Garden: October 2022

[Loowit]

I had a pumpkin seed I planted sometime in May, or maybe June or July replanting, just pop up yesterday looking all green and happy.  Several of my pumpkin vines that have done nothing all spring and summer are starting to grow.  It is the middle of October, and it still feels like summer.  Tomorrow is supposed to be 83 degrees.  The last of my tomatoes are not ripening.  I don't think we have enough daylight, even though we are having mostly sunny days, granted with the haze of smoke from wildfires.

I am wondering when I should just go ahead and pull everything and get things winterized.  I want to wait for the first frost, but who knows when that will be.  Usually we have had that by now or are at least getting close.  DH says we should wait because he likes having green things growing, but I am ready for fall to get started already.

[*****]

Loowit, I am in the same position. Stressing my tomatoes to help them begin to ripen. I do this by watering very little, shoving a shovel through the root system and trimming back the stems that don't have tomatoes on them. I heard that when they start to ripen, then you can pick them to finish in a dark covered to ripen. But we are supposed to have nice weather for another week, so I am trying to be patient.

Interesting about your pumpkingsstarting to grow. You could leave it or not, but doubt if it will get that far. I had a squash start in late July. It's been fun to watch and the squash has green stripes on it, but I've been told it won't ripen in time. Not sure what kind it is.

But my dilemma is now the leaves look like they are getting mildew on them. I wanted to add them to the compost but not sure if I should . Everything I read says to burn them. Darn!  I wanted to feed my soil. 

[Rosie_0801]

Squash leaves are edible, so are young fruit.

[SHP]

All bulbs planted with the exception of the club bulbs I ordered that have yet to arrive

[SHP]

2023 prep work:

I went around and gathered all the small random rocks and pieces of broken concrete littering the yard and moved them to the area we will be building a berm in the spring. 

[Faith-manor]

So I am at the Alabama house now, and though the fruit trees are here and I am ready to plant, the first thing I noticed was the return of fire ants, and getting uncomfortably close to the children's sand box. I have spent today at Home Depot for supplies, and then wandering the property searching out every ant hill, disrupting it with a shovel in the hopes of exposing the queen, and dousing with diatomaceous earth. Next up, A ground hornet nest as soon as it is dark and they have all returned to the nest. Fruit tree planting is reserved for tomorrow. It is so warm here compared to home. 80F/26.5C LOL, I had to come inside and cool off.

I think I have found enough scrap wood on the property (some 2"x8"x8's - 5cm x 50cm x 240cm) to build her a planter for carrots and celery in the spring. I think I will go 16" deep, and 4' long, so 50cm deep and 120cm long. We don't have any agriculture fabric here, but plenty of card board. So my plan it is to layer several inches of cardboard along the fence, and place the beds on top which should make a good weed barrier for a while. She has a big wooden planter on the deck, and has garlic and basil going. The fabric bag had a nice bunch of strawberries. I am going to fill around the plants with leaves, lots of leaves, and cover hoping they will come back in the spring. I know exactly nothing about weathering over strawberries in the South where it just doesn't get very cold compared to Michigan where we practically give them little outfits of wool and bear pelts! 😂

[prairiewindmomma]

When we lived in the south we planted strawberries in October for a March harvest. Don’t cover them too deeply—just a bit to get through the lows in the 50s in December. 

[prairiewindmomma]

It’s 84F here. It should be in the 50s and raining. 

[Faith-manor]

17 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

When we lived in the south we planted strawberries in October for a March harvest. Don’t cover them too deeply—just a bit to get through the lows in the 50s in December. 

Thanks for that tip!!!

[ikslo]

My aji dulce peppers were from seeds of a single small pepper my across the street neighbor gave me last fall/winter(?).  I have to say, they are serious producers. I have had peppers from spring through til now on the regular, and they are still coming.  It is definitely my biggest Florida gardening success to date. It might just be because all the seeds germinated, giving me a lot of pepper plants to harvest from, but I am thrilled with the harvest.

[SHP]

Last night finished moving mulch to the edge of one garden bed and staked out the walkway and the exact boundaries of the future berm

[popmom]

My carrots and turnips are coming up—that’s good except I planted in grow bags and realized I probably didn’t put enough soil in for one variety of carrot. It settled a lot after the last rain. Looks like about 6 inches of soil. 
 

I started lettuce, komatsuma mustard, and some herbs indoors. The lettuce and mustard are germinating. The mustard is from seed I saved. I also saved lettuce and turnip seed, but I haven’t tried planting those yet because I still have packets I bought last year. 
 

I’m going to try cabbage again. I always got beautiful big heads when I lived in Texas. Ever since we moved back to Alabama, I have had zero luck.

[Faith-manor]

We just staked out the best spots for all of the new fruit trees, and spray painted Xs on the ground. We are off to Home Depot to get the tiller we rented for four hours to help grind up those spots to make it easier to dig the holes, fertilize, and mulch properly. Wouldn't you know it, I stepped on a fire ant hill (small colony so not immediately obvious in the grass) and have about 15 bites on one ankle. Not a happy person! Drowning them in diatomaceous earth when we get back with another bag of the stuff.

