FALL/WINTER Gardens 2015 Pt 1

We came from here: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1402133/

The Fall/Winter gardens are ramping up. Join us as we tackle another season of growing those wonderful cole crops and winter veggies!

Wow Brenda I'm surprised your peppers are doing so well when your temps are so cool.

Eweed-I would try the long beans if I were you. They do great in the heat but they may do good in cooler weather also.

When I lived in the SoCal (San Fernando Valley) it got 100+ during the day but it cooled down at night. I was able to grow lettuce, cole and root crops, tomatoes and peppers all at the same time. I never realized it wasn't possible until I moved to Tx!

starting to see some turnip roots forming up, just a bit bigger than a ping pong ball. Also the great autumn colors are finally showing up, and many of the flowers are still going strong

I am having "sun scald" on my peppers !!
It is mid October and it is still so hot!

I planted spinach, mustard greens, and kale seeds a few weeks ago. Of those, mustard greens are growing fastest. If winter is not too harsh, I might get to harvest all winter.
Spinach is going to be 'eaten' by henbit before it is big enough for us to pick!

I just dug sweet potatoes but it is too late to start anything else up here. Lovely lovely soil, will try to cover with leaves before any weeds start. Or blueberry bushes. It's gotten too shady for good vegetable growing.

I pulled much of the garden today. No more tomatoes, most of the basil varieties are out (one was still blooming), and some of the peppers have played out.

Luffa gourds and some peppers are all that is left of summer. Well, and some cotton and sorghum that's trying for a second crop.

Meanwhile, the beets and carrots have loved the mild fall weather and were thriving under the weeds. :) Time to plant garlic!

It's still in the 90s here. I finally let my garden go it has been too hot and dry for too long. Fall is usually my best pepper and tomato crop but we are still having summer temps with no breaks. We had an amazing amount of rain this Spring but now everything is so dry. Burn bans are everywhere. When is El Niño supposed to be here?

Going to have killing frost this weekend, so will be picking last of peppers today & tomorrow.
Been a good year & frost is about a month late.

It was 96° yesterday. We woke up to 57° this morning, and, the high is supposed to be a record-breaking 94°. We're gonna roller coaster like this for the next 5-6 days, then drop to the mid-80°s for highs.

So far, I have 3/4 of a bed of cream peas and green beans with blooms on the plants. Hoping they produce something before the chill really hits. They're under perforated plastic sheeting, which keeps it toasty in there, and, after one spraying for bean beetles?, they're looking very healthy.

I have a gazillion kale seedlings up in the sunny end of the new bed, and Buttercrunch lettuce perking up on the shady end of the same bed. I've had beet and spinach seeds soaking since Saturday, and hope to drop seeds in the middle of the bed soon.

Another RB has three (3) tomato plants that have blooms, but, again, I'm playing "beat the clock" with the ambient temps...

The SWEETIES are ready to be harvested! Just waiting on my handheld digital scale to arrive to weigh the harvest, but, looks like delivery wasn't scheduled until November 3rd, so, will be weighing them on something else, LOL!

The 18" x 15' bed has laid fallow since I pulled the peppers. Two plants have put on a few new leaves, but don't know if they're gonna stay... Tryna decide what to put in there next.

And the squirrels keep digging up every square inch of dirt that's not covered...Including my seed flats. I'm about to buy a .22 and start thinning the herd.

Ok. That's my report, and, I sticking to it!

Hugs!

This message was edited Oct 14, 2015 12:34 PM

Rat traps shoud get a few no need to aim and easier on the houses around the hood.

So im thinking my skin may be sensitive to raw turnip greens. Several weeks back i had started noticing bumps on my fingers, and i went for a while thinking that i had inadvertently got into some poison ivy in one of the other gardening beds. I still have bumps that come and go even now. And the only things ive been handling lately are the turnips that are growing down in the main veggie bed. I know im not allergic though, because i could eat them raw or cooked all day without a problem. Im thinking it has something to do with those prickly hairs that are on the leaves, time for some cloth gloves then i think.

How will you eat the turnip greens if you are allergic to the greens? Maybe cooked they are neutralized?

It's atopic dermatitis. All it means is that irritates the skin (an allergic reaction) but it isn't a food allergy.

Earlier this summer, I had a reaction to something in the garden. Raised bumps under my chin and over my entire neck in front. Like, I had something in my arms (a bundle of garden waste, perhaps?) and it touched my neck. Or, the only other thing I could think of is that I was caught in the back draft of some Red Fox Urine I was spraying in my attic for the squirrels.

Itched like crazy for two weeks, enough to finally send me to the dermatologist. Steroid cream and, overnight, itching was gone. I suffered needlessly. Next time, sooner to the doctor...

I have started to harvest some greens ... just a little bit !
Yesterday was 96F degrees and all my greens are suffering.
I hope the peppers will turn colors before the first freeze. Plants are loaded.
My favorite so far and best producer of sweet pepper is the Italian variety: Red Marconi
Cabbages and Broccoli are growing well.
Radishes are growing fast and I have started to thin out my "lettuce forest"

Bought a new scale.

Harvesting the SWEETIES today, at 5:00 p.m. sharp, "Lord willing, and the creek don't rise!"

Will post pics and poundage (please, God!!!), soonest...

Stay tuned...

