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A lot of what happens in our garden next year depends on things we do this fall. I've covered this subject in our feature story, End-of-Season Gardening Chores, but will expand upon it here a bit. Getting crops out of our raised beds with the plant leaves, stems, and sometimes rotting or immature fruit composted helps prevent insect and disease carryover to the next season. Since we've had some blight in our tomatoes this year, I was glad to read in Late Blight on Tomatoes and Potatoes that blight doesn't carry over in tomato seeds (a lot of which fall on the ground). Infected plant parts are another matter and probably shouldn't be composted if the compost is to be used on tomatoes or related crops the next season. Since most of our compost goes to our asparagus beds, that shouldn't be a problem for us. Once the beds are cleared, I'll do a soil pH test and add lime if necessary to bring the pH up to around 6.8-7.0. While I don't like leaving our beds open to wind erosion over the winter, I usually fall till them if the weather and soil conditions permit. I've already tilled in some lime and 12-12-12 fertilizer to most of our main raised garden bed. The areas where our garlic, onions, and carrots will go got a good dose of Muriate of Potash (0-0-60) worked in as well. One narrow raised bed will get a bale of peat moss added to raise its soil level. The narrow raised bed where our early peas will go will get a heavy layer of grass clippings. That allows me to plant our peas in early March by just pulling back the mulch and planting without tilling. I go into how to get around planting in or on frozen ground in Another Garden Delicacy: Homegrown Peas.
So, if/when I'm able, I'll till the East Garden plot. In years past, the plot has had a winter cover of dead buckwheat or hairy winter vetch, but neither got planted this year. I will add some soil sulfur to the area where I hope to grow potatoes next season. Unlike most of the rest of our garden vegetables, potatoes do best with a soil pH of around 6.0. I read one source that recommended a soil pH of 5.0 to 5.2 for potatoes. One unpleasant job I've made for myself is moving our current compost pile out of the East Garden plot. It's been convenient having the pile closer to the house than usual, but I need the pile moved before tilling. Moving it will also give it a good turn and mixing to speed decomposition. And this time of year, the pile grows rapidly with all the plant parts and trash moved to it from our garden plots. Having finished washing trays and pots yesterday, today's gardening was pretty minimal. I rinsed a couple of jars of tomato seed that had been fermenting for seed saving. And finally, today's splashshot was taken from an open window in our sunroom. It's the first time in three months that I've attempted to and been able to close the heavy window. So I'm slowly getting better each day and hope to be full strength by next gardening season. |
Our row of spinach appears to have more seedling grass plants in it than spinach plants. Despite my having scuffle hoed around the row, I'll need to do some weeding on my hands and knees soon. The rain, however welcome, has popped up seedling weeds over the rest of our recently tilled main raised bed. At this point, I may be able to control the seedling weeds with the scuffle hoe. If not, I'll use our walking tiller to clean up the bed.
Picking peppers was prompted by a cooking failure last night. I'd started to make chicken marsala, but something went terribly wrong. I ended up pan frying the chicken breasts with mushrooms, but the result was nasty. So this morning, I was out in a light rain picking both bell and paprika peppers. Pepper slices got cooked a bit with a red onion and some garlic, all of course from our garden. I later added chicken breast strips, some taco seasoning, and a pint jar of our own tomato purée. Combined with some of our refried kidney beans and cheese on a flour tortilla topped with sour cream, today's effort turned out to be a nice save from a previous nasty mess. I'd been toying with the idea of pulling our six Earlirouge tomato plants. We have twelve other tomato plants producing well in our East Garden. The Earlirouges produced heavily earlier in the season, but really tapered off in the hot, dry weather later in the summer. But looking at the plants today, filled with blooms and ripening tomatoes, I decided to wait and see if these tomatoes beat our first frost. With friends, family, and a food bank happy to receive our excess, we never seem to have too many tomatoes.
My first gardening job today was to clean up some weeds in and around our row of spinach. I'd previously scuffle hoed around the row of spinach and a mixed row of basil and parsley. Today, I used a soil scratcher to disrupt mostly grass weeds in the spinach row, hand pulling grass seedlings close to the spinach plants. I moved on to using a scuffle hoe to clean up the rest of the main raised bed. It was covered with seedling weeds. While this pass with the scuffle hoe won't get all of the weeds, it will get most of them, cutting them off at soil level and/or burying them. I need to keep the very end of the bed clear of weeds, as that's where I plan to plant our garlic.
