Summer Veggie Gardens Pt 2 & Beginning Fall Gardening (Pt 1)

First frost is scheduled for early/mid October here in southeast Nebraska.
Have already planted fall cucumbers (even though main season haven't started bearing yet, thanks to the hordes of rabbits in the area), and fall bush green and wax beans.
Currently harvesting green and wax beans, onions, cabbage, kohlrabi, chard. Tomatoes, the aforementioned cucumbers, and peppers are almost to the harvest point. Winter squash (butternut and spaghetti) are growing well and setting fruit. Harvested first cloves of garlic, the rest are about a week away.

My goodness! I lose the original thread for 2 days, and look at all I missed, LOLOLOL!

Fall Veggie Gardening 2013

What started out as, "I really need to clean up my seedling room," and, "I can do better than what's covering that window," has ended up with a TOTAL breakdown of the room, new window coverings, a total makeover of the light shelves (the girlfriend who looked at the curtains also looked at the cement blocks and shelves)...

Off the heels of the latest HGTV room makeover, I was going to purchase carpet squares to cover the laminate floor (better than the plastic covered plyboards that were protecting it...) and went to a carpet store (falsely) advertising carpet squares on sale, and in stock...well, as GOD would have it, I ended up with a remnant piece of carpet for $12 vs. $50 on the squares. And, it's the perfect color, AND, while I was there I spied an old bookcase sporting some cobwebs, enquired, and now have a bookcase for my gardening room for $15.

So, now that the freshly painted cement blocks and light shelves are all dry, I can start hauling them back into the grow room. And, putting all the garden related mat'ls I've collected into nicely matched binders for the bookcase (which will also be repainted).

And all this has to happen this weekend, cause NEXT weekend, seed sowing begins for the fall garden!

►Broccoli, cauliflowers, & onion seeds will be sown indoors for planting the last weekend in September
►Direct sowing carrots, beets & turnips the 1st of September
►Mustards, collards & kale will be sown the middle of September
►Lettuce & spinach direct sown end of October & mid-November
►And, definitely going to plant a bed of garlic this November, for the first time! Seems I'm reaching for garlic almost every day, now!

I also have one New Big Dwarf tomato plant that's still very healthy, which should be putting out a brand new crop of tomatoes for a fall harvest.

Still trying to decide if I wanna do all the onions from seeds again, or go ahead and order the Dixondale transplants. Theirs did better than mine, but, it could've been a feeding issue, and I might try again since I'm using a whole new fertilizer system that is working amazingly well. My current eggplants are full of blooms, and the Swiss Chard has gorgeous leaves.

Ok. I'm all caught up, LOL!

Godspeed, and Good Harvest!

Linda ^^_^^

This message was edited Jul 15, 2013 10:10 AM

Ah Lincoln! warmer than York usually is anyway! Have noticed a bunny explosion- I think people forget when all they kill is coyotes they get overrun with rabbits. Gardens doin good guys.

Enjoy your new room, Linda. I have a spot in my basement that's my "mad scientist" zone that I want to revamp into a better area for brewing, fermenting, dehydrating, hanging to dry and so forth, but that project has no wait until I hire a cabinet maker for the utility room... and *that* project apparently has to wait until I determine is my fridge is dying or not. (Okay, it is dying, I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth putting on life support for a while.)

I can't wait to eventually get my space going, though!

Hi Nicole,

A similar problem we have had here in our house hold. I wanted a new fridge, so didn't wait for repair, and went and bought a new upgrade/modern one. Only to find out that the old fridge had a blown fuse, and was easily corrected. Now, we wound up with two. One is kept down in the basement for back up storage. Co-incidentally, it's good to chill Fall bulbs ect. *grin~

Linda, your garden is gonna be enough to feed a whole neighborhood. Wow! I'm learning a lot from your posts, as well as others here in this forum. Thanks all.

Lily_love,
Wouldn't that be neat? A backyard garden to supply fresh produce to the kitchens that cook the meals for those in need?

It simply behooves me that there are not more gardens planted on vacant city lots. We have more wasted space in this country, and opportunities to eradicate hunger than any nation on earth.

And, don't get me started on the companies that just throw out perfectly good food because of the regs that prevent it from being re-directed where it could be used...

I think hunger in this nation is an orchestrated sub-plot...

It's only 13 years old but the compressor was replaced to the tune of $700 in 2009. Now the temperature is fluctuating too much. Last week I had bad lunch-meat AND frozen radishes! I took off the back and cleaned, thoroughly cleaned the coils and fans and lubed up moving parts this weekend... now I'm waiting to see if it helped. I know I need new door gaskets ($200), but if the inner seals or the thermostat is shot Ishould probably just get a new one. Holy moly, they're expensive!



Linda, don't just fret, be a force for change! Find people in your community already working to fight hunger or increase available garden space and help them out.

Sadly, the only way you are likely to make an abandoned lot to community garden happen is on city or state-owned land. With the whole liability insurance thing, most private landowners won't bite. And if it isn't guaranteed the land will be available for a while, gardeners won't come and invest their time. You'll need an established group that will commit to doing the volunteer work to keep it ticking over, because gardener's tend to drop out and the city will want assurances it won't be an eyesore.

It CAN happen, though. Cities are becoming more interested in these kinds of cheap projects that improve community health and contribute to quality of life. In recent years here, we've managed to get public orchard space and raised beds at the "projects." More community gardens have opened up of all kinds, from charity and church gardens, to rent a plot style, to even a local artist center that's full of all kinds of art projects designed around growing veggies. Even the local Maker's 256 group started a garden... I haven't seen it but no doubt it's full of gadgets.

