What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Jane23]

pick what you can bring in before they get damaged by the cold and they will gradually ripen, but keep an eye on them for any that might try to spoil early. we've done this several times. we didn't even put them in bags or anything just set them out on a table where they'd have enough air around them. that is, don't pile them together just set them out.

I definitely am. Though I will have it mostly taken care of this week, I think. I spent today harvesting flower seeds to plant next year. It was very peaceful, though it does remind me that I have yet to finish husking all the broccoli seeds I got from the spring.

 

[Phaedra]

I harvested more Dahlia tubers - even those tiny single tubers grew several new ones.

More will be harvested in the coming days.

 

[flowerbug]

nadading...

 

[Zeedman]

I had a visitor outside the garden a few days ago. It didn't seem to mind my presence, walking up to within 15' of me even while I was working. It was chasing a locust, but didn't seem to know what to do with it... pecking it 20-30 times, picking it up & dropping it often, before it finally ate it. The first pheasant I've seen in years, and only 2 weeks after I saw the first wild turkey in my back yard. I love the fact that my suburban area is only semi-domesticated, and I never know what wild life will drop in. (As long as the garden fence encourages them to be good neighbors.)

 

[Zeedman]

Been busy, so this will be a "catch up" post.

We've had 2 light frosts already. I covered almost everything for the first frost, and picked everything except the pumpkins, chard, and some of the pole beans just before the second.

The runner beans & Bird Egg #3 (big pink pods) are mostly from vines that had crossed over to the fence & needed to be cleared, so I could tarp over the "bean tunnel" before the 2nd frost. DD & one of my nieces came over to help put up the tarps (in the wind). The old 30' pool cover was mostly long enough; extra tