Posted on 10/30/2021 7:19:46 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
We’ve had our first good hard freeze and some frosts, so the season is over except for the Brussel sprouts.
I am absolutely going to be growing more of them next year.
It’s rainy today but supposed to be sunny, dry, and mild for the next week and a half, which will give me plenty of time to tidy up the garden and for mr. mm and I to finish up all the outside tasks before the snow flies. I have a feeling that once winter settles in, it’s going to be for the long haul.
Finally we have cooler weather after suffering through two days of 90+ degree heat. I'll be working outside most of the day to get the gardens back in shape.
Never had much luck with hibiscus for some reason. This one I got off the "dead" table at Home Depot and it's come back to life.
Never much liked geraniums, planted these for my mother b/c she loved them. Front is 'red ice' and back is 'burgundy ice.'
The lucifer lily has sprung back to life:
And finally, my two helpers. They chase each other around all day.
I have noticed some rather large pods in the garden.
People seem to be coming out of them.
Since it’s a vegetable garden, I assume these people are Democrats.
Is there any way to get rid of these pests?
We will pick the last of the tomatoes this weekend.
Frost is in the forecast for next week in the Ozarks...
(The resource area is posted at the end of the the July 3-6 Gardening Thread beginning after post 112!)
Nice Flowers! And a A Calico Tiger mix?
I planted my Collard Greens about a week or so ago. Just breaking the soil this morning with sprouts.
Got a little bit of rain during the night, not enough to do the plants any good but enough to wet the chair cushions. Now we have to wait until tomorrow for the sun to come back so we can dry them out. No such thing as frost here so I’ve been busy root pruning and transplanting into bigger pots. Next season I will have half as many plants as this season but hopefully better yields.
We are off to Cordoba on Monday for 3 days to take in the sights and I’m trying to find a place to take a Coastal boat license course in December. That lets you pilot boats up to 12 meters in length and navigate up to 20 miles from the coast. I have a license for 6 meter boats but because of my wife’s illness we need a boat big enough to have a bathroom in it.
Northern Tier Gardeners be aware of possible Aurora tonight! (It will be cloudy!)
For forcast see:
https://spaceweather.com/
Check on left side toward bottom for current aurora oval!
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4008177/posts?page=19
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Finally .... able to read the Garden Thread with my 2nd cup of coffee after a 2 hour ‘cheer up’ call to a somewhat elderly relative this morning.
Thursday I was in the garden from 10-4:30. It started out sunny/warm, but clouds were piling in the whole time, especially after noon, in preparation for the “buckets” of rain we were to get yesterday .... and we got ‘em, about 2”.
I dug out my entire compost bin - about 2/3 empty, so the last 1/3 went out on a tarp & I covered it to keep from getting too soggy. The leaves are coming off the trees, so I needed to empty the bin for this year’s leaves.
Next was clearing out the Cardinal Climbing Vines. There were still some flowers, but the bulk of the vines were looking dead, with a ton of seed pods (I saved a few). Of course, the vines were wound around everything they could reach & it took a good bit of time to unwind, clip, detangle, etc. All gone now ... ALL the climbing vines/morning glories - whew!
After hauling away the vines & the cherry tomato plants trash, I decided that there weren’t enough zinnias left to matter much ... plus I watched while working on the vines and didn’t see any butterflies, etc. So I cleared out the zinnia bed, loosened up/smoothed the soil & filled the bed to the top with compost. My stock tank, where I grow rosemary & thyme (also had a Cardinal Climbing Vine in the middle of it this year - won’t do that again!), got 2 5-gallon buckets of compost added. I trimmed up the thyme plant - half of it was nothing but dead/woody stems. The rosemary is huge, but got a trim as well.
My tomato cages are all stacked out of the way & so is my trellis. I moved two of my big planter pots to new locations (while digging/clipping vines, a lot of “re-thinking/planning” was going on). I also have plans to re-do where I store my tools & the fence panels I don’t use to cover beds during the winter - a major project for a future nice day. The skunks are digging a lot around here, so I put fence panels over my beds to keep them out.
