The Old Guy's Garden Record

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Friday, November 7, 2025

While we've had some close calls lately of a first frost, it appears that the real deal is coming early next week. The Weather Underground's Extended Forecast now calls for morning lows Monday and Tuesday of 24°F. That should do it for this growing season.

One batch of the butternut squash I started germination testing on Saturday was ready to "read" today. I'd mistakenly dropped eleven seeds into the test, ten of which germinated. A germination rate of 91% ain't too shaggy. The seed was from the Waltham Butternut looking squash. A separate test of seed from a South Anna Butternut looking squash is lagging a bit behind in germination and is still over a soil heating mat.

Some of the Moira tomato seed I started several days earlier has just barely begun to germinate. I bumped the thermostat for the soil heating mat the seed is over from 72 to 75 to 76 degrees. It appears that our saved Moira seed this year may all be a bust. Fortunately, we have good saved seed from past years in the freezer.

Following our practice for years, after we had a spaghetti night, I used the remaining sauce to make lasagna. Since there's just the two of us here now, I make our lasagna in a glass bread pan. It's wide enough for two lasagna noodles across its narrow dimension. I do have to trim an inch or two off the ends of the noodles.

Our lasagna is three layers deep with a bottom layer of cottage cheese mixed with egg and cheese. The remaining layers are spaghetti sauce and lots and lots of cheese.

Since my wife had an outing the day after I made the lasagna, it got to sit in the fridge an extra day. I've always thought re-heated lasagna tasted better than fresh lasagna.

We had a lovely evening sky Wednesday night. That may make up for heavy cloud cover obscuring this month's supermoon.

I ran across a Facebook ad featuring Johnny's Selected Seeds' 2026 seed catalog. When I tried to download the digital catalog, the link was bad. While we rely on Johnny's for great carrot, lettuce, and other seed, their web site coders need to learn to check their work. I also tried to order some paper seed envelopes for the Territorial Seed Company. Their website ordering was similarly f*cked up.

I really grow tired of poorly executed web sites and newspapers and web sites with gross misspellings and wrong word use. Having worked as a copy editor in college, such mistakes are hard to take. Have the newspapers and web sites killed off all their copy editors. And do the writers not know how to use spell check and an online reader?

Boy, do I sound like a grumpy old retired school teacher?

Saturday, November 1, 2025

I cut two large butternut squash for seed saving yesterday. One squash had the shape of a South Anna Butternut, and the other was the traditional shape of a Waltham Butternut. I kept their seed separate, although I suspect both squashes had cross pollinated some. I started germination tests on the seed today.

Cutting up two huge butternuts gave me a lot of butternut flesh to use. Rather than our favorite Butternut Mock Yams recipe, I decided to try Natalie Perry's Simple Roasted Butternut Squash Soup recipe. My wife really liked the soup. I found it to be just so-so at first, but its flavor grew on me. Roasting butternuts is said to bring out their sweetness.

After a disappointing experience with food bank workers in April...and with our lousy garden this year, I hadn't donated anything more to the food bank this season. But with the current government shutdown ending SNAP, WIC and other benefits, I began making a list of things to buy to contribute to our local food bank. They'll get a few butternut squash, of course, but I plan to purchase Mac & Cheese (the kind that doesn't require milk), oatmeal, and some fruit cups. They'll also probably get a bunch of leftover Halloween candy.

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Contact Steve Wood, the at Senior Gardening