What Did You Do In The Garden?

Zeedman

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Frost tonight, possibly could turn into a freeze. So harvested the last tomatoes that were turning color, all of the remaining "Tarahumara Tekomari" pods (to shell & cook as shellies). Pulled the "Thai Giant" and "Aji Cristal" pepper plants & moved them to the patio to ripen further.

And harvested a whole armful of eating-size luffa! Wow, those vines are surprisingly chill resistant! They've kept producing long after the cucumbers & bitter melon have quit; I really need to find more uses for those. I've peeled & de-seeded 3 of the dry ripe luffas so far, lots of good seeds, and some big scrub sponges (softer than the ones I grew last year). BTW, the sponge I stained with red bean water is still stained, and I'm still using it... they are remarkably durable.

The last productive plants remaining in the gardens are "Early Jalapeno" and "Red Chile" hot peppers, lemon grass, and Swiss chard, all covered. I just cleared "Pelso" peppers out of the dehydrator, so will try to get the lemon grass in there tomorrow afternoon.

Scooped out all of the "Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri" cucumbers, those seeds are now fermenting in the garage. All dry legumes are shelled & drying except for the soybeans; I'm trying to shell out one tub of soybeans per day.
 

flowerbug

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surprise productive day getting a few gardens cleaned up for winter. i expected it to be too wet out there and it still is in some spots, but i was still able to get something done. so pretty much a bonus day. :)
 

flowerbug

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did get another day in which means most of the long garden along the pathway is now put up for winter. i still need to dig deep along the grassy edge to get some quackgrass out of there but i may not do any of that until next spring based upon how it's been going this fall.

the forecast for tomorrow is beautiful but i won't be able to get much done outside and then after that the weather is going back to a lot of predictions of rains again so i may have the beans shelled out sooner rather than later.
 

digitS'

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Dug the dahlia roots ... after realizing that they had experienced another light frost this morning.

The forecast just has too many hours of severe freezing. If the marigolds & zinnias look like they have been blasted it's not like the dahlias would look much better standing out there in the yard. Besides, there are far, far fewer of them than in years past and it didn't take much time to dig, rinse, trim them up a little, allow them to dry some, and be carried into the garage ... from which they may need to be carried down to the basement before they are even tucked away in peat moss. I'm not interested in setting up a heater in the garage.

This was accomplished before the outdoor temperature reached 50°f (10°C) but also before the wind gusts kicked up above 20 mph. So, it wasn't such an unpleasant task.

Steve
 

ducks4you

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Lazy...I wandered by a rose of sharon and saw the seeds were dropping so I grabbed a double handful to see if I can start them for spring. Thats all.
Good luck! Probably if you just drop them somewhere you will have the best success.
They are almost IMPOSSIBLE to transplant.
Been there...done that.
 

flowerbug

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Good luck! Probably if you just drop them somewhere you will have the best success.
They are almost IMPOSSIBLE to transplant.
Been there...done that.

perhaps they need a deep seed start tray to get them going? often the sign of difficult transplanting is that the tap root goes down down down...
 

SPedigrees

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Yesterday I trimmed the overgrown weeds and grasses around the orange garden, and today I did the same to the area around the raised vegetable bed. Put up my string trimmer and set its batteries on the charger for the last time this year. I didn't have time (before dark which comes early these days) to pull the old tomato plants or bring in the last of the garden decorations, but that should be easy enough before the week is over.

I also organized all my saved & dried seeds, and my purchased seeds, so that planting in Spring of next year will be uncomplicated and easy.

Now I need to gather energy to wash my little chihuahua who has become a stinky dog, either because 2 months have elapsed since her last bath, or because she rolled in something disgusting. Either way the bath awaits and the fun never ends!
 
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digitS'

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Hauled the frost-killed annual flowers out of the front yard.

There's now a big pile protecting some perennials from Winter frosts in the backyard. DW claims that it isn't all quite so "ugly" now. I'm not quite so sure especially since I'm in the backyard much more of the time than the front ;).

Anyway, it was my 30 minutes of exercise for the day.

Steve
 
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