I dumped a full cart of weeds onto the site of our new compost pile. I also lifted a little material from our current compost pile, only to be delighted to find some nearly finished compost under the soil and mulch surface. I'd also cut a few fading zinnia plants to add to the new compost pile. And maybe the highlight of the day was finally getting a good picture of a Viceroy butterfly. They'd proved elusive in my photo attempts before today. I'm still working through all the seed we've saved this season. As I sat and watched football games on TV on Sunday, I also worked at separating dried tomato and other seed we've saved. The tomato seed often dries in clumps of 30-50 seeds which separate with a little rubbing in ones hand. One batch of seed, basil, left a strong but pleasant odor on my hands as I tried to release the seed from its blooms. Friday, October 8, 2021 - Rain?
More Germination Tests Not really trusting some previous seed germination tests that were done in extremely hot conditions, I began a number of new tests and re-tests yesterday. I started ten germination tests, including tests of paprika and bell pepper seed and tomato seed. Instead of putting the Ziploc baggies containing the tests in our too hot sunroom, they went into a tray in our basement plant room over a soil heating mat set to 75° F. I also covered the tests with several layers of black plastic, as neither peppers nor tomatoes require light to germinate.
We aim for at least 80% germination for seed we save and share. That's a bit higher than what the Federal Seed Act requires. And germination rates for different vegetables vary a good bit in those standards. While the Federal Seed Act is available online, Cornell.edu offers a much easier to read table of the requirements. And obviously, those requirements are aimed at commercial seed houses involved in interstate sales. Monday, October 11, 2021 - Blame the Rain!
As I'm writing in the afternoon, the storms that delayed last night's game have just rolled in here. Fortunately, I got my outside work done this morning. I did a little scuffle hoing in our raised beds to knock downs weeds missed in my last pass over the beds. Then I started moving our old compost pile to a new site. Some of the material was pretty well digested, but there was far more that needed to go to a new site outside our East Garden plot to decay a bit longer. I need the old pile moved so that I can till the East Garden plot before winter sets in.
I also picked tomatoes and paprika peppers today. The tomatoes weren't much, as bugs have really hit our row of tomatoes in our East Garden plot. In response, I loaded up our insecticide sprayer with Sevin for the first time this season and sprayed the plants. But now, I'll need to wait five days before picking any more tomatoes from that row. I was surprised by the amount of ripe paprika peppers there were. I shouldn't have been surprised, as our pepper plants often produce their best pickings late in the season. After washing and letting the peppers dry, they, and some really ugly tomatoes, went to our local food bank for their Monday night food distribution.
Zinnias
Stellarium I glanced out a window this evening and saw a lovely half moon. Stepping outside, I also could see and identify the planet Venus somewhat low in the western sky. Two bright objects to the left of the moon had me back inside firing up my copy of the free, open source Stellarium planetarium software. I quickly saw that the other two objects were Jupiter and Saturn. Seeing three bright planets was quite a treat for me. Astronomy software may be a pretty far reach from gardening. But then, I was a science teacher for a few fun years.
Even if we don't get a frost by the end of next week, I plan to go ahead and plant our garlic. The conventional wisdom in planting garlic is to wait until after the first frost for planting. But getting it in a week or two early shouldn't hurt anything. Old Geezers (like me), Rejoice! The government announced today that Social Security checks will go up starting in January a whopping 5.9%! Gloxinia Leaf Cuttings
I tell about how to take gloxinia leaf cuttings in our Gloxinia Blog. While I produce most of our new gloxinia plants from seed, taking leaf cuttings is a way to clone a pretty much exact replica of the original plant. And, leaf cuttings often produce plants that bloom months before new gloxinias started from seed.
