New England October 2014

Fall is in the air!  The Cape just received a much needed 2+ inches of rain which has knocked lots of leaves off the trees.  It's actually quite lovely.  My fall garden is growing beautiful, albeit slowly, with the cooler weather. 

I have 2 tomato volunteers in the newest box that I'm hoping will amount to something.  They are actually flowering already:
They are probably Black Cherry which went on to produce harvestable fruits even after a few early frosts last year.

Speaking of tomatoes...

This may be old news, but for those with early and late tomato blight problems, I just found this at Johnny's Seeds:

Defiant PhR (F1)
Product ID: 2525
Bred for both disease resistance and flavor.
This mid-size slicer has high resistance to late blight and intermediate resistance to early blight combined with great flavor. The 6-8 oz., globe-shaped fruit are smooth and medium-firm with good texture. Deep red internal and external color. High-yielding, medium-sized plants are widely adaptable. Defiant was traditionally bred to inherit the Ph-2 and Ph-3 major genes for late blight (Phytophthora) resistance. Our thanks to No. Carolina State Univ. for their cooperation. Determinate. 
http://www.johnnyseeds.com/p-8473-defiant-phr-f1.aspx


I guess I'll be putting up some row cover once the cooler weather starts but that seems so far away...

What are you all up to?  Anyone else growing into fall/winter?




CC

Borax? Doesn't that double as an insecticide?

Good for dessicating flea eggs in carpets.

NHGardener wrote:Borax? Doesn't that double as an insecticide?

borax and boric acid are not the same.

Hmm. I guess it's one of those things where dosage makes all the difference.

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/borax-uses-vegetable-gardening-27721.html

It mentions its use as an herbicide - AND a fertilizer. Weird.

It's garlic planting month! Anyone thinking about when they'll plant? I think I'll head more towards the end of the month.

If I recall correctly, CC learned the hard way last year to not plant too early.

I don't plant before Halloween, typically.

NHGardener wrote:Hmm. I guess it's one of those things where dosage makes all the difference.

http://homeguides.sfgate.com/borax-uses-vegetable-gardening-27721.html

It mentions its use as an herbicide - AND a fertilizer. Weird.

Dosage is EVERYTHING (sort of). Belladonna is another good example...

NHGardener wrote:Borax? Doesn't that double as an insecticide?

Yes.  I use it for adding to cat food for large ants to eat.  But in this case it's used to add boron to the MM as per Mel's advise in the Answer Book. 

Wasn't me that planted garlic too early, camp.  I've always planted it on Halloween or shortly thereafter.

It official - we got over 2 inches of rain this week - YAY!     I don't have to water until Sunday!

Lunch time...heading home to plant turnip greens called 'Seven Top' for the winter garden.  Figured it's the only way to go since I don't do well with roots anyway. 

Btw, Job Lot seeds are 60% off!  Loaded up on Sugar Snap peas yesterday, along with the turnip greens.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:

NHGardener wrote:Borax? Doesn't that double as an insecticide?

Yes.  I use it for adding to cat food for large ants to eat.  But in this case it's used to add boron to the MM as per Mel's advise in the Answer Book. 


CC

http://www.dodsonbros.com/blog/borax-and-boric-acid-for-insect-control-228.html

There is no way I would add boron to my garden mix with out an analysis and an indication of deficiency.
http://www.soils.wisc.edu/extension/pubs/A2522.pdf

CapeCoddess wrote:

NHGardener wrote:Borax? Doesn't that double as an insecticide?

Yes.  I use it for adding to cat food for large ants to eat.  But in this case it's used to add boron to the MM as per Mel's advise in the Answer Book. 

I found it!  If you google "All New Square foot gardening answer book, boron" you get:
http://books.google.com/books?id=nef8gIP9-FgC&pg=PA91&lpg=PA91&dq=All+New+Square+foot+gardening+answer+book,+boron&source=bl&ots=n_iFbqXTQM&sig=MSn6cPFPjri0NDNVscmY40SDH9k&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ZOIuVNKXLJSAygSH2oKoCg&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=All%20New%20Square%20foot%20gardening%20answer%20book%2C%20boron&f=false

I can't copy and paste it because it won't let me but for those with the book, it's on page 91.

I didn't use as much as Mel suggests.  I only used about 1 tsp in a gallon of water.

Camp, my indication of possible boron deficiency is that my beets won't ball up.   It happened last year, too, and when I added to Borax I got beets.

CC

I have found that garlic needs a chance to sprout before winter hits and kills it off.  In my neck of the woods, I plant bulbs around Columbus Day to be sure to get some sprouting.  Then its a good covering of fall leaves to overwinter.

I'm done for the season.  Will be emptying all the pots this weekend and putting garden things away.  Time for me to get back to quilt making.

In 2012, I planted garlic in mid-October, and it promptly sprouted.  The resulting crop was quite good the following summer.

