New England, December 2013

Dec came in strong.  We had snow on both Sun and early this morning.  It didn't amt to much, but winter is showing its nasty head here already.
My beds are asleep for the winter and the only green is indoors.  My African Violet is blooming nicely and my red sweet pepper is nearly all red.  I'm trying to save it for a steak sandwich this week.
Those of you with extended fall gardens, I applaud you.  You did good.  
And the evenings....ah yes, the evenings.  I now have a couple seed catalogs so I'm happy to thumb thru them checking off possibilities for spring.

Even though the Cape is having a bit of a break in the cold weather right now, this year in the SFG is so completely different than last year.  Last winter I was harvesting up to end of Jan under windows.  But this year everything seems to have stopped growing.  Granted, I don't have them covered so that may be the diff but the end is nigh, me thinks.

Harvested the last of the radishes along with lots of greens yesterday:


But the inside bay window garden just keeps on truckin'.  Check out these 2 crazy Tuscan kale plants:


This amazing Roma is loaded with PM but still growing.  I'm tired of fighting it so I stopped.  Once these 3 toms are finished I'll cut it back and see what happens:

CC

I know I have forgotten something. I just know it!
December garden chores for the Northeast USA.
http://awaytogarden.com/december-garden-chores-2013

This has GOT to be my last SFG tour of this year as we're heading down into the 30's/20's after today.  Honestly, I don't know how or why it keeps going since it's been frozen a few times & snowed on once, and isn't even covered.   

Today's harvest - all the chard.  I blanched it and stuck it in the freezer coz, to be honest, I'm a little tired of chard.   (NEVER thought I'd say that!) The only ones left in the garden are mini micro leaves that probably aren't going to do anything:

The winter garden, which is the front box, still has collards, carrots, spinach, beets, kale, cabbage & lettuce: 

Behind the winter box is the kale box, then the collard box which was harvested to within an inch of it's life a couple days ago, then the beets box that's not doing much growing anymore, nothing in the rear middle box, carrots in the left rear box:

One by one in the winter box -
Spinach:

Collards:

Romaine lettuces in different stages of growth:

I think I should harvest this cabbage now...it's looking a little sad and doesn't seem to be growing anymore:

And just because I've been waiting since last Christmas to see a flower from an Angel Wing begonia stem I received & stuck in a pot, I'm sharing this:


What's everyone else up to?

CC

Used up my last SFG garlic yesterday making soup.  So sad.  I planted twice last yrs amount this year so hopefully I'll have enough to get through next winter.

Meanwhile, back inside the bay window, it's time to pick the first indoor Roma:
I wish I wasn't sick of tomatoes and was really looking forward to it like we were the first Roma of summer.  I've actually been taking the boxed ones to the office as they ripen and even coworkers are tired of them.  We're so spoiled.
  
And the forsythia outside has a blossom about every 15 inches or so:  
I think it's as confused as my SFG is.  

The Cape has a forecast of snow tonite and ice pellets tomorrow.  Oh joy.

Meanwhile, Lilly has found herself a cozy winter bed, next to Gem, my favorite dog (no poo, no barking, no feeding, no hair, no fleas, no chewing, no dog breath, no...)  ;

CC

CC, I'm sad for you that you ran out of garlic already. That happened to me one year and from then on I plant at least 100 cloves to see me through a year. Not all the cloves make new plants and some of the harvest gets injured or dries out after harvest.

camprn wrote:CC, I'm sad for you that you ran out of garlic already. That happened to me one year and from then on I plant at least 100 cloves to see me through a year. Not all the cloves make new plants and some of the harvest gets injured or dries out after harvest.

Hmm, I only planted 50 this year which took up a whole 4x4 box.  And so far only half of those have sprouted.  
Camp, you grow those California cloves, right?  I bought some in Oct from Agway & tasted the smallish cloves after planting all the large ones and they are VERY strong & yummy.  The ones I just ran out of were grocery store garlic with some Bulgarian Purples thrown in and weren't strong at all so I needed to use a few at a time. IF they all sprout, hopefully 50 strong ones will get me through next winter.  But I can certainly see how 100 would be better.  How many squares for 100?

CC

CapeCoddess wrote: How many squares for 100?

CC

4x6 + a few here and there.

Today's harvest before the snow started falling -

Kale:

Daikon, collards, swiss chard (that seemed to grow over the past few days):

And here are some wrinkly ripening tomatoes from the tomato box in the corner of the living room:
Except for frozen ones and the indoor Roma plant, this is the last of my big maters.  I'll stick them in the freezer, too.  The Sungold cherry maters are like candy!  They get eaten. 
 

No accumulation on the roads here yet, just a lot of slush, which should be fun driving later when the temps fall into the 20's. 
  

What's happening in your area with this 'storm'?
CC

Here we go! http://www.nws.noaa.gov/largemap.php

Boy CC, that sure is wonderfully productive!

We got sick of tomatoes too, but I found that passes rather quickly. Like the first time you realize that having a little tomato in a salad or on a sandwich is going to mean taking a trip to the store. Hard to get motivated to buy store-bought tomatoes!

I hear ya about store-bought, Marc.  I'm there with garlic now.  Just had to add it to my grocery list this afternoon.   