Our extended weather forecast currently suggests farmers should have another week or so of dry weather to finish their harvest. I still see lots of fields of corn and soybeans unharvested. We're coming off several cool mornings. We've had morning lows of 41, 40, and 43° F the last three mornings. But things are supposed to warm up over the next ten days. The forecast shows no signs of frost. That's a good thing for us and our local food bank, as we're still picking some tomatoes. There are lots of green tomatoes on our plants in the East Garden. Mistake
The science of this trick is that some fruits such as apples and bananas give off "ethylene gas, which accelerates ripening." Christensen also notes, "Although tomatoes (Lycopersicon esculentum) are used as vegetables, botanically, they're fruits. Like all fruits, they ripen from a hard green knob to a soft, flavorful specimen. Storing tomatoes with apples (Malus domestica) can speed up ripening, but it's not the best method." Wednesday, October 20, 2021 - Planting Garlic
I'd cleaned up and tilled most of our main raised garden bed in September. Frequent scuffle hoing kept weeds under control, so only a quick pass today with a bow rake was necessary to have the garlic area smoothed and ready for planting. Note that when I tilled the raised bed, I'd worked in some 12-12-12 fertilizer and a good bit of Muriate of Potash (0-0-60). I measured and staked my rows, adding string to keep on row two rows at a time. I space our rows eight inches apart and plant the garlic cloves about seven or eight inches apart. With fifteen foot rows, that often comes out to about twenty plants per row. I sorted out 20 elephant garlic cloves and thirty each of softneck and hardneck garlic for the planting last night.
I sprinkled just a bit of 12-12-12 fertilizer in and around the planting holes and even less of bone meal. We've found that bone meal tends to attract moles, even though we treat our beds with Milky Spore which kills most of the grubs the moles are after. The garlic cloves go in the soil, pointy end up, so that the top of them are about two inches deep. I'd like to mulch the planting with grass clippings, although that's not really necessary. The mulch can prevent weed growth along with preventing soil heaving through winter's freezes and thaws. But if mulched, one has to remove the mulch pretty early, as it can mat and prevent early emerging garlic leaves from reaching the light. Our how-to feature, Growing Garlic, gives all the ins and outs about how we grow and store our garlic. Burpee has a great video on How to Plant Garlic. And while the owners have retired, they continue to maintain their Boundary Garlic Farm site that has a wealth of information on all aspects of garlic. Supper Supper tonight will be delicious, but possibly not all that healthy. We're having coney dogs along with butternut yams. I used a butternut that had been sitting on a shelf in our plant room. While grown last year, it was still good. But when I reached into a burlap bag of other butternuts, my fingers ran into some slime from a rotten butternut. Thursday, October 21, 2021 - Onions
The onion thoughts prompted me to dump out each of our bags of onions and sort out soft, sprouting, and a couple of truly rotten onions. Sadly, I found about eight onions to sort out, but six of them might be okay for immediate use. If you're interested and new to growing onions, here are a couple of our features on the subject.
Gloxinias from Leaf Cuttings
The advantage with leaf cuttings over direct seeding is that you should get an exact clone of the parent plant. For me, that means several gloxinia plants that will have double magenta blooms and one with pink double blooms. Friday, October 22, 2021 - Seed Envelopes
Finally having a half decent product shot of the tomatoes, I listed them for sharing on the Grassroots Seed Network and the Seed Savers Exchange. I then moved on to making a template for a Crimson Sprinter seed envelope and several other varieties. That chore ended up taking most of the morning. But besides the Crimson Sprinter envelopes printed and filled with seed, I made envelopes for Earlirouge, Moira, and Quinte tomatoes and Japanese Long Pickling cucumber seed.
Sharing seed of the Crimson Sprinter variety is a bit of a first for me. Over the last decade or so, I've shared seed from three Jack Metcalf developed tomato varieties with deep red interior coloring: Earlirouge; Moira; and Quinte. While the Crimson Sprinter variety was from another Canadian developer, it shares the deep red interiors and excellent flavor of the Jack Metcalf varieties. I have one other new-to-me tomato variety I want to save seed from next season. It's the Bradley pink, beefsteak variety from seed Kentucky gardener Dennis Mohon shared with me several years ago. Up until now, I simply haven't had the space (or energy) to properly isolate the variety for seed saving.
With outside work unlikely with the weather (and a football Sunday), our house is filled with pleasant aromas. I'm making chicken and noodles and Grandma's Yeast Rolls for a couple of our grandkids.
Note: The yeast roll dough can be used for delicious (and fattening) Cinnamon Rolls. Seed Envelopes (Again) Below are the other seed envelopes I worked updating on Friday. Note that our seed packets usually carry information about when the seed was produced and its most current germination test. That is information I wish all commercial seed companies would share in their catalog listings and on seed packets. To their credit, a few seed houses do print germination into on their seed packets.
