One of the Joys of Maturity
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Friday, November 15, 2019 - Recommended Suppliers
Rather than try to list our favorites in order, these listings are in alphabetical order. Note that links, where possible, are to the vendor's print catalog request or download page. Trusted Suppliers
Our gardening season is clearly over. I still need to get our garlic planted and our main bed cleared of now frozen plants. Daily high temperatures are supposed to return to the low 50s about this time next week, so I should be able to get some outdoor work done then. But it looks like fall tilling is out again this year. During the morning hours yesterday, I was out visiting doctors. I had my annual checkup with my heart surgeon and followed that up with a trip to my GP, as I've had bronchitis for a week and all my homeopathic cures (kale soup, etc.) have failed. We haven't received any more seed catalogs, but I did notice that High Mowing Organic Seeds has its 2020 catalog available for downloading.
So I pulled our now dead marigold plants this morning, picking off what looked to me to be the most mature seed heads. The seed will need to dry for a couple of weeks before being packeted and frozen for storage. Other than avoiding hybrid marigold varieties which may not produce offspring true to type, that's about all there is to saving marigold seed. I will split the seed heads in a day or so to release the individual seeds for better drying. Our marigolds this year all turned out to be of the brocade orange and yellow variety. That's just luck of the draw, as my big bag of saved marigold seed came from brocades, yellows, and other marigolds.
Monday, November 4, 2019 - Best Photos
This year's Best Garden Photos feature now seems to me to run a bit heavy on what we used to call product shots in the photography business. (I moonlighted for several years while teaching as a wedding and portrait photographer.) I think that may be the result of a somewhat lackluster gardening season. Spring rains, cataract surgery, and a shoulder injury really limited my ability this year to do the gardening I so enjoy. Other Photo Pages:
Delicious Thanksgiving Dinners - Shipped FREE I went outside this morning to save some basil seed from our herb garden. A day or so ago, the seed heads that were ready to be picked stood out as they were brown. After a couple of freezes, all of the basil plants had browned out. I had to feel each seed head to try to guess which ones were bearing mature seed. Still in a seed saving mood, I cut and composted some of our row of zinnia plants. I cut a bunch of seed heads and added them to a tray of zinnia seed heads on our drying/curing table in the garage. If you'd like to try some zinnias,
with your mailing address. Do note that our zinnias have evolved to being very tall plants, often reaching four to five feet tall. I'm going to order some State Fair
While out in the East Garden, I pulled and composted our cantaloupe vines and immature melons. The floating row cover that had been over the vines was in good enough shape that I rolled it up and stored it in the garage for future re-use. I also brought in two last butternut squash that may be usable. After taking a break to thaw out my cold hands, I picked kale. While kale is pretty cold tolerant, the Tronchuda or Portuguese Kale had clearly been damaged by our recent freezes. Our other kale varieties, Vates, Rainbow Lacinato, and especially the Red Ursa, seemed to endure the frosts/freezes pretty well. The kale is now filling our house with pleasant aromas as it cooks down with some bacon, garlic, and onions I sautéed in butter. I also pulled back the floating row cover that has been protecting our lettuce. I was pleased to see that our recent freezing mornings hadn't killed the lettuce. The tops of some taller romaine lettuce that touched the row cover were a bit frost bitten. But the main heads of the romaines and some head lettuce were still in very good shape. When done picking lettuce, I pulled the floating row cover back over the lettuce. With a couple of twenty degree mornings predicted for next weekend, I suspect our fall lettuce harvest may be just about over. We have a bit of spinach growing in one of our narrow raised beds. It had looked terrible all fall, but has perked up with cooler temperatures and a good bit of rain. While this won't be our usual harvest of fall spinach, we may get a nice spinach salad or two or some boiled fresh spinach from it. Depending on weather conditions, we sometimes garden late into the season. This year has turned out to be one of those years.
From front to back, we have lettuce, kale, cauliflower, and broccoli for seed still growing in our main raised garden bed. Not really visible in the photo is a bit of spinach in the far raised narrow bed. We may get more pickings of lettuce and kale. The cauliflower is iffy, as the plants are just forming heads. And the broccoli for seed looks to be another learning experience (= more time needed). Gardening this late into the season is a mixed blessing. We'll enjoy whatever we get out of this late garden, but it also slows getting our garden plots ready for next year.
November is a very important month for gardening. It's when we try to do our soil preparation for the coming season. Getting soil tested, liming, adding organic matter to the soil and tilling the soil make for a much quicker start to the next gardening season. Looking at our extended weather forecast from the Weather Underground, our ground may dry out enough to permit tilling some or all of our garden plots in the near future. We'll also plant our garlic this month. Beyond End of the Season Garden Chores, we'll inventory our seed on hand, work on our garden plan for 2020, receive seed catalogs, and begin formulating seed orders.
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