Camp, unless there is wind damage it looks like the Cape is dodging the bullet on this storm.   
 
We still have snow on the ground from the last one but maybe it will be gone by morning with all the rain they're predicting.

Bay window veggie garden update:  
aphids.
  

On a  more pleasant note, I think I may get to play in my compost pile tomorrow.  Good thing coz my kitchen counter is lined up with way too many containers of scraps and such.  Guess it's time to put a lidded 5 gal bucket out the back door.

It's gonna be a looooong winter...  

CC

Not much snow up my way but boy has it been COLD!!! Brrrrr...me & the cats are relegated to sitting by the woodstove...DH, he loves winter, though...

BUT the good news is that more & more seed catalogs are showing up in the mail.

Gives me & the cats something to look at that's green...

Its 8 pm and the first few snowflakes are falling. We're expecting 12" or more. We'll be snowed in by tomorrow. Its great cover for gardens. The strawberries, asparagus and garlic will just love it and so will my roses. Its bare ground that is whipped by the cold and winds that suffers during the winter. When its covered, its safe.
But darn it, its starting awfully early this winter for us in Maine.

Wow, that's serious snow.

HA!  They just showed a photos of my backyard thermometer out under the cypress hedge on NECN and said it was broken.    It shows 58 degrees.

Regardless, I played my compost pile this morning after trimming the rose bushes:

Back in the unbelievable SFG-
Lettuce & kale still going:

Swiss chard that I thought had called it a season is still growing!:


Three types of very harvested kale still trying:

I'm beginning to wonder if this hellebore is going to blossom by Christmas:

Oh wow...fog just rolled in.

OK, time for a New England reality check.  Any pretty snow photos out there?

CC

Hey Cape, you want pics?  I have a couple for you.

The white tophat of snow on top of the birdbath tells the story.  We got 12 inches of the white stuff.  It stopped but I just let in my dog and she's got new snow on her back so its starting again.

I swept the area by my door and the stoop so the dogs could get out this morning.  See the green on the left?  That's the top of my rosemary bush.  Its still growing and I'm still clipping of branches for meals.

A long view of my flower garden.
Quite different from yours Cape.  I love that you still have greenery and things are still growing.

QB - Wow! Serious snow.

CC - We have a week of 60* so I am taking advantage of the relative warmth. Pruned some roses yesterday and groomed the long back non-SFG flower bed. Today more of the same.

Nice photos, QB.  I see that was 5 days ago...is it still around?  We're having a bit of a warming trend here and I'm wondering how far north it's going.

$37 plus tax for a 16 ft cattle pannel at the local Agway...so say $40.    I had been dreaming of getting a couple and building a greenhouse, thinking they were about $20 for some reason.    

I'll be harvesting micro-greens out in the SFG come Sunday.  Not sure yet if I'll clean out the beds afterward or leave the greens and see what happens.  

Meanwhile, back in the bay window, the last 2 Roma tomatoes are blushing, and there are little flies everywhere.  I'll be harvesting the lettuce, kale and parsley once the maters are done and get that window cleaned out in prep for SEED STARTING!  

Today I hooked up a cool clothes dryer heat diverter thingy so I can supplement the heating oil with warm slightly humid scented air:
I think my future seedlings won't mind the smell of dryer sheets, right?  And they sure will love the humidity...as do I!  

What's everyone else up to?

CC

Cape, our snow is still here. In fact, day before yesterday we got another 2 inches but at least we didn't get the additional 9 in the city 23 miles from us. We just don't get snow like this before Christmas.
It warmed up into the 30s here today and will stay in that range til Monday when it'll get cold again. Freezing rain predicted for Sunday all day.

CapeCoddess wrote:
Today I hooked up a cool clothes dryer heat diverter thingy so I can supplement the heating oil with warm slightly humid scented air:
I think my future seedlings won't mind the smell of dryer sheets, right?  And they sure will love the humidity...as do I!  

What's everyone else up to?

CC

Thanks for the reminder, CC! We had one of these on our vent hose before we got our new dryer (um, 10 years ago   ). I will try to talk Hubby into letting me install another one. My seedlings would thoroughly appreciate the extra warmth! (When it's time to start them, of course)

GG

CC that's a great idea! I'll be on the hunt for one of those when I do my Xmas shopping at the hardware store this weekend.   

A total of 14 inches of snow fell here last week. late this afternoon I raked the roof of as much snow as I can reach because we are going to get freezing rain. Bleck!

My town the other night.

That's a perfect Xmas card photo, Camp...so beautiful...and so New England!

cC

CapeCoddess wrote:That's a perfect Xmas card photo, Camp...so beautiful...and so New England!

cC

+1

Ah, that is a nice pic, Camp.

We got some snow up my way, but the big weather news this week was when all of us woke up to -24 on Tues AM. Craaaa-zy! A bunch of people couldn't start their cars & were late for work. I was able to start mine but the radio clock on the dash didn't turn on until I was nearly at work (car not warm enough) THEN it warned up some & snowed some slushy, gooey, heavy stuff which made the roads wicked slick. I had an evening engagement that I had to miss because my car was fishtailing so much that I just turned around & went home.

And like others have already mentioned, freezing rain today. Oh, what FUN!

(HEY! Anyone know what happened to the snow-head emoticon? I used to use that one alot...)