New England: November 2013

Well, we're having a storm - winds to 45, bits of drizzle & about 70 degrees here on the Cape:

Early this morning I was able to clear & compost a bed to plant more garlic along with some shallots.  I pulled out the broccoli (all leaves) and carrots from that bed:

But I left in the sugar snap peas along far right side & planted around the pak choi. Altogether I ended up planting about 50 garlics & 6 shallots in a 4 x 3.5 bed.  Three times more than last year but still probably not enough. I gave the shallots more space this year since they seem to spread out toward the end of their growth:

I'm excited to say that the remaining green tomatoes are starting to change color now despite being minutely touched by frost a while back. These are a few of about a dzn remaining Supersonics:

Sungold cherries:

I had one of three remaining yummy Beefsteak toms with some broccoli leaves on a sandwich for breakfast this morning. :face:I'll definitely be planting Beefsteak next year. I also pulled a few heads of pak choi for dinner tonight including this huge one that started to flower:

Cabbage heading up, if it doesn't get eaten by whatever first:


All in all, the whole SFG is still in tact & growing:   

The indoor winter Roma is cranking.  I think it loves it's new home in the bay window:

My indoor winter garden will also include 2 Tuscan kale plants, 4 romaines, 5 buttercrunch, flatleaf & curly parsley, stevia, basil and hopefully a Beefsteak sucker.

What cha'll bringing in?  If you want, let's keep each other updated on the progress.  With pictures, too!?  

CC

Boy, your garden is still going strong, CC!  I've nothing to show for mine at this point but a bunch of empty beds and two BS that have piddling little sprouts on them. 

BUT, I did bring in my two eggplants after I gave them a good trimming.  IF they manage to make it through the winter, I might have a leg up on next year, we'll see!

Wow, your stuff sure looks nice.

I'm not sure whether or not I'll bring in that tomato I had been talking about. I planted it late in the season and it struggled through all the ash that the forest fires wreaked on our atmosphere, and never really thrived from there.

I took a clipping from a really great Red Ruffles basil plant I had, but it was too late. The plant was already dying, and it never set root. I also took a clipping from a peppermint plant whose fragrance was amazing all season. I'm not sure if that's wise, as the plant still clings on, but looks diseased.

I will take in at least one of my many heroic marigolds, which have put up with every kind of pest and abuse like real troopers. I've come to really admire the sturdy enthusiasm of marigolds. They're determined to live! And to keep being beautiful while they're doing it.

I may take a clipping from a sweet basil I have that has also weathered a tough season exceptionally well. They're pretty plants, and I like the smell.

November Garden Chores for the northeast US.

http://awaytogarden.com/november-garden-chores-2013

Thank you Margaret Roach!

I planted a few potatoes today in the old school SFG to experiment with fall/winter planting. They were recently harvested in Maine at a friends family farm. I have more for spring planting if I need to do that. I dug a bit of a trench, layed down some leaves & wood chips, placed the taters, & covered with wood chips.
Left to right - Russet, Yukon Gold, Red:

I also harvested all these, except the peppers, due to expected freeze tomorrow night.  Tomatoes, corn & tomatillos:
There are lots more tomatillos & green tomatoes but I wanted to give them an extra day.

After the 1/4 inch of drizzle we had from the storm, the winter SFG is standing on tippy toe!  Rain does amazing things - so much better than city water even if the chlorine has been allowed to evaporate:

We're at peak fall color here now.  Check out the color on this burning bush!  Makes me want to eat it:

OK, off to repair an electric socket that is falling out of the ceiling in the garage.  Wish me luck.  

CC

Love the color on that burning bush! We have a whole tree that color in our community development. That color is such a stand-out!

I like your tomatillos. They look bigger than most of mine. That's why I'm going to be amending most of my soil by over-wintering horse poop in it. Either your soil is pretty good, or you did something better (or more of it) than I did.

