Rainfall
- 30th: 0.04"
- Total: 0.04 inches
Temperature
- range of nighttime lows: 34 to 64°F (1 to 18°C)
- range of daytime highs: 57 to 85°F (14 to 30°C)
Weather Notes
- The week following Helene was hot, then the temps gradually dropped to pleasantly mild to chilly
- First frost was early: Oct. 17th. But it was scattered so that we lost the winter squash in the garden, but those growing in the pasture survived. Most of our cherry tomatoes made it, but our neighbor's field of kudzu was frost killed.
Garden Notes
- I put several blankets over my sweet pepper plants when frost was expected and they made it without damage.
- Deer devastated the sweet potatoes in the front yard keyhole garden and the bed of okra growing in the front yard. I was saving some nice pods for seeds, but they got eaten! Then I remembered that I still had some Deer-B-Gone, and that saved everything. The okra is still struggling, but at least I'll get some good pods for seed.
- Doing lots of irrigating of the fall garden from our rainwater collection system.
Planted
- parsnips
- lambs quarter
- garlic
Transplanted
- lettuce
- kale
Harvested
- winter squash
- sweet potatoes
- green tomatoes
- green peppers
- cherry tomatoes
- green beans
- greens: dandelion, kale, turnip, daikon, chicory, chickweed
- yamberries
- walking onions
- asparagus
Preserved
- green beans and yamberries, canned
- persimmons, frozen
To-do
- finish getting everything mulched
- water as needed
- pray for rain
Pictures
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| I harvested the remaining peppers before the frost, then covered the two plants well. They survived and are producing more. |
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| My frost protection obviously worked, because we have more peppers coming on. |
The persimmon tree that Helene knocked over was loaded with persimmons. Persimmons are very astringent, but said to sweeten with frost. Ours are always ripened and dropped before that, so I rarely pay attention to them. Plus, being such a tall tree, there are only smashed ones on the ground anyway. Dan tasted one from the fallen tree and thought it was good. So I collected the soft, translucent skinned ones.
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| Over the course of a week, I managed to collect 2 gallons of ripe persimmons. |
I wondered if freezing them would help, so I made a batch of persimmon puree and popped it into the freezer. I made persimmon pancakes the following Sunday and they were delicious. I've managed to collect two gallons of them, and will make persimmon jam sometime this winter to can.
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| sweet basil managed to avoid the frost |
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| oven roasted okra and green tomatoes |
Roasting the green tomatoes was an experiment that turned out well. Most of my tomato plants were pulled earlier in the month, because by the the time they ripen, they're not so good inside. But green, they're fine. We like fried green tomatoes, but they're a lot of fuss to make. Chopping and roasting them in the oven is just of good, but quicker and easier and with less oil!
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| Green bean harvest decreased early in the month, so I tried canning some with yamberries. Green beans with baby potatoes is tasty, so this should be good too. |
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| Finally filling the African keyhole garden with soil and compost. |
When Dan build our second African keyhole garden, it was already growing volunteer cherry tomatoes and lambs quarter. We harvested these all summer and I waited to fill the bed. That's been one of my garden project this month, layering the soil with rotted wood, compost, and woodchips. I'm guessing we'll get more volunteer tomatoes and lambs quarter next summer, which if fine.
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| sweet potato squash |
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| daikons with irrigation pipe |
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| Kale. This has been tasty in salads. |
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| lettuce and carrots |
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| lettuce transplanted into large pots |
The lettuce and kale are growing so well that I've thinned them out and transplanted some into gallon-size containers. These will be moved into the greenhouse when it gets a bit cooler.
Anybody else still got a garden going on?
Garden Notes: October 2024 © October 2024
23 comments:
I love thrift store-yard sale blankets for frost protection.
Useful for late spring frost protection with scraps of wire fencing to keep the blankets from crushing the plants.
I've got some Hubbard squashes covered as I type so they can finish growing for the root cellar-garage.
Michael, I should get more of them for that very reason.
Lovely looking squash, and greens...and yeah! I have lots growing this year in my hot frame. We've had to lower the lid twice so far this fall, but it has been unseasonably mild. Also have spinach in a main bed, hiding under mesh to stop the deer from nibbling, and hope it overwinters and pops up for some fresh spring greens. Broccoli is still giving side shoots.
I think that’s the first time I’ve ever read “0” on your rain listing. We must live in the same area because before this weekend, we had not gotten rain for a month since Helene went through.
So glad your peppers and basil made it through the chill.
We have kale, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cabbage (Napa), and herbs growing, and almost 200 cloves of garlic were planted last week. No vampires here!
I hope you are blessed with rain soon.
If you ask about ratty old flannel sheets and blankets, they often GIVE them to you. I wash them before using them.
