started getting the gardens ready
for winter.

beautiful day by the looks of things
today once the frost/dew burns off...


songbird

In article ,
songbird wrote:

started getting the gardens ready
for winter.

beautiful day by the looks of things
today once the frost/dew burns off...

Made the last batch of pesto last night. Supposed to get a frost, not
sure that it really arrived, but there's a hard freeze warning for
tonight and it wasn't improving as it stood there anyway.

I had intended to try harvesting basil a lot earlier and spare myself
the late autumn pesto madness this year, but I determined that I need to
plant a lot closer (and more plants, but I had the more plants) for that
to be practical here - when I looked at the "early harvest" I was
looking at robbing the cradle for my 9" spaced plants. I'll try them at
4" next year and it might be reasonable. Another side goal of harvesting
early is to possibly skip the leaf-picking (tedious, slow) and just grab
the plants before they get woody, and grind the whole plant.

Once things freeze off pretty well I'll get back to a bunch of things
that were sacrificed for the sake of other concerns this year and see if
next year will be better as a result - the whole thing needs to be
re-done, hopefully the last set of path changes, renew the fence, haul a
lot of horse-poop.

--
Cats, coffee, chocolate...vices to live by
Please don't feed the trolls. Killfile and ignore them so they will go away.

On 10/10/2016 8:29 AM, songbird wrote:
started getting the gardens ready
for winter.

beautiful day by the looks of things
today once the frost/dew burns off...


songbird

We woke up this morning to a chilly 70F. BSEG Now it's in the
mid-seventies aiming at low eighties. I am thinking this will be the
third year without a winter of some sort.

Still waiting for the right time to prune the fruit trees and the trees
are still making fruit. Come on winter.

George

On Monday, October 10, 2016 at 9:29:45 AM UTC-4, songbird wrote:
started getting the gardens ready
for winter.

beautiful day by the looks of things
today once the frost/dew burns off...


songbird

Where are you that you're getting frost already?

Paul

Pavel314 wrote:
songbird wrote:

started getting the gardens ready
for winter.

beautiful day by the looks of things
today once the frost/dew burns off...

Where are you that you're getting frost already?

mid michigan. in a low spot.

was a beautiful day for getting some of the
squash plants raked up and buried. three more
gardens inside the fenced area to get done and
two outside the fence. one has beans still going
i have to check them before the next rain to
see if any pods have to come in. will do that
one last.

should also get some more strawberry plants
transplanted. it helps me thin out one of the
older existing patches because it gives me a
reason to go through it.

even if i'm not moving as much as i'd like to
it still feels good to be back out digging and
puttering around.


songbird

songbird wrote:

started getting the

VERY light frost on the lawn this morning; will look at the Tomatos and
pole beans later to gauge the effect.
This in the hills outside Albany, NY: 1410' elevation.


--
Gary Woods AKA K2AHC- PGP key on request, or at home.earthlink.net/~garygarlic
Zone 5/4 in upstate New York, 1420' elevation. NY WO G

On 10/11/2016 8:05 AM, Gary Woods wrote:
songbird wrote:

started getting the

VERY light frost on the lawn this morning; will look at the Tomatos and
pole beans later to gauge the effect.
This in the hills outside Albany, NY: 1410' elevation.


High temperature in the Houston, TX area today is forecast at 80F. What
is frost? BSEG

On 10/14/2016 10:43 AM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

High temperature in the Houston, TX area today is forecast at 80F.
Same here. We had a taste of cool weather right after Matt helped
drag a front through but predicted high today is near 90° with mid-80s
for the next week or so. Nights, though, are 70-ish. Little chance of
rain. Confusing as heck to much of the green stuff but I planted
collards under the aging okra this morning, anyway. The little dears
will just have to tough it out; or not. Late season "provider" green
beans and yellow squash are blooming but nothing from the cowpeas or
cucumbers yet.

Temp here supposed to be about 90F today if the weather heads have it
right. Went to the library this morning a little before noon, got home
and the sky was dark. A little sprinkle of rain hit us, already dried up
as the sun popped up again. We've started putting water on the gardens,
fruit trees, and the grass right at dark. No point in wasting the
expensive stuff.