We are going to look for a source of 50lbs of the it, and if we find it, rent a fertilizer spreader, put on boots, and walk the whole yard with the stuff in the hopes of doing a massive ant kill. The spots I treated yesterday have zero living ants now. But I keep finding more and more colonies. So we just need to treat the whole yard.

And then I didn't get this posted so now we are at the end of the day, and all of the plants are in the ground. We did, however, run out of mulch. So I need to run down to the bottom of the mountain to the independent farm and feed store that we love and buy some. I am also hoping they stock the diatom earth. I really don't feel like driving into Huntsville again. Fingers crossed.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Faith-manor

[popmom]

4 hours ago, Faith-manor said:

We just staked out the best spots for all of the new fruit trees, and spray painted D's on the ground. We are off to Home Depot to get the tiller we rented for four hours to help grin dup those spots to make it easier to dig the holes, fertilize, and mulch properly. Wouldn't you know it, I stepped on a fire ant hill (small colony so not immediately obvious in the grass) and habe about 15 bites on one ankle. Not a happy person! Drowning them in diatomaceous earth when we get back with another bag of the stuff.

We are going to look for a source of 50lbs of the stuff, and if we find it, rent a fertilizer spreader, put on boots, and walk the whole yard with the stuff in the hopes of doing a massive, ant kill. The spots I treated yesterday have zero living ants now. But I keep finding more and more colonies. So we just need to treat the whole yard.

And then I didn't get this posted so now we are at the end of the day, and all of the plants are in the ground. We did, however, run out of mulch. So I need to run down to the bottom of the mountain to the independent farm and feed store that we love and buy some. I am also hoping they stock the diatom earth. I really don't feel like driving into Huntsville again. Fingers crossed.

Hate that y’all are battling the fire ants! That is one pest we haven’t had trouble with here. 

Yellowjacket have been our issue this year. My husband mowed over a nest a couple of months ago and was stung multiple times. Before that I disturbed a different nest and fortunately only got one sting. Dh had farther to run lol. 

Looks like you’re getting a freeze Wednesday morning. I hope it stays above freezing here. I’ve got several good sized green tomatoes that I’d like to ripen on the vine. 
 

 

Edited October 17, 2022 by popmom

[popmom]

I am SO grateful that I’m feeling well enough right now to do all that I’ve been able to do. I can’t take it for granted. It’s good to have the energy right now to get as much planted as possible. I never know how I’m going to feel week to week. It’s more important than ever that I grow my own food for my health. Dh has never been interested in gardening. Neither are my kids. Dh will help me though if I ask. He’s good about that.

Edited October 17, 2022 by popmom

[Melissa in Australia]

A great way to ripen on the vibe tomatoes at the end of the season is to carefully pull up the plants, then hang them upside down in a dry spot like a shed. They will continue to ripen on the vine. 

[popmom]

1 hour ago, Melissa in Australia said:

A great way to ripen on the vibe tomatoes at the end of the season is to carefully pull up the plants, then hang them upside down in a dry spot like a shed. They will continue to ripen on the vine. 

Thx! This particular plant was literally a late bloomer. I almost pulled it up in August when my other plants had clearly petered out. It still looked really healthy and had blooms, so I left it. Then it started setting fruit, and has produced more tomatoes than any of my other plants this year. So weird.

[TechWife]

We have a frost warning later this week. I was able to walk around the yard yesterday evening. I found this sideways bird nest in the hydrangea.

 

My white carpet roses started turning pink earlier in the summer. With each prune, there is more pink.This is the fourth bloom, IIRC. These are on the bush(es) now. I think they are all beautiful & wonder what they will look like when they come back in the spring.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2022 by TechWife

[Faith-manor]

8 hours ago, TechWife said:

We have a frost warning later this week. I was able to walk around the yard yesterday evening. I found this sideways bird nest in the hydrangea.

 

My white carpet roses started turning pink earlier in the summer. With each prune, there is more pink.This is the fourth bloom, IIRC. These are on the bush(es) now. I think they are all beautiful & wonder what they will look like when they come back in the spring.

 

 

 

 

Your roses are gorgeous!!! 😍

So no sooner than we got all of the fruit trees and plants in the ground, the big freeze came across Northern Bama and we have had to cover everything from sundown to about 10 am. I would like to uncover them sooner in the morning, but since we are about 10 degrees cooler on the mountain compared to the valley most of the time, it is taking a while to get warm enough to be certain it is okay to remove the sheets we have been using to protect them. Sometimes I wonder if bad weather just attaches itself to me and follows me wherever I go!!

[popmom]

1 hour ago, Faith-manor said:

 Sometimes I wonder if bad weather just attaches itself to me and follows me wherever I go!!

Ha!! I’m in B’ham and this is really early for a freeze. Now I know why! 
 

One more night and we’ll warm up again. 
 

We must not have gone below 32 because my beans are fine. I covered my seedlings and peppers. 

[popmom]

@TechWifethose are beautiful! I’m going to look up that variety. I have a few David Austin roses that I did a hard prune on last week. They were just putting out some really healthy looking new growth when this freeze hit. As I said above, I don’t think we actually had more than a frost. They looked good this morning. I really have never looked into how a freeze affects them. Probably not the bast time of year to prune. 

Edited October 19, 2022 by popmom