Posted on 10/21/2011 5:04:45 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. We have had the first frost of Fall this morning in East Central Mississippi. It will warm up into the 70s the next few days and possibly even up to 80s by Tuesday. Not much gardening will be going on for me until next Spring.
I hope all your Fall gardens prosper.
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We were forecast to freeze, our low just kissed 32. I haven’t checked my pepper plants. I am hoping for the best, but if they are damaged then it wasn’t meant to be. I’m sure my cole crops are happy, though. My Brussels sprouts are small, but they are home grown. :)
All the aspen leaves have fallen here in the Colorado Rockies. An early freeze has ended my gardening this year.
26F two nights this past week. Brought in the curing squashkins that the earlier frosts had kissed, so the freeze wouldn’t ruin them.
Nothing left but the Fall tilling & mulching.
Did you see that Berkeley Ca had a couple of EQs yesterday?
I covered the tomato bed and winter greens bed with a row cover. I have a citrus tree full of flowers indoors, and a batch of baby spinach. Soon I will trim off all the tomato branches for indoor pots.
This weeks harvest included Wild Rose Hips, American Persimmons, a few tomatoes, and Trucker's white corn. I also harvested the last country gentleman corn, and hung it up to dry for next spring’s planting.
We had some good rain this past week, and a lot of garden chores to get done this week. It is a great sunny day outside. Just right to do yardwork with a light jacket.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Absolutely beautiful weather in New Mexico this time of year. My biggest problem has been squirrels eating my Knock-out roses down to the bone. They killed one and today I took plastic lightweight fencing material and made a cover for the other 2 they have gone after. Hopefully there is time for a bit of recovery before winter sets in. I am going to have to move them in the spring to a less-friendly-to-squirrels part of my property. I have tried a chemical from Garden’s Alive that was supposed to be hated by squirrels but mine just love it.
It was not a good year for tomotoes here. I probably paid $2 each for every good one given the amount of work, and equipment and feeding required.
Yep, my Tomatoes never had a chance this year either. This was due to me not getting an earlier start to let them mature and develop a good root system before the big heat wave hit.
Even though Hubby got his out on time, we had a cool spring with too much rain. Then the big heat wave, and attack from beetles.
We just now have a batch of decent tomatoes, so if Indian Summer continues, we may salvage the effort somewhat. Mine are in a 2 x 4 raised bed, with pvc pipe forming a dome and covered by row cover. Hoping to extend the results past Indian summer.
The extreme weather forecast for Texas is horrible! Watched a long term forecast on Fox News around noon. The drought in Texas is predicted to run well into 2012. Horrible!
Sure hope they're wrong.
Some good news, though. We are predicted to have a warmer than usual winter. Maybe we'll put off a frost until Christmas or later. I might actually get some tomatoes.
Sweet and hot peppers, cucumbers, and looseleaf lettuce is keeping the salad bowl filled. My Ichiban eggplant up and died. Crookneck squash seems to be thriving and so are the collards.
But them darn tomatoes just don't want to do nothin'
A few weeks ago, frost killed half my garden. That half had stopped producing so I didn’t cover it. Now everything that had died is resprouting from the roots. I didn’t know cucumbers and sweet peas could do that!
The beans I picked before they were dry are drying nicely off the vine. I’m shelling them as the pods turn hard, I’ve got a nice big pile of seeds now :)
I was away from home all week so naturally we got a nice hard frost. Mrs. Augie picked the tomatoes and peppers, but she didn’t cover up my giant elephant ears. Hope they aren’t dead.
Those elephant ears will die back but come back next spring if that is what you are worried about! Some varieties can be almost impossible to kill off and invasive.
I have had that link in my Tool Bar favorites for years as this area is earthquake central. I got the six varieties of Garlic planted today and have decided to plant the tiny Vietnam pink again because it is such a novelty. The bulbs are only about the size of a quarter and cloves are a pain in the butt to peal so we just smash them and fish the skins out the few times we use it.
These are colocasia which is a tropical variety. They’re hardy to zone 8, I’m in zone 5. I chopped them down, dug the corms and stored them in my workshop last winter. I’ll dig them tomorrow and hope for the best.
I got my season-ending hard freeze here in NW KS early AM Thursday, 10-20.
I picked a bunch of peppers Wed. afternoon, and the last good tomato I found. Went out Friday afternoon and found a few more peppers that might be good diced and frozen, or good for a kabob tomorrow (planned) and for a few more days. Also brought in my pumpkins, not completely ripe. Hope they go all orange inside my shop.
I still have some beets and carrots that will be usable, but I need to get it cleaned off as soon as it dries and will burn.
“Sure hope they’re wrong.”
Sure agree with that.
My father does remember a year we had no frost. Cotton plants suckered out the next year, some actually made 2 crops with 1 planting. That is odd.
Just happens I'm up and visiting Harris-Mann Climatology & Long Range Weather. They have a nifty search page purporting to forecast the next 12 months for major cities. They forecast a rather mild winter for San Antonio.
San Antonio | Normal High | Projected High | Normal Low | Projected Low |
Nov | 71.4 | 72.4 | 48.6 | 49.6 |
Dec | 64 | 66 | 40.8 | 42.8 |
Jan | 62.1 | 60..1 | 38.6 | 38.6 |
Feb | 67.1 | 66.1 | 42.4 | 41.4 |
Compared with what Fox News forecast for Texas as a whole, Harris-Mann predict near normal precipitation for San Antonio through the next 12 months. Sure hope these guys are right. But then, this is Texas and we all know what they say about Texas weather. -:)
I hope they are right. I ran the data on my nearest reporting city and it showed the only month that we would have freezing temperatures was in January. Projected low temp that they gave for January was 26.8 degrees F.
I would certainly call that a mild winter.
How is their forecasting record?
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