New England October 2014

NHGardener wrote:
"1683BO Burpee’s Butterbush OG (87 days) ...Their earliness is an
important plus in cold summers. "

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

Good to know!  Did you save seeds?  I got Delicata in the 25cent seed sale to try next year.  I'll trade ya.

Thanks for mentioning your repeated use of Seven Tops, Walshevak.  That's a good enough endorsement for me.

Well, yesterday I planted my little Honey Crisp apple tree that I grew from seed.  Hope it makes it thru the winter. 

We're still green and growing despite going down into the 40's last night. Except for rain water, the buckets are standing empty since I haven't had to water yet.
 Guess it'll be a few days before I see if the cukes got hit.

CC

CapeCoddess wrote:
Well, yesterday I planted my little Honey Crisp apple tree that I grew from seed.  Hope it makes it thru the winter. 


CC

Wood chips?

Wood chips?  Oh yes!  I have the day off tomorrow and will be replenishing the fruit trees & perennial gardens with wood chips.  I also need to blow & rake up massive amounts of fat acorns - probably a couple of buckets worth that I'll give to a friend's pigs.  And I may also get started on the winter covers on 3 boxes.  Apparently one never knows when one will be hit by frost...or otherwise.
 

CC

Butternut squash seeds - I should have plenty of them soon! I only cut/cooked 2 small squashes so far and I just gave those seeds to the chickens, figuring I'll save the seeds on the bigger ones. I may not get to using the bigger ones for a couple weeks yet. I checked with Fedco and they should not have cross-pollinated with anything I grew. The seeds can also be roasted, like pumpkin seeds.

Since sweet potatoes aren't easy to grow around here, I may just stick to butternuts, they're similar enough.

NHG, How do you clean the seeds before roasting? Sounds tasty.

XWe call them inkberry in my neck of the woods...
 
messy, messy, messy...but check this out
http://www.altnature.com/gallery/pokeweed.htm

CC
PS. I ended up with 13 five gal buckets of raked up acorns...from ONE tree!  This does not include all the ones that have rooted already and will have to be pulled out by hand.

It's a banner year for acorns in my yard as well.

Sanderson - I haven't gotten to the roasting seeds part yet! But here's, of course, on wiki:

http://www.wikihow.com/Roast-Pumpkin-Seeds

And CC/camprn, I agree, the dropping acorns this year sounds like rain, it's so constant. Must've been the right weather conditions or something.

This morning's breakfast: Chopped, sauteed garden eggplant, garlic, kale, and cherry tomatoes in scrambled eggs.

Dinner: Beef stir fry with garden eggplant, kale, garlic, cherry tomatoes, green beans, and I'll probably throw in some yellow squash from the freezer.

Still eating those garden veggies!!!

NHGardener wrote:Still eating those garden veggies!!!

Me, too!!!

Harvested this morning for breakfast smoothie and lunchtime salad:


This weather is stellar! Can't wait for some leaves to play with!

Friday	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday
60° F | 52° F	56° F | 50° F	57° F | 46° F	61° F | 56° F	66° F | 59° F
Partly Cloudy	Rain 100% chance of precipitation	Clear	Chance of Rain 40% chance of precipitation	Partly Cloudy

Hope it really does rain.

Ate the last of my 2 Sugar Baby watermelons yesterday.  They were softball size & had too many seeds for my taste:

Are they supposed to be this small?

Happy compost pile waiting for leaves:


Now this is interesting...mid summer I stuck a tomato sucker in a Lolla Rosa lettuce pot. The lettuce is gone now but this sucker keeps growing: 
Not sure which ones they are but the shape so far appears to be Boxcar Willie.

Lettuce, carrots, peas and 2 flowering volunteer toms: 
The blushing tom is in the little box behind this one.

Peas & beans still producing: 


And lots of maters still coloring up: 


Cukes still forming: 

Greens planted early last spring keep on keepin' on: 

And I think I saw strawberry flowers a couple weeks ago.  Guess I'd better check that out later.

All in all, we're still crankin here on ol' Cape Cod...for how long no one knows: 


CC

Nice, CC! You're going to live forever with those great breakfasts.

