'm thinking if they freeze I'll just slice them and put them in the freezer.

No, I'm not covering anything. I'm done for the summer. There are leaves everywhere and it's time to put the beds to bed until next spring.

The frost will ruin the peppers still on the plant . They will turn colour if harvested and kept in a warm room .
 
Me?  I'm hanging on by the finger nails for a few more days anxiously looking at the weather forecasts as the peppers I have in the glasshouse are just on the turn from green , brown to light red now going dark red.  I might put a lighted candle in there to bring the temps up a tad not only over night but also during the day

Might have to bust out the snowsuits to wear under the costumes next week.  

I picked a bunch of cherry tomatoes tonight since frost is coming, and it reminded me - I think I'm going to cool it on the cherries a bit - maybe just a couple plants next summer. It's labor intensive picking all those small things!

So thinking about all the volunteer tomato plants I ended up with, and thinking about how those seeds made it thru the whole winter in the soil, and thinking how many people store their seeds in the freezer, I'm wondering if there's something to setting out tomato seeds in your beds in late fall for next spring.

Think that would work? It would be a great experiment. I may try it.

You folks in New England will be taking a lot bigger chance on that than will folks in hotter climes. Especially the first few years. Mel notes that tomatoes require a longer growing season than cooler areas provide.

But if you are willing to devote some consecutive years to landracing your tomatoes, you might eventually come up with tomatoes exactly right for the length of your growing season. That would make for a pretty cool project with a potentially great result.

And there are after all such things as early and late tomatoes. It might be best to try your experiment with tomatoes that aren't late tomatoes.

Ooh. Good point. We could be tomato plant breeders!

There could be a market in this. $$

LOL.

But yes, volunteers take longer to sprout, and then later to produce, that's a problem. I think I'll reserve a section of a bed for planting nothing except overwintered tomatoes and see what happens. They can compost over the winter right there in the bed. Regular volunteer tomatoes get no special care, these I will give space and care to. Maybe they will grow more quickly.

BTW, frost didn't hit here too badly last night - everything looks like it survived fine. It's edging lower the next 2 nights so that ought to be it.

I forgot about my volunteer toms out in one of the perennial gardens.  I may throw a tarp over them since they are now turning that light green color and I'm anxious to see what they are.  I'm guessing Fourth of July.

I love this idea of over wintering volunteers to see what happens.  It reminds me of that article I read where they plant seeds in milk jugs and leave them outside all winter knowing they will sprout when it's their time.  Lemme see if I can find the link...

This isn't it but it's the same thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6aSoaxdFo0

I wonder if you direct plant the seeds into the SFG and put the milk jug tops over them for winter if it would do the same thing?  Although it would be better not to have to fuss with milk jugs at all. 

This conversation seems to be opening up a whole new realm of ideas for me - easy peasy gardening. GWN, you mentioned letting them grow where they fall in the Eden thread, didn't you?

CC

Oh! Just when I think I've come up with a great original idea, youtube already has a years-old video of it!!!

That's it, CC! We can turn our annuals into perennials! And I like your idea of just sticking the milk jugs over the seeds in the beds - then you don't even have to transplant - as long as the jugs don't blow away in winter. Once it snows, that would hold them down, but then again, March winds might do them in too. A nice idea would be to just put them in a cold frame!

I don't have other types of volunteers. My peppers or eggplants don't volunteer, cukes don't volunteer, it's probably only a few things that are perennial-able.

I still have the cut milk jugs from spring when I put them over the squash.

I am so into perennials...

You might try putting a rock or small brick on top of the milk jugs to keep them from blowing away in the wind.

That's essentially what I've done with my small rose bushes: covered them with cheap black plastic nursery pots that have ventilation, and secured the tops with bricks
.

That's true - for something as small as spring seedlings, you could really just put clear plastic over the box and secure it with bricks/rocks.

Actually, you wouldn't even have to put it on till the snow melts. So as soon as the snow melts, throw a sheet of plastic on there, and see if they sprout anytime soon.

and then there was the weather...


Anyone remember the summer that wasn't 5 years ago? It was a terrible year for tomatoes.

I remember that, if that was the summer that was cold and rainy pretty much all summer. This was before my raised beds and I tried to plant a garden for the first time in this yard and gave up. Until I found SFG and happily found there were gardening options even when you have a rocky, soggy lot...

Surely we'll never have a summer like that again. It was a fluke.