[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

The Winter Garden:

I trimmed back my fence/ low tunnel hoops so that the fabric would cover it completely.

11/24: Califlower is back near the fence with some peas that will never produce pods. (All pollinators disappeared for the winter.)

Broccoli and some lettuce are growing (slowly) in the 2 covered rows. (Broccoli needs 6 hours direct sunlight per day and temperature above 26-27 F.)

12/4/23; after most of 10 days I uncovered the low tunnels today, Here is the broccoli.

I should be able to leave it uncovered for the next week or so. I will water tomorrow and maybe fertilize again. At this point its mostly hands off except for reattaching the hose and watering and covering it back up when its too cold. Not sure If it will flower/head. The lettuce continues to grow. I did not plan to have a winter garden, just had seedlings that I needed to plant. Still have some time until January when I will want to retire inside. Except for one broccoli there is NO looper damage! (I suspect a cut worm for the damaged broccoli.)

Tomatoes: I had put some tomato vines in a box in the garage (Approx 45F at night.) 12/04/23, The green tomatoes ripened. Here is a picture of Thorburn's Terracotta in a bowl in my kitchen! They are not as good as in summer, but still good!

***Report on Burpee's Long Keeper tomato that I grew late this summer: I harvested about 120 red tomatoes in late September and put them in boxes in the garage. I experienced about a 40% loss by December 1. I did not think that the tomato was that flavorful and the last ones were starting to shrivel up. The trade off is that the ones that survived were edible late into the year. (The garage ripened Thorburn's taste much better and I still have some.)

[Pollard]

You do get a lot of production out of a small area.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You are really lengthening your season! Good job!

We had a warm enough Fall to extend my greens-growing in the greenhouse, but I checked yesterday and I see that I had White Fly on both my spinach and arugula, so I composted both flats. :(

That’s the end of the season for me. We did have ripening tomatoes into November this year, so that was a WIN! :)

[Augie]

Nanner will be back on his feet with a new (free) front tire later today. The tire shop had a used loader tire... same size and tread ply as the old tire... they were tired of tripping over it... they’re giving me the tire for the cost of a flat repair... wouldn’t have gotten a deal like that at Dobbs Tire.

And I’ve got a feeling that Little Red may leave today too. We’re looking at a slightly used (120hrs on the proof meter) 40hp 4x4 Kubota. The Kubota weighs a little more and has a few more HP than the Massey, but the loader bucket on the Kubota is smaller, which is a good thing. The Massey was incapable of lifting its loader bucket if the going was at all tough.

[MomwithHope]

Nice pictures Pete!

[Liz]

Your tomatoes look deliciously edible to me.......
amazing what evo can do to a tomato's taste.

Baked Tomatoes

Just drizzle w/ evo, add combined bread crumbs, Parm, parsley,
chp garlic, fave herbs. Drizzle w/ more evo and bake golden.