Next year I'm planting a late crop of peas. I'd love some more peas. 

One of my sugar baby watermelons actually got close to soccer ball size and it was really good. There were a lot of seeds, which I saved, I'll have to make sure they're open pollinated. We're so used to seedless watermelons now that seeds are a major pain. Ha.

Last night I made chicken paprikash with (sing along with me) garlic, kale, squash - peas - green beans (all frozen), eggplant, tomato and onion. All home grown!

Tonight the only thing from the garden on the menu is french fries made with our potatoes. Those are fun too!

I have to figure out a good butternut squash soup recipe, and other ways to make it. And one of these days cook up some pumpkin and try a pie out of that.

It is so super cool to actually have a diet revolving around your home-growns. Makes a difference in the grocery bill too.

Soccer balls, huh?  Well, considering last yrs unripening ping pong balls I guess I'm lucky to have softballs.

Oh, something else I wanted to show you.  I don't have this happening in my garden and maybe that's because I  plant and water with baby aspirin at Mel's suggestion in the Answer book, but all my neighbors tomato plants look like this and then die: 


What is that???  Is there more than one issue going on here?  It's disgusting... 
 

CC

CC, Wonderful looking at your photos.

early blight


late blight

Looks like my tomato plants this summer. They were weakened from the beginning from being part of the science fair experiment, having all kinds of (organic) additives added to them from the getgo, etc. I've been pulling yellowed stems off them all summer. Didn't get too many fruits. (No actual brown spots on the fruits tho) (Maybe it was early blight & not late blight?)

NHGardener wrote:Looks like my tomato plants this summer. They were weakened from the beginning from being part of the science fair experiment, having all kinds of (organic) additives added to them from the getgo, etc. I've been pulling yellowed stems off them all summer. Didn't get too many fruits. (No actual brown spots on the fruits tho) (Maybe it was early blight & not late blight?)

maybe it was neither fungus but rather an excess of organic amendment? DO you have any pics?

I dodged a frost bullet last night. Didn't cover the garden and it got to 33F. No frost. Was SO lucky!

The white aubergine is turning yellow and the poblanos are finally turning red!

Camp, Beautiful.

Pretty eggplants! You can't possibly eat those. They belong arranged in a bowl.

Great pix everyone.  I envy you all your great fall gardens.  Hooray for N.E.

The colors are beautiful out there!

I've been working hard mowing leaves and putting them in the beds before the rain today & tomorrow. I found a nice source of woodchips towards the woods where the firewood gets cut, so I've been hauling those up in the wheelbarrow to put in the row areas. Yesterday I pulled all the tremendous amounts of volunteer tomato vines out of the beds and put them in the compost pile. Took down the trellises. Pulled some weeds.

It feels like it's only just begun. There's so much out there to do before the ground freezes... The beds really need to be topped off, they sunk a lot this summer. After the leaves, I hope to put a layer of chicken manure on, and get to the beach for a layer of seaweed. And -everything- is getting cardboarded, because I refuse to have a weed garden like this year. So getting boxes from the grocery store is another chore.

The compost bin is over the top right now.

Whatta day!  shorts, tank top, flip flops!  

Went to the beach at lunch & hit the jackpot:   
 

Went home and found boxes of celery, carrots and cukes from my neighbor for the compost pile also.  NEED LEAVES!!!!


AND 2 more of the cannas are blooming!

And last but certainly not least, todays breakfast/lunch/dinner harvest:
My harvests are all starting to look the same. Guess I should stop photographing them.

CC

They may look the same to you, but they look different to me.

Nice CC! Today was so beautiful! I did a lot of garden/bee/chicken tasks today, I'm worn out. On the beds I've put leaves and chicken manure and I'm in the middle of spreading grass clippings. Started the garden plan for next year. 

30F forecasted for Sunday night! The last thing I have out there is kale. I'll throw something over it.

CapeCoddess wrote:Whatta day!  shorts, tank top, flip flops!  

Went to the beach at lunch & hit the jackpot:   


CC

I think you hit the jackpot just by going to the beach today in summer garb.  I'm jealous.