2018/2019 SFG in Brooks, GA

Twenty (20) broccoli!     I can only dream.

I'm sorry the corn crop didn't pan out like usual.

Hits and Misses

Hits ----------->


Fava Beans



Garlic


Sweet Peas



Rattlesnake Beans


Okra




Potatoes


Peppers


Tomatoes


Misses ----------->

Corn - Eaten by Raccoons


Watermellon - planted in the wrong spot.

Pinkeye Purple Hull Peas - birds ate the seeds and I did not want to replant.

Neither Hit nor Miss----------->

Spring planted Kohlrabi


Spring planted Broccoli

VERY nice, Yolos!

We never had a first frost this year.  It is usually around Oct 28.  So now we are having our first freeze.  And a hard long freeze this time.  Usually we just have a freeze that lasts a few hours.  Tonight it will be below freezing for about 12 hours.  Way to cold.

So yesterday I tried to winterize my new garden irrigation system.  And today I spent all day putting up hoops, running old timey christmas lights, and covering with 6 mil plastic.  Mostly worried about my broccoli.  I know it can survive down into the mid 20's but I have 15 heads of broccoli sitting on now that are too small to harvest.  I do not know how a 12 hour freeze will affect the heads.  Therefor I tried to keep them from freezing.

This cold snap is nationwide...we are predicted to be at 6-7*F by morning.

Scorpio Rising wrote:This cold snap is nationwide...we are predicted to be at 6-7*F by morning.

Except here -- we never conform to anything.

countrynaturals wrote:. . .Except here -- we never conform to anything.

Yolos, nice hoop beds. I hope everything pulls through.

sanderson wrote:

countrynaturals wrote:. . .Except here -- we never conform to anything.

Yolos, nice hoop beds.  I hope everything pulls through.

Thanks Sanderson.  Everything pulled thru that should have.  A couple of the broccoli had damaged leaves but the broccoli heads are still developing I think.  I now have 23 heads of broccoli in different stages of development.  Looks like we will be having broccoli for thanksgiving dinner.  

Carrots never germinated yet.  Cover crops are slowly coming up thru the mulch.  Garlic has a few spears breaking thru the mulch.  I saw a few flowers on my Strike  Peas but not sure I will get any this fall.

My Strike peas are coming along.  Thank you for introducing them to me.

Oh, I just realized I missed your other photos of our bounty. Wow!

Guess what vegetable we are having for Thanksgiving dinner.  I still have about 15-20 heads left to harvest as they mature.

yolos wrote:Guess what vegetable we are having for Thanksgiving dinner.  I still have about 15-20 heads left to harvest as they mature.

Beautiful, Yolos. Maybe next year, I'll do better with broccoli.

Beautiful.

Still harvesting Broccoli and still have 7 more heads developing.  Waiting patiently on the Brussel Sprouts to get large enough to harvest.

I have been working on my fall compost pile.  I was moving the pile to a new bin and found massive amounts of ants in the original pile. So I am trying DE.  If that does not work I will try drowning them.  It has been raining so much this fall that they moved into the compost pile.  The first picture is of the finished 3.5 x 3.5 x 3 foot pile.  The second picture is about 6 inches remaining in the original pile with DE sprinkled all over it.  

yolos wrote:Still harvesting Broccoli and still have 7 more heads developing.  Waiting patiently on the Brussel Sprouts to get large enough to harvest.

I can never get broccoli to form heads bigger than a golf ball, and broccoli is our favorite veg, so I'm gonna try sprouting broccoli this season. Wadayathink?

Yolos, beautiful broccoli! Update us on the effectiveness of DE in the compost pile. Maybe the next pile, sprinkle on the dirt and the perimeter dirt. ??

sanderson wrote:Yolos, beautiful broccoli!  Update us on the effectiveness of DE in the compost pile.  Maybe the next pile, sprinkle on the dirt and the perimeter dirt.  ??

Used three different products to get rid of ants.  They are gone for now.  

1.  Put Spectricide around the outside of the Bin.  Scraped off the small amount of compost still in the bin.  Sparingly sprinkled the Spectricide in the bottom of the bin.  Then put a layer of cardboard and put the small amount of compost on top of the cardboard.  A couple of years ago I did not think and put some Spectricide in one bed to kill a nest of ants.  I was afraid I ruined the soil so I searched the internet to find how long I would have to wait to plant in that area again.  I think it was about 4 months before the Spectricide became inert.  It will take at least a year before this load of compost is ready to use (Live oak leaves take forever to decompose) so I don't think it will kill us.
2.  Sprinkled DE on the top of the compost I put back in the bin.  But the DE only works if the compost is dry and it was not dry and our dew is so heavy here that after one night the compost was wet and the DE was ineffective so I don't know if this worked.
3.  Put out two liquid ant baits but I can tell that the ants did not go into the ant baits.  

So I think the Spectricide worked and hopefully it will degrade completely by next fall.  But it is under the cardboard so it should be ok.

I don't know if you remember but this time last year I found termites in another bin.  I Just left them alone but couldn't give up this new full bin.

I remember the termites. For this compost pile, did you use the fire ant Spectricide?

sanderson wrote:I remember the termites.  For this compost pile, did you use the fire ant Spectricide?

I used Sprectricide only on the very bottom.  I just removed all of the compost in the bottom of the bin and I am using it on non-vegetable gardens.  Thankfully, the ants kept going deeper and ended in the bottom few inches.  They are gone now but I did not want to use the compost in my veggie beds.   We  have a huge ant problem here.  I counted 7 ant mounds on my walk out to the mail box today.  I dump the Spectricide on the hills that are not in my garden.  I can look out past the garden in the neighbors lot and counted 9 ant hills that I could see.  Maybe once they move into their house they are building, they will  take care of their ants and maybe I won't get so many.

Fire ants?

sanderson wrote:Fire ants?

I don't know.  I guess I should gather some and take them to the County Extension.  They are not red.  They are blackish, brownish.  They sting you and leave a big pimple looking welt on the surface of the skin.  They are also fairly small.  Hurts like heck.