Your enthusiasm is contagious, Linda, go share it!

Last year was my first time growing onions & I purchased Dixondale transplants. They grew great. I was thinking about trying some from seeds this year, and if they're not looking too good by January, I can still get some from Dixondale.

So what is your new fertilizer system?

Jo-Ann

Gymgirl -

Don't leave us hanging! What's the new system?

jomoncon
Yes try seeds for onions, my seed crop this year did just as well if not better than my onions started from plants. Not saying either one was a huge success, but this was my first year for either. I was surprised by the seed crop doing so well. I don't know why but I just get more satisfaction from growing things from seeds.

I'm with Seedfork on starting things from seeds. Some days, I don't care if I even grow plants. I just get great satisfaction from starting seeds.

Will post pics of the finished grow room soonest!

Seed,
Where did you get your onion seeds? I had a couple packs from Henry Fields. I think they may have passed their shelf life by the time I planted them (not Henry Fields' fault at all), so that may have contributed to my so-so crop.

I'll try again with fresh seeds, and a better fertilizing regimen.

Give me a link or a website. Thanks!

Linda

I purchased my seed from....eh, Lowe's.

I noticed my bell peppers are starting to produce again, and the eggplant and Banana peppers are still producing tons. The tomatoes are 90 per cent water balloons with all this rain. Finally, only a 30 % chance today, we need some sun! But I am mowing grass later, so could the clouds hang around just a while, if that is not asking too much?

Seedfork,
Those bells are nice! What variety?

Green and yellow both zucchini today. Humm, what should I make for dinner? I have some cherry tomatoes too and some cucumbers.

Leftover tomatoes today , first time enough to pic , these little things go fast ..beans are doing nicely , still waiting for cucumbers

GG, just the old California Wonder and Crispy Treat.

Tonights dinner. Purple Rain eggplant and Cavilli (light) and Elite (dark) zucchini.

Pretty!

I was going ask an oldie but goodie ; Are we all invited ?
Looks good to me !!!

Sure come on over! :=)) Actually I haven't cooked it yet, I had better get going.

My neighbor, who is just a fabulous cook, came by giving me some bean salad that she has made. So I cut her two zucchini and one eggplant. She said she had grilled the last zucchini that I gave her and that it was so good.

The zucchini is producing well but I still can't keep up with all the demand from my neighbors and friends.

Veggies all picked yesterday. I had a lot. Cucumbers. Various Squash, Eggplants and tomatoes.

This is still that part of the season that gives you the hungry appetite , nice looking vegies in the previous .

These of mine posted before , only this mornings though . Little red sugars already got ate .

I always eat the cherry and grape tomatoes as I go along and pick. I am sure the harvest would be bigger if it wasn't for all the ones end up in my tummy!

The same ,, Best habit I ever had (and still do)^_^

I had a sunflower that was wilting, but I couldn't find anything wrong with it -- the largest one, too. (Of a dwarf variety.) Today the 2" diameter stalk up and broke halfway up. It's filled with excrement and damage. Apparently there are a whole horde of potential pests, but my money is on the Dectes texanus since it also infests soybeans, and we have a ton of those here.

Everything likes sunflowers- so guess ya have to keep a close eye on em

Well, they are mostly there for the goldfinches and to see if they work as a trap crop for squash bugs. No seeds yet for the finches (although they loved them last year), but they are covered with squash bugs and my squash are fairly clean. This might be a trap crop which truly works.

Plus, they are nice to look at and the bumbles bees love them.

Never thought of using them as a trap crop. I have a couple in my garden just because I like the way they look. I'm also growing pink petunias to deter squash bugs and I'll see if that helps...

THIS as you all move to fall .. still summer here , Even if our summer temps are your fall temps ..
Beans
White cucumber
yellow currant Tomatoes
Marglobe
Belle Starr Last Storm knocked the last one over

Thistle and Nettle to deter some boring type bugs , then they bore on the flowers , yeah well , you never can have everything can you ..lol

Fairy Tale Eggplant, Gretal Eggplant, Classic Eggplant, tomatoes.

Harvests from Friday, Saturday and today. That yellow squash is one called Golden Egg which seeds I bought from Burpee. I just love it!

Beautiful, Rita!

Way to grow Rita!

The hot weather is really bringing on the zucchini, squash and eggplants.

I will be glad when the techs have fixed all the "problems" it's hard to follow along when words on the right edge are cut off!

This morning:

I picked a small basket of volunteer tomatoes.

A single melon volunteer is producing flowers, and I saw a few female blossoms.

Volunteer sweet peppers. One looks large enough to pick green. Another is turning red.

Volunteer basil is beginning to flower. This should keep the bees happy.

Weeds, weeds everywhere! I'm going to be real busy getting rid of them once the weather cools down.

Which basils do you have volunteering Bee?

I like to try new things and add to the garden when possible. This year lots of squash and I have decided I want to plant many different types of melons next year. I like to to see what works out. I have tried melons before with some success but this year planted in a big pot on the driveway. They love the heat there and are doing the best ever.

Waiting on beans to come in as I pulled my bush beans so now I am waiting on my yard longs and french fillet beans to produce. French fillets have started with the flowers but no beans set yet. Yard longs are already starting to produce but not big enough for picking. But those grow extra fast!

kittriana - The volunteer basil is Genovese.

The only kind of basil I grow is volunteer! LOL Plant it once and you'll never need to plant it again.