Hi everyone, Linda you must be 'harvesting the Sweeties' as I type. LOL, happy harvesting. Can't wait to see the poundage with the new scale and all. Grins.

drthor, wow, both the harvest of the summer garden and the start of the cool weather crops looking terrific.

jmc1987, glad the skin rash isn't anymore bothersome for you. My skins will get very irritated when I work with potting mix with sphagnum moss in them.

Hiya NicoleC, the weather has been so very nice and mild, I'm enjoying the mild temp. while we can here before 'ole man winter arrives. Time to plant garlics? I need to plant some into my perennial bulbs garden to help deter vermin, as well as using some for cooking. Thanks for the tips.

Here is our neighborhood's community garden's fall harvest. Neighbors offered some 'greens' saying that it's ready to be shared. I'll have to find out if they're collard green, mustard greens?

Howdy, 1lisac, hope Texas' heat will let off soon for y'all down there.

eweed, how is the weather out there for Fall gardening?


This message was edited Oct 17, 2015 9:28 AM

We're under Frost Advisory tonight... if it's borderline, it means it probably will frost at my house. That's pretty early for us; our average first frost date is Nov 1st.

I just harvested all the bell peppers that were big enough to be worth cleaning; say over 2 1/2". That's a whole produce drawer full and then some. And there's a whole bunch more out there.

I always hate that peppers LOVE fall here but just about the time they are going full steam winter shows up. :-/

SWEETIE HARVEST

Got to the sweeties Saturday morning. Here's the pictorial. I harvested a total of 15.5 lbs. from the 4x8' raised bed. While I'm tickled pink, I learned a lot, and will strive for a better yield next season. I will try to harvest at least 50 lbs. next time.

Some things I learned. While sweeties are supposed to be a "set it and forget it" crop, I think I should water more during the dry spells. Also, side dressing with some fertilizer, perhaps. Finally, dealing with the wireworms in the raised bed. I had a LOT of holes in the sweeties.

All in all, a good learning experience. And, since I don't plant much during the summertime, I can see growing sweeties in at least half the available beds, through the heat.

Hugs!

Pics #1-4 Sweetie Harvest bed prep

Pics #5-9 Sweetie Harvest yield

you got some nice big ones! Those darn wireworms. yuck.

I'm still learning myself. I put some in just to cover the bare soil, and many of mine were skinny, I'm afraid they will be stringy. But I think it's better that I dig them, than leave a banquet for my voles to feast on all winter.

Thanks, Sallyg!

Just an added note: Immediately after I harvested the sweeties, and broke up the remaining soil to sift for any debris, I topped off the bed with a load of composted veggie blend soil, and planted beets and spinach. These are the seeds that had been soaked in water and Hydrogen peroxide for a week (yeah, I know, but life got in the way, LOL!)

Thank God, they hadn't rotted! I had poured them out onto paper towels, and, when I finally did get to them, they all had tails about 1" long. Which wasn't exactly a BAD thing, since I just lifted them from the paper towels, and dropped them onto the soil. Then, I covered them with some fine sifted soil. I watered the bed extremely well beforehand, and misted the soil after.

We shall see...sure hope the beet roots aren't affected by anything the sweeties left in the soil...I doubt they will be.

Will report on the beets and spinach.

P.S. I forgot to post this pic. It is an example of "scurf," a condition that seems to affect sweet potatoes left in moist soil for too long. Slips taken from sweeties infected with scurf may pass on the infection. However, taking cuttings from the vines should not continue the scurf, as, only the roots (the tubers) carry the infection.

Hugs!

This message was edited Oct 19, 2015 11:04 AM

seems we both have learned valuable things about growing those sweets this year, my lesson is that i should start growing them in really huge containers (at least half barrel size) from now on because of how difficult it is to work down into our deep clay soil, im sure there are still a couple out there that i missed here or there, but it starts getting so dense as you go down, also no thanks to the spiderweb network of roots from the surrounding trees that are around that bed that i put them in, which im sure helped to hinder the sweet potatoes efforts

Oh and here is todays harvest, a huge bucket full of turnip greens and perpetual spinach (had to mash them down tightly in there to get all that i wanted without having to make a second trip)

Left the turnips themselves in the ground, each one still having a couple of central leaves to continue growing.

Also blanched some of the last of the tomatoes that our plants have given us, and into the freezer they go.

Nice harvest jmc1987!

I do appreciate the lessons I learn from the garden, and, the opportunity to improve next season!

gymgirl, your beet and spinach followup sounds like a great plan. Way to make the space work all year.
jmc, is that Malabar spinach?

it is actually Perpetual spinach, which is actually related to beets.

Its supposed to have a similar taste to spinach, but not as pungent

This message was edited Oct 20, 2015 12:42 AM

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/107146

Thanks for the link.

Isn't it Swiss Chard? That's what I usually sse it called, I think.

well it has the Perpetual spinach name attached to it too, so i am thinking that its one of those things where some people call it one thing where other people call it the other, lol

That's not Swiss Chard at the end of that link...

At least, not any Swiss Chard I've ever seen, LOL!

If you look at the heading on the link it says Swiss Chard, the picture shows it bolting. I agree with jmc it's one in the same. But it's not a true Spinach.

My broccoli are starting to make tiny heads.
Garlic is popping out already.

Im surprised your broccoli is making heads, it's been so hot. Maybe day length has something to do with it too. Gardening never stops amazing me. Lol