An update on the bell pepper plants that I brought indoors. They were loaded with blossoms, all of which have fallen off (stems and all). Yet, the leaves look very healthy (except for a minor nip from the night before I brought them indoors). I’m even getting new growth of leaves. They really seem to like the east window.
If I can keep them alive through the winter, are they likely to bear next spring when I set them outdoors again?
Still have relentless heat in the Southwest, temps over 95 degrees for almost a week now.
Native plants and bee garden are going strong. I may have to expand those gardens.
Everything in the garden stores is cactus, aloes and succulents. Our front yards here are starting to look more and more like Arizona - gravel with cactus replacing lawns due to water issues.
Ha. Cute pumpkin meme. Well we had some frost a few days ago. Fall has been cooler than usual. I had to move the lemon trees and stuff into the green house. I also covered them with row covers, since I needed to keep them warmer.
I am making room to bring the lemon trees indoors. I have one bed of garlic planted. 4 of the raised beds are planted with a mixed cover crop. I have 5 beds left to clean up and plant. One will be some more garlic, if they are ever delivered. They were really slow last year too, but such beautiful big beauties when they finally got here, that I ordered some more.
Hubby is still working on the shed/root & storm shelter. Still has one last pour for the concrete. Still putting down the steel. Will have to get the pour done soon or wait till spring. Trusses were delivered yesterday—so waiting would be really bad.
I also should have already harvested the tumeric. Got to try and dig it up this weekend. First time for a harvest to use it-I want to save some in a pot and will bring it indoors for the winter.
Question for the brain trust ... do I need to rotate the garden and plant the tomatoes somewhere else next year? They are at the bottom of the hill, facing south east, sheltered by the house this year and did well. Could put them at the top of the hill between house next year. Would have morning sun and some afternoon shade. All sun this year.
Asking because the later ones had issues. Cracks, holes and irregular dry white spots.
I harvested some lemon verbena about 3 weeks ago to start the process of making a liqueur from it. Last week I did step 2 which was to add the sugar. Next week I get to strain and enjoy!
We had our second round of freezing temps on Thursday. (I’m in central Indiana.) I try to overwinter many flowers and potted plants as I can. So now instead of it looking like a florist or garden center outside, it’s looking like a greenhouse on the inside.
This year I’m repurposing my dining room to see if I can take better care of the plants than I did last year having them out of sight, out of mind in the basement. We figured that because of CoVid we aren’t likely to need a set up for 8 people. The most we will have is 5 total, and we can accommodate that in our sunroom just off the kitchen. I am buying grow lights and getting it set up. So fingers crossed I will be somewhat more successful this year with overwintering plants than I was last year.
It was another dry week here in Central Missouri. First frost of the season two nights ago.
Priority project for the weekend is to build a new condo of doom deer stand for Mrs. Augie. Tree fell on her old one and wiped it out.
Tomatoes are hanging on. BLTs for breakfast this morning...
Lady Bender and I got our next years garlic planted yesterday (50 feet) and continue putting the garden to bed for the wet winter months ahead. I will be back here after a breakfast meeting with Old FRiends...
Every day i see a line going thru dunkin donuts drive thru for 3 dollar coffee. Somehow i dont think they’re gardeners.. and that ‘pumpkin spice’ is probably artificial to boot.
Building a hinged hoop cover for a 16’6” long 4 foot wide raised bed that contains eggplants and pepper plants.
16 feet 6 inches you ask? Why? Well I was using scrap lumber and thought “hell...why not take the extra 6 inches?”
Well now my hoop cover has to be made using 2 joined lengths of pvc pipe for the lengths of the roof. We will see if the weight if rainwater over the winter will play nicely with the joined sections.
We will see if the extra 6 inches was worth it. (No crude jokes gentlemen)
I finally heard that my garlic order is being shipped.
YEA!!!
Now that the rain has stopped and the ground dries out some, I can get it in.
Balcony garden report from suburban Baltimore: Hostas’ leaves are starting to brown bigtime; heucheras still pretty intact; annuals in windowboxes are making much smaller flowers; geraniums are big and beautiful (wish I had a basement to store them in for the winter); verbenas are gone; lemon balm, mint, ageratum, and lavender are still going strong. But it’s obvious that things are in general, starting to shut down for the winter. There’s always spring, when most of them come back!
Possibly useful info. to some from right at the end of the last thread — the 1st may be timely to some:
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Assuming air temps remain above 32 deg. F, moving plants under large trees that are still well leafed out will help prevent frost from forming on those plants. The “canopy” will significantly reduce radiational cooling...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1997-10-21-9710210333-story.html
https://wxguys.ssec.wisc.edu/2017/10/09/frost/
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In case any reader doesn’t already know THIS:
My wife came running in a few days ago to tell me our two White Leghorn pullets are actually cockerels. Spurs beginning to form. I was this || far from asking her when she wanted to butcher those skinny little birds. But I recalled one Buff Orphington hen we’d had who had partial spurs. So, I researched:
It turns out that any hen may develop spurs, but Mediterranean breeds like Leghorns are particularly prone to the hens developing spurs. Our two Leghorns are relieved, their rooster is looking forward to having 8 hens instead of 6, and we are hoping the pullets all start laying soon, as most of our older hens are well past their prime.
:-)
I just finished digging up my potatoes.
I planted three varieties. Superior, Pontiac Red, and Kennebec.
The Superior gave me a very disappointing crop.
The Pontiac Red, did OK.
The Kennebec vastly outperformed the other two put together.
I got my garlic shipment FINALLY, and have gotten them in the ground.
I have some onions I replanted for seeds next year. I got them as onion sets in the spring and the bulbs just never grew, so I took the smallest ones and planted them for the seeds. Got 30 bulbs in the ground all put to bed for the winter.
OK, can the onions overwinter and survive?
Or should I dig them up and plant them in the spring after all after keeping them in cold storage?
The sites I’ve tried looking up don’t give the information I’m looking for.
It gets pretty cold here in NH in the winter, but the garlic does fine with mulch and I would expect that if I mulched the onions they should make it. Especially if we have a snowy winter.
I discovered early one morning this week that the butterfly had hatched! Was able to get a picture of it before it flew off. Don’t know how to post the picture. Snap dragons blooming again in colors of red and yellow. The impatience and caladiums are dying back and I’ll be pulling up the impatience this weekend and putting the caladiums into storage. Also collected seeds from a beautiful lime green coleus.