I have finished stowing the wood pellets and yesterday I got my beehives in order. I'm down to 3 good strong colonies. Also yesterday I prepped the bed and today I planted only 95 cloves of garlic. I decided to space them out a bit more this year. Last year there were 104 cloves in the bed.

It's going to be quite cold the next few days and I still want to make a new flower bed and I have a few hundred spring flower bulbs to plant. It's 37*F and I'm running out of time for outdoor activities.

Marc Iverson wrote:  Either your soil is pretty good, or you did something better (or more of it) than I did.

Mel's mix is awesome, especially when one has access to seaweed for the compost pile.  

camprn wrote:

Marc Iverson wrote:  Either your soil is pretty good, or you did something better (or more of it) than I did.

Mel's mix is awesome, especially when one has access to seaweed for the compost pile.  

Good points both! The soil I grew my tomatoes in was in my neighbor's garden, an indecipherable motley of mixed local dirt and random composts and amendments over the last 20 years. I've yet to have a full season with adequate sun and Mel's Mix anywhere but in a single container, which did indeed produce lots of tomatoes and still had 13 nicely sized green ones on it when I pulled it up. Though a bush tomato, it shrugged off at least three robust crops.

Beautiful day here today!  Sunny & hi 50's.  

Still harvesting - today was carrots, chard and a few cherry tomatoes.  I also transplanted some romaine to pots to bring inside since they weren't in the winter garden.

I was clearing out the tomato/pepper bed just now and noticed a bunch of onions around the edges that I'd planted to keep out critters.  I pulled them up and there are balls on the bottoms with incredibly long healthy roots.  I'm thinking they are some spanish onions that haven't finished growing yet.  Most are small so I'd like to save those to use as sets next year.  I took off the greens to eat but am I supposed to cut the roots now or after they dry?   And do I let them dry in the sun?  

CC

I dunno, but I remember reading that when drying garlic, one site recommended letting them dry out before cutting the roots. Same/same with onions?

Marc Iverson wrote:I dunno, but I remember reading that when drying garlic, one site recommended letting them dry out before cutting the roots.  Same/same with onions?

Yes, that is what I do. CC today you could have let them stay out for a while to let the dirt dry and gently brush it off. Let them cure in the house and put them in a net bag in a cool area to await spring planting. Plant the largest onion sets.

Oops, I meant plant the smallest onion sets. Plant the largest garlic cloves.

Garden is still going even though it's messy with leaves everywhere: 

These 2 Tuscan kale & a bunch of romaine babies are ready to come in soon, maybe tonight, in an attempt to keep me in fresh salads once the lettuce in the winter garden is gone:

5-gal bucket o' lettuce:

After them getting buried under neighborly 'donations', I finally found my compost piles ...well, 2 of them anyway.  The 'greens' pile is still MIA under a now bigger pile of 'donations':

There are still a few bee stragglers hanging around.  One thought he was gonna leave on one of my visitors so I scolded it and I took it off to make sure it stayed home.

Camp, I left all the little onions out yesterday in the sun and brought them in last night to store spread out in the basement where it's dry but not warm.  Do they need to be warm to cure?

CC

I've just sorted my shallots and separated all the smaller bulbs from the nice edibles.
Can I save these smaller ones in a plastic bag in the fridge for next spring to plant and grow a new crop???? Will they last safely til spring?

As for crops still going, I have Swiss chard, kale, and my parsnips left outdoors. I'm hoping to serve parsnips with my turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.

Its sure nice to see a few of you still going strong with your gardens. Enjoy.

quiltbea wrote:I've just sorted my shallots and separated all the smaller bulbs from the nice edibles.
Can I save these smaller ones in a plastic bag in the fridge for next spring to plant and grow a new crop????   Will they last safely til spring?

As for crops still going, I have Swiss chard, kale, and my parsnips left outdoors.  I'm hoping to serve parsnips with my turkey dinner on Thanksgiving.

