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Fall Garden and Now a Spring Garden

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  • Fall Garden and Now a Spring Garden

    My fall garden is loving this cooler weather - as long as it doesn't get too cool! Broccoli is getting big, cabbages are starting to head, cauliflower mostly survived the transplant but are still smaller than they should be. The winds from the nor'easter broke one of my tomato plants and knocked off a large green tomato even though the plants are all staked. I set the tomato on the kitchen windowsill to (hopefully) ripen. Peppers are flowering again! Sweet potatoes are still hanging in there. Radishes are about ready to pull and replant.

  • #2
    First Freeze of the Winter and Frost Blankets

    We had our first freeze last night. I covered the garden with a super-sized frost blanket - all but the outer edge of the sweet potato container. Those leaves are the only things that got "frost-bitten", and everything else is just fine, including the tomatoes. The covered sweet potato leaves are still a bright healthy green.

    So, I'm wondering...do I keep using the super-sized frost blanket, or buy some smaller ones to cover each container (or cut up both of the super-sized blankets I have to make more appropriate sizes)?

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    • #3
      Not really up on frost blankets, but if you covered all but a few leaves, I would say just buy one smaller one to cover what did not get covered. I would think having a bunch of small ones would require more time to get into place then one large one....
      Protecting the sheep from the wolves that want them, their family, their money and full control of our Country!

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Patriotic Sheepdog View Post
        Not really up on frost blankets, but if you covered all but a few leaves, I would say just buy one smaller one to cover what did not get covered. I would think having a bunch of small ones would require more time to get into place then one large one....
        Scrounging around in the garden shed, I found another monster frost blanket. That will give me plenty of cover - which I'll need to apply tomorrow night because Sunday AM temps look to be in the low 30's!! Brrrrrrr.....

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        • #5
          On Friday I'll need to cover the garden again - 3 freezing nights in the forecast! Then it looks like we start a gradual warmup.

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          • #6
            Sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and one pepper plant are toast; Everything else looks great.

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            • #7
              I managed to dig out a grocery bag full of sweet potatoes, scarred though they might be. Some big, some small, but I cleaned and trimmed them, and hung them in the utililty closet in a perforated bag. Tomorrow I'll decide how to prep and freeze them for later use. There are probably more down at the bottom of the container but it's too cold today to be out there digging in the dirt!

              I pulled out the tomato plants - interesting find: The plant roots on one end of the container were perfectly normal. On the other end, the roots showed signs of severe root knot nematode infestation, with huge bugling "tumors" so close together they looked like a giant string of pearls. This container will be dedicated to something nematode-resistant next planting, but I may order some mixed beneficial nematodes to counter the parastitic ones before I replant.

              So, I'm down to cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage and onions, and 3 containers that need more above-ground soil and some new plants. There's still time to plant more cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli. I just transplanted a dozen onions.

              Another week or so and it should be time to plant again.

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              • #8
                Spring has sprung, and so have a zillion weeds in between the containers in my garden....

                Most of the cauliflower is processed and in the freezer, along with all the rest of the broccoli. I still have 5 cauliflower plants growing plus some onions in various stages of maturity. It's spring planting time, and I have about 35 or so seedlings started. I'm putting in 2 more containers, so I shoveled the soil (and the rest of the sweet potatoes) out of the only container in the front row into the cauliflower container so I could move the container further toward the end of the garden, laid down landscape fabric the length of the row, (then the lightning started) and now I'm ready to assemble and put out the 2 larger containers. Then it's off to Lowes for 15-20 bags of raised bed soil. I'll finish cleaning up between the existing containers if I get a break in the rain that's forecast to last until Sunday. My husband said yesterday that I'd better get busy planting - I guess he's forgotten that less than 3 weeks ago we were still getting hard freezes.

                What am I growing this year? Only non-GMO so I can save the seeds! With so many types of vegetables, I need to make a good companion-planting plan. Any suggestions for planting layout? Can I plant root vegetables with the squash that will take up most of a container? Tomatoes (Rutgers and Roma), Romaine lettuce, radishes (already sprouted) and 2 kinds of turnips (both already sprouted), parsnips, beets, acorn squash, spaghetti squash, green peas, sugar snaps, corn (I'll plant that along the fence in the old tropical bed, since all of that really froze to death this year), lima beans, carrots, eggplant...I forget what else. I need to start some peppers and potatoes and herbs, but I hate to get too far ahead of myself. I should be growing cukes, since I eat a jar of pickles every week! That would require a trellis and I don't have one. I'm trying to consider nutritious, easily processed food this year. In between bouts of gardening, I've been reorganizing both freezers to prepare for incoming, and dehydrating a few bags of cranberries I had in the small freezer (28 hours later they're still not quite dried) left over from the holidays. This is the year of waste not, want not.

                I'll be loading up on more rice, butter, sweetener, coconut oil, almond flour, bacon, etc. and carefully watching the grocery stores' sales ads. I've got some chicken thighs and breasts I bought already frozen; my husband doesn't like the "unnatural" texture, so I'll be canning chicken to make soup and casseroles. Once I pull down that behemoth pressure canner from the top shelf in the utility room, it's going to stay down until every single thing that needs to be pressure canned is done - that thing weighs a ton! Getting those 3 bulky bags of chicken out of the freezer will give me room for more important things like steak and pork chops. I need to load up on some canned tomato "stuff" to pressure can some red sauce too. Little does my husband know that we'll be eating those frozen meals I bought a few months ago when they were on sale, so I can have that freezer room too.

                So now that you know the story of my life, what have I forgotten?


                About half a bag of dried cranberries
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                Mama and baby cauliflower
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                Last edited by surviort_wwdnet; 03-13-2022, 09:22 PM.

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