We have pretty much amended all the raised beds and those in the ground
too. Emptied the compost barrel yesterday and the blasted thing broke. I
figured it wouldn't last long as the so called "metal" stand was flimsy
to start with. Now the plastic barrel will sit on a few bricks and we
will just roll it on the ground each time we put something in it. Mostly
it is leavings from the garden, yard grass, leaves from the fig and pear
trees, stuff from the kitchen, etc. Dog poop gets picked up daily and
goes into a bag for the trash can.

Pear tree is still blooming, setting fruit, and has leaves,mid-October,
pretty much the same with the fig tree. Don't expect to get any fruit
from either and, I will soon prune the pear and the kumquat to open them
up and get rid of "rain" limbs, those pesky limbs that just decide to
grow where you don't want them.

I miss the gardens and trees we had in Louisiana, we lived on that
14,000 foot squared lot with several fruit trees and a very nice in
ground garden. Several feet of thousands of years of leaves, etc. laying
on top of an ancient sand dune. Really good dirt and many truck loads of
cow manure went into the garden. Around here they sell cow manure by the
small sack full. In Louisiana folks with cows and horses would give you
the stuff as long as you shoveled and toted it.

Ecnerwal wrote:
....
I had intended to try harvesting basil a lot earlier and spare myself
the late autumn pesto madness this year, but I determined that I need to
plant a lot closer (and more plants, but I had the more plants) for that
to be practical here - when I looked at the "early harvest" I was
looking at robbing the cradle for my 9" spaced plants. I'll try them at
4" next year and it might be reasonable. Another side goal of harvesting
early is to possibly skip the leaf-picking (tedious, slow) and just grab
the plants before they get woody, and grind the whole plant.

we're not basil growers/eaters that much. if
it gets used it is very lightly done so the dry
version works ok for us. i doubt we'd use a
single plant's worth in a year. Ma doesn't like
much from the mint family.

i had a lot of squash that needed to be cooked
up and frozen (some were starting to get fungi on
them or had lost the stem already or ...). also
ate a few which were yummy.


Once things freeze off pretty well I'll get back to a bunch of things
that were sacrificed for the sake of other concerns this year and see if
next year will be better as a result - the whole thing needs to be
re-done, hopefully the last set of path changes, renew the fence, haul a
lot of horse-poop.

dig a deep hole and scrape the surface debris into
that and bury it. keeps a lot of weed seeds from
germinating. when you stir it up again some may
sprout, but the worms will eat some of those seeds.
i have a few useless pathways i'd like to get rid of
but i keep getting overruled on that.

have to remember to get the garlic planted.


songbird

On 10/18/2016 9:35 AM, songbird wrote:
Ecnerwal wrote:
...
I had intended to try harvesting basil a lot earlier and spare myself
the late autumn pesto madness this year, but I determined that I need to
plant a lot closer (and more plants, but I had the more plants) for that
to be practical here - when I looked at the "early harvest" I was
looking at robbing the cradle for my 9" spaced plants. I'll try them at
4" next year and it might be reasonable. Another side goal of harvesting
early is to possibly skip the leaf-picking (tedious, slow) and just grab
the plants before they get woody, and grind the whole plant.

we're not basil growers/eaters that much. if
it gets used it is very lightly done so the dry
version works ok for us. i doubt we'd use a
single plant's worth in a year. Ma doesn't like
much from the mint family.

i had a lot of squash that needed to be cooked
up and frozen (some were starting to get fungi on
them or had lost the stem already or ...). also
ate a few which were yummy.


Once things freeze off pretty well I'll get back to a bunch of things
that were sacrificed for the sake of other concerns this year and see if
next year will be better as a result - the whole thing needs to be
re-done, hopefully the last set of path changes, renew the fence, haul a
lot of horse-poop.

dig a deep hole and scrape the surface debris into
that and bury it. keeps a lot of weed seeds from
germinating. when you stir it up again some may
sprout, but the worms will eat some of those seeds.
i have a few useless pathways i'd like to get rid of
but i keep getting overruled on that.

have to remember to get the garlic planted.


songbird

We planted basil when we moved here in 2012, have not had to plant
anymore. We pick regularly, dehydrate and jar up, then we pick again and
again, then they go to seed just before cold weather. When spring
springs the basil starts growing again. Still looks the same and tastes
the same.

We found an earthworm a while back, not another one since. We put the
one captive into the raised bed and hope it will make more.