The light at the end of the garden cleanup tunnel is much brighter after Thursday - 2 small beds to finish in the veggie garden area. I still have 2 beds (cosmos/zinnias & thithonia) in the hummingbird garden to go, but they can wait. The finches are eating all the tith seeds (I managed to snag a few to plant next year), so I’ll leave those plants until I don’t see any more birds visiting.
It looks like the weather will be nice for Halloween tomorrow. We don’t get any trick or treaters, but I’m looking forward to seeing pictures of my little great-nieces in their costumes this year. They have a very creative mother & I’m sure she’ll come up with something super cute.
Wow, you got a lot done!
I have a question for everyone, in the past, I like to use goat litter for compost. It is not as “hot” as chicken so it can be laid down sooner.
But no matter how long I let it sit, and turn it, the straw does not break down well, this makes it so hard for tilling the garden. I lay a layer down after the last tilling in the fall, and after the first tilling in the spring, but if my husband wants to go back and till again, it gums up the tiller.
His way of weeding between rows is the tiller, so he likes the rows spaced a few feet apart. I prefer to plant stuff close together and mulch heavily. To me, this cuts down on needing to weed a lot. What do others do?
I did some straw bale gardening a couple of years ago. You have to prep the bales by adding fertilizer & the bales start to compost inside - get ‘hot’ as well & even grow some (inedible) mushrooms! At the end of the season, the bales are fairly well composted & I broke them up & added them to my raised beds. The ‘outsides’ were still pretty much ‘whole’ straw, no decomp - I tried to bury those parts in the soil & they did eventually compost.
Can you compost the goat litter for a while first? If not, can you maybe put it in ‘trenches’ so the soil exposure will help break down the straw?
When I do my leaf compost bin, I cannot ‘turn’ it enough to get in enough O2 for it to be a ‘hot’ pile. From the straw bale experience, I sprinkle on some organic fertilizer on top of maybe 12-18” of leaves, water in, then add more leaves. This seems to have really helped the leaves break down .... I also used some of the leaf compost this spring in my tomato bed. It was about 1/2 way broken down, but I turned it into the dirt. When I cleared the bed this fall, there were no recognizable leaves in the dirt - totally broken down.
Happy rainy Saturday, all ... we planted strawberry plants in the raised beds this year. So, how do I winterize them?
Also, Avalon the Amazing barn cat snuck her kittens into the house, because it’s cold and she’s feeling her age. One is solid gray ... naming it Spook ... and the other is yellow tiger ... naming it Pumpkin Spice. We know winter is coming when free spirit Avalon decides to move into the house.
This is all very helpful info, thank you!
I compost the goat like for a year and there is still straw in it. I will try adding the fertilizer. Thanks
We have no idea - she is a rescue cat, we got her as a tiny kitten, mother was an alley cat. She’s a great mouser and has eviscerated a gopher or two - I only have pomegranates b/c kitty keeps the tree rat population down.
We used goat bedding for 25+ years. It’s the best. But we started out by piling it. We used oat straw bedding. It breaks down into nice black soil quickly and we would tunnel down in with a shovel or pitchfork to get the good stuff. Pure manure can be used right away. And in the fall sometimes we would lay down a thin layer right in the garden and by spring it was no problem or the tiller. Also makes good mulch or around plants like tomatoes after the tilling was done. We had so much sometimes we had a second pile. I know what you mean by clogged tines with straw. We only had that happen early on and then found different ways to use it. If you pile it first then it will get rained on and the urine will leach away. We never put fresh bedding on the garden because of the urine.
Forgot about your last question, we did what you like, plant close together and mulch heavily.
Awww! Every dog should have a pet cat! Most likely it’s the other way around though, Right? ;)
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