Its sure nice to see a few of you still going strong with your gardens.  Enjoy.

Best practice: Net bag not in the fridge but a cooler area of the home. Most of them should winter over well but a few bulbs will always shrivel. In New England it is indeed recommended to plant the shallots in the early spring as soon as the ground can be worked.

With shallots you want to plant large bulbs for large daughter bulbs.
The smaller ones will grow larger but you will not get large daughters for two years. I always save my largest shallots for planting and eat the mid range and smaller sized ones.

CapeCoddess -- do you have a good window to stick your romaine lettuce and kale in, or are you going to stick them under a grow light?

Thank You Camprn on the headsup about shallots. I've now put all the smaller ones in the same net bag in which I'm storing my larger ones. I'll use up the smaller ones to eat since they are now on top of the pile.
Thanks again.

quiltbea wrote:Thank You Camprn on the headsup about shallots.  I've now put all the smaller ones in the same net bag in which I'm storing my larger ones.  I'll use up the smaller ones to eat since they are now on top of the pile.
Thanks again.

I cannot remember how many bulbs I sent to you. How many did you plant and how many did you harvest?

Camprn.....It was well over a dozen.  I know I planted 4 squares of them, five per square.   I got about 5 or 6 for each bulb I planted with only 2 never coming up if I remember correctly.  Out of those, only a few of the bulbs had some damage or were to small for another planting.  The return on the planting was very generous indeed.  And now I'll have plenty for next year as well.  And I still have plenty to use during the winter for my meals.
Thank you again for being so generous with me and sharing.

These are a few I missed and found later.

I'm glad you have gotten a good return. I started out with about as many as you have and now I harvest a few hundred a year. I love the multiplying shallots/onions.  

A few hundred shallots???  Wow...and here I was getting off on the six I planted recently that came from the two I planted last year.  

OH, guess what?!  We actually got one & a third inches of rain the other day!  First time since last spring that we got over half an inch.  And the garlic that was planted on Nov 1st sprouted already!  That's pretty exciting!  Not sure if I should remove the chicken wire laid atop or leave it to keep the squirrels from digging and let the garlic grow thru for now and remove it later.  What would you do?

Marc Iverson wrote:CapeCoddess -- do you have a good window to stick your romaine lettuce and kale in, or are you going to stick them under a grow light?

I have a great box bay window facing southwest.  I grow all my seedlings in it, too. From left to right: Italian parsley, winter Roma, romaine, basil. Back: stevia, kale/romaine and curly leafed parsley.
The Italian parsley is in transplant shock still, hence the yellowing leaves.

There are two grow light set ups in the basement left from when my mother used to start seeds but I've never used them.  I guess I'm not that meticulous. It's easier for me to throw everything into the window.  Besides, it's COLD down there in the winter/spring and I'm not about to heat it.

I just planted 2 Majool Date seeds in the round white winter tomato pot on a whim.  I'm sure nothing will happen, but if it does that would be something.  I'd have to ship the date palms down to FL since I don't think they would grow in NE.  Beats me. 

Update on the woodchips experiment in the perennial garden:  before the last rain, all gardens without the chips were bone dry after last weeks watering, the one garden with the chips was still soaked from being watered 2 wks ago.  That's it for me, I'm a believer.

CC

Cape, I applaud you on being a great little gardener. You've taken to it very well.

I also want to report......snow, snow, snowing out right now. I hope we don't get much. I still don't have my studded tires on yet. The plan was to get them on Mon or Tues.

quiltbea wrote:Cape, I applaud you on being a great little gardener.  You've taken to it very well.

I also want to report......snow, snow, snowing out right now.  I hope we don't get much.  I still don't have my studded tires on yet.  The plan was to get them on Mon or Tues.

Not snowing here currently, but I do have appointment Monday 9 am to change the tires. Spending the next two days battening down the hatches. 

  And so it begins...