I'm still not done updating and creating seed envelope templates. I need to update our ones for gloxinia seed and Earliest Red Sweet pepper seed. Sadly, I haven't gotten a batch of ERS seed this season that has germination tested above 70%. I'm having the same problem with our paprika pepper seed.
Pulling the tomato plants involves trimming vines running over the cages so the cages can be pulled easily. The cages went into a corner of the field the East Garden sits in. The T-posts that supported the cages went back to the garage. And the tomato plants and lots of unripe and rotten tomatoes went onto our compost pile.
Our extended weather forecast has jumped around a bit of late. Yesterday, it predicted an overnight low and frost for next Wednesday morning. That prediction got moved up a few degrees today, but our morning low tomorrow now calls for 36° F. That's pretty close to a frost temperature. Obviously, that first frost has to come eventually. I'd just like a few more days of growing season to help some of our crops mature. While talking weather, we've had a string of cold, windy, rainy days of late. Today was a pleasant reprieve from those days. It was sunny and almost 60 degrees today. After being a bit of an old, lazy, retired bum sitting in his easy chair for days, the improved weather got me up and going today. Wednesday, October 27, 2021 - A Very Light Frost
While I had several jobs I'd liked to have tackled, today turned out to be another "recovery day." Taking out the Earlirouge tomato plants, cages, and T-posts aggravated my neck injury. I've learned that pushing through the pain and keeping working only makes things worse, so I opted for a day off...even in some pretty nice weather. Rootstock Cuttings I started taking cuttings from our one remaining Geneva 222 rootstock tree. I'd bought five rootstocks several years ago and tried grafting apple scions onto them. All the graftings failed, but one understock I didn't use persevered in a large nursery pot at the side of our porch. So I took three cuttings from it today in hopes of someday getting a good graft onto the rootstock. The Geneva 222 "rootstock was developed from a cross of Robusta 5 x Malling 27.The semidwarfing rootstock is reported to be approximately 45-55% the size of seedling and needs to be supported. Trees on this rootstock are similar in vigor to M.7 but more precocious and productive with good cold hardiness; resistance to fire blight, Phytophthora root rot and wooly apple aphid." That's my emphasis added to the Penn State description of the rootstock. We've lost trees to both fire blight and Phytophthora root rot. I plan to take more cuttings from the tree to root in sterile potting mix. Saturday, October 30, 2021 - Basil and Parsley
I started by trimming the parsley plants in our main raised garden bed yesterday. That produced more than enough parsley leaves to fill our Nesco Food Dehydrator and a large cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. I later trimmed two parsley plants in our herb garden to fill another cookie sheet for drying. After emptying the food dehydrator late in the evening, the crushed parsley filled the salsa jar I used for storing the dried parsley. Our parsley varieties this year were Italian Plain Leaf and Giant of Italy. Basil
While I'd made a trip to town today to get a roll of parchment paper (which I ran out of last night), I ended up not using it. By the time I'd filled the food dehydrator, I was worn out with trimming and sorting leaves from basil plants. We still have lots of ground basil left, so I plan to save this basil as whole leaves. For that matter, we still have lots of crushed parsley remaining from a drying in 2018. Having worked with fresh basil and parsley for two days and with fresh oregano still in our herb garden, I started some spaghetti/lasagna sauce this afternoon. Here are some good pages that relate to today's posting:
Our current weather forecast suggests light frost both Monday and Tuesday mornings. That may be followed by five straight mornings of freezing temperatures. I'll need to hustle to bring in tomatoes and peppers tomorrow. I may try covering our raised bed of kale and carrots with a floating row cover. But our growing season is rapidly drawing to a close. Sunday, October 31, 2021 - October Wrap-up
The basil leaves I trimmed into our food dehydrator yesterday were dry and crumbly by this morning. Instead of grinding the basil as I've done in the past, I put them pretty much whole in a pint canning jar. Below: The basil leaves filled all the space on each tray before drying. They obviously shrank a lot in the dehydrating process. (Whole basil leaves are in the jar on the left with the parsley previously dried on the right.)
In hopes of still getting a crop, I covered our narrow bed of kale and carrots with an Agribon AG-19 Floating Row Cover. The AG-19 cover only provides about four degrees of protection, so we may not make a fall crop of carrots. Even with just tomatoes, peppers, zinnias, parsley, basil, kale, and carrots to tend, it has seemed like a busy month. Getting our garlic planted this month feels like a victory. And our various garden beds are in good shape for fall tilling to get them ready for next season.
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