George

George Shirley wrote:
....
We planted basil when we moved here in 2012, have not had to plant
anymore. We pick regularly, dehydrate and jar up, then we pick again and
again, then they go to seed just before cold weather. When spring
springs the basil starts growing again. Still looks the same and tastes
the same.

it's nice when it works out that ways.
perennial gardens can save on a lot of work.


We found an earthworm a while back, not another one since. We put the
one captive into the raised bed and hope it will make more.

if it was an actual earth worm it will have
migrated down to the subsoil if it could. i
have been working here for years to increase
my populations of these worms and am breeding
them inside in some of my worm bins too (with
mostly the dirt/clay and not so much organic
materials like i use in the rest of the worm
bins for worm composting). i have three
earthworm species that show up here. there
are some that are pale pink to white, some
which are darker red and the once in a while
accidental night crawler. if i notice the
last kind i put them back outside as they
don't actually do well in captivity in such
a tiny container.

all gardens that i've amended with a mix
of worm species do seem to sustain at least a
few of the earth worms now. when i first
started working in many of these gardens
there wasn't any kind of worm to be found.

the composting worms (which i do not
consider to be earth worms) i use are a mix
of at least two species. the common red-
wriggler and the non-native belgian night
crawler. the belgian night crawler will
not survive our winters, but they are an
excellent composting worm to use as they
will live in the soil but they really do
a great job of munching on organic materials
too. they rapidly increase in population
i put a hundred thousand to two hundred
thousand worms out in the gardens each spring
and most of them are the belgians...


songbird

nothing too serious, but the trend has
definitely been colder recently - the
heat has been running at night. a good
day for making onion soup and baking some
squash. have a few beans left to shell
out, almost done.

still have to pull the beets sometime
and put those up.

got all the hoses brought in along
with the yard decorations and the bird-
baths are covered up.

otherwise still busy putting up gardens
and putzing around.

garlic is planted.


songbird

On Wednesday, October 26, 2016 at 1:37:22 PM UTC-4, songbird wrote:
nothing too serious, but the trend has
definitely been colder recently - the
heat has been running at night. a good
day for making onion soup and baking some
squash. have a few beans left to shell
out, almost done.

still have to pull the beets sometime
and put those up.

got all the hoses brought in along
with the yard decorations and the bird-
baths are covered up.

otherwise still busy putting up gardens
and putzing around.

garlic is planted.


songbird

We had our first frost last night (October 26-27), north of Baltimore. They're predicting in the high 70's in a few days, then cooling again.

Reminds me of the joke about why Cleveland (where I grew up) is located where it is. When Moses Cleveland was in a boat exploring Lake Erie, a storm blew up. They pulled into the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and Moses said, "We'll wait here until the weather improves."

Paul

Pavel314 wrote:
....
We had our first frost last night (October 26-27), north of Baltimore. They're predicting in the high 70's in a few days, then cooling again.

Reminds me of the joke about why Cleveland (where I grew up) is located where it is. When Moses Cleveland was in a boat exploring Lake Erie, a storm blew up. They pulled into the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and Moses said, "We'll wait here until the weather improves."

all joking aside, the river meeting the
lake is often a place chosen for an old city.

i think we are going to do foam work today
while it is warm enough outside.


songbird

On 10/29/2016 8:47 AM, songbird wrote:
Pavel314 wrote:
...
We had our first frost last night (October 26-27), north of Baltimore. They're predicting in the high 70's in a few days, then cooling again.

Reminds me of the joke about why Cleveland (where I grew up) is located where it is. When Moses Cleveland was in a boat exploring Lake Erie, a storm blew up. They pulled into the mouth of the Cuyahoga River and Moses said, "We'll wait here until the weather improves."

all joking aside, the river meeting the
lake is often a place chosen for an old city.

i think we are going to do foam work today
while it is warm enough outside.


songbird

What exactly are we foaming? It's fairly nice here at 1442 hours, light
breeze blowing, which is helpful. I started Tilly's fall brushing
yesterday, so far a plastic bag full of dog hair has come off her. Once
it is all off, that which doesn't blow across the garden with the wind,
will be buried around one of the fruit trees. A good source of nitrogen
with a little work. I think I saw fall peaking in on us last night but
I'm not 100% sure yet.

George