Last year, I planted on Halloween.  No sprouting occurred until late winter/early spring, and the crop (at least the ones I replanted from the previous year's harvest) were even larger!  Let's see what this year brings; I expect to plant at the end of this month.

Just a reminder this thread is the New England forum covering USDA hardiness zones 3-6 so our planting times vary widely.

Camp,

A good reminder!  It would seem that my experience with garlic underscores your point that growing conditions vary.

Got a couple crates of seaweed today before realizing I should pull the stone anchors off first.  

No wonder they were so dang heavy!  The next 3 crates were so much lighter..

Saving seeds:


Out of 2 peppers came only 7 seeds, and one has a black spot in it.
But the Sun Sugar cherry mater only had 3!!!  

This is going to be a very tense spring.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:Got a couple crates of seaweed today before realizing I should pull the stone anchors off first.  
No wonder they were so dang heavy!  .

  Couldn't help it.

Dang CC - you gonna have room to walk in between all your seeds? LOL. I'm glad I don't get out much or seeds would be coming thru my roof.

We got another frost last night. It's confirmed - if there's a suspected frost, my microclimate gets hit, I have to remember that, it's probably also a little cooler in summer. Not exactly sure how that works, but the whole place is on the downward slope facing kind of northeasterly. 

Don't have anything out there growing, except a handful of green beans now and then, I brought the pumpkins in except for one hiding in asters that I can't get to easily yet. Brought in some cherry tomatoes and 2 eggplants last evening.

But I hear there are still many things you can be growing, I just kind of gave up for now. My mind is on how I'm going to control weed areas for next year, how I'm going to control the strawberries, and building beds for next spring. Gathering leaves for mulch, trips to the beach for seaweed, shoveling out the chicken coop for manure. Garden planning for next summer, what to do next year about all the volunteer cherry tomatoes that keep popping up. I let the chickens into the fenced area and they totally scratched out the raised rows, but that's good because I wanted them to get all the pesty SVB remnants out of the soil, I'll rebuild those beds, shouldn't be too hard to rake them back into place.

This is not easy stuff, you know. I thought gardening was supposed to be a relaxing hobby?

OH - forgot why I came here. I roasted the first 2 butternut squash yesterday! With some butter & sprinkled with brown sugar, salt & pepper. Interesting! Kind of a cross between sweet potato and pumpkin. Very orange. I got these seeds from Fedco; from the catalog:

"1683BO Burpee’s Butterbush OG (87 days) This
highly esteemed variety now sells more packets even
than Delicata. “Hands down the best” of the nine
different butternuts Mark Fulford tried over the years.
Fruits average no more than 11/2 lb, each a perfect
one-person serving chock full of deep, reddish-orange
flesh “as sweet as the best sweet potatoes.” Seed cavities
are small. Fulford describes the flavor as nutty, and the
texture moist but never watery, not as moist as the large
butternuts. They were a big hit when staffer Paula Fulford
brought them to our warehouse for a taste test. Their earliness is an
important plus in cold summers. Though named and classed as a bush
butternut, more accurately they have determinate vines which can crawl up
to 10' in good fertility. Still at a big advantage over the unrestrained crawlers
where space is precious. Average yield is 3–5 ripe fruits per plant. Flesh has
superior flavor and deeper color than any other butternut. "

Mine did stay as a bush variety, they didn't spread. Resistant to SVB!!

CapeCoddess wrote:


Lunch time...heading home to plant turnip greens called 'Seven Top' for the winter garden.  Figured it's the only way to go since I don't do well with roots anyway. 

I prefer just the turnip greens so Seven Top has been my turnip seed of choice for many years.

Kay

I just wanted to report that I got hit with a frost last nite, 32*F.  Its our first of the season.  I'm all done for the year anyway, so nothing got hurt.  I even took in my houseplants that were enjoying life outdoors this season.  Time to take out the quilts.

QB,

When is your usual first frost?

quiltbea wrote:I just wanted to report that I got hit with a frost last nite, 32*F.  Its our first of the season.  I'm all done for the year anyway, so nothing got hurt.  I even took in my houseplants that were enjoying life outdoors this season.  Time to take out the quilts.

We had a freeze warning for our area. I covered all tender plants. Temp was at 36F this morning when I took all the covers off.

Congratulations on your successful  gardening season QB! Now onto fabric art!!!.

walshevak wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:


Lunch time...heading home to plant turnip greens called 'Seven Top' for the winter garden.  Figured it's the only way to go since I don't do well with roots anyway. 

I prefer just the turnip greens so Seven Top has been my turnip seed of choice for many years.

Kay

Do turnip greens tend to differ from each other much? I've been growing broccoli raab (rapini), which is supposedly actually a kind of turnip grown for the greens, and I wonder how different it might be from other turnip greens.