Same with odd bits and bobs or wire fencing. I carry a tarp to keep it from destroying the car.
Something about "Ask and you will receive".
I normally buy something as a sort of thank you.
If your blessed with feast or famine rain like me a rainwater collection system and IBC totes are really nice.
Be careful Clean Food Safe IBC please. You'll never get all the cleaning chemicals and such out of the others.
Mine is uphill from the gardens and fruit trees so only a faucet and hose are needed.
Saves my well from sucking mud.
Rosalea, that's the beauty of a hot frame. Nice that you've been able to hide the spinach from the deer!
Daisy, it's the first time I recall not having rainfall during an entire month, although we still have a few days to go! We have had stretches of up to 6 weeks with no rain, but it usually splits summer months.
I'm glad you mentioned garlic because I forgot I planted some! I also added multiplier onions to my planted list, because I plan to get them into the ground in the next day or so.
Michael, I never thought to simply ask! Good idea. Fencing leftovers too, are so very useful.
Michael, that's exactly how we've been keeping our newly planted fall garden alive, with rainwater collected in totes and tanks. We can store something like 5800 gallons of rainwater, although we got pretty low until Helene topped us off again.
Excellent advice about seeking food safe totes. Our first ones had been used to transport olive oil, so we bought them. Dan cleaned them fairly well with a pressure washer.
I'm surprise you have received a frost already. By some miracle, it has yet to frost up here which is very unusual. Although we haven't had a frost, it has been cool enough to put the kabosh on everything in our garden with the exception of eggplant which continues to produce them albeit on the smallish side. Everything else I removed to compost and then tilled in some more organic matter to compost in situ over winter.
We seem to be well into "The Rainy Season", if the sounds outside my window are any indication. The balcony garden is going well so far, although the lettuce does need to be thinned out.
Do your kale and lettuces survive frost or do you have to cover them over night?
Ed, it was an early frost for us, the second one in three years. But then, we are in the extremes in weather zone.
I'm guessing your garden next year will do well and be very productive. You'e been taking really good care of it.
TB, this might be an excellent time of year for a garden for you. Plenty of rain and not too hot. I hope your balcony garden gives you good harvests.
Katie, the kale and lettuce survive frost, but not too many hard freezes in a row. My hopes for the greenhouse is in keeping those winter greens producing all winter long.
You seem to have a much longer harvest year than us here. It's great you are getting some much more from your gardens. Our weather is all over the map, and I cannot wait for a slowdown for us after this month is over with.
Kristina, I've about decided that spring and fall are our best seasons for gardening. Summer is just to danged hot. And winter is too iffy. Some years it's mild enough to grow cool weather crops all winter, and other years they freeze out. No way of predicting.
From the info is a resounding theme resilient. You seem to have mastered it over the last several years and make something edible out of potential loss. I am learning a lot from you and several other sites and have been trying to use the tips in my garden.
There is a series of three storms coming down from Canada one went by us , the second is likely to give us a good start this coming weekend. This would be nice since we aren't drought status but we traditionally don't get much rain between June and October. The third one is being pushed by some strong winds and may fly right past headed for Montana. It was a crisp 31 degrees this morning and we had a very light frost on the rooftop so perhaps Autumn is finally here.
Goatldi, gosh, that's a lot of stormy weather, and I hope you don't get much damage.
I really like your word "resilient." Thanks to the unpredictability of things like weather, it isn't something we can actually build into our homesteading efforts. I think it's more a state of mind. It's learning how to adapt to circumstances, even when they don't cooperate with our plans. It's understanding that we humans don't control as much as we think we do. :)
At first I thought I hadn't gotten anything planted... Then remembered the pineapple tops/pups I'd split or separated and got planted. 25 or so total. I have been mostly growing them in 5g buckets but decided I need to put some in the ground. We'll see. And... I bought an orange tree. Something I have said I wouldn't do. But. I went to David the Goods "scrubfest" a couple weeks ago and (it was excellent!) I bought a "sugarbelle " orange tree. I have kumquat and calamondon (citrus speaking) and they handle mid 20° temps pretty well but this tree is known to handle south AL temps so like the pineapples, we'll see. I just picked the last of the persimmons and clearing out sweet tater vines to plant something winter hardy. These are volunteers and so far only 3 decent taters and a lot of bug eaten ones indicating they need planted elsewhere for a real harvest... And just about 0.6" rain since Helene and Milton so we're hoping for some soon... but the total for that event was about 15" so deep rooted stuff is doing well.
Annie, wow, you can plant pineapples and orange trees? What a treat. Sounds like you've been suffering from the same lack of rain as us. I agree all that hurricane rainfall was wonderful for deep soil watering. We have a chance of rain next week. I'm hoping that turns out to be true.
No garden for me, but really enjoyed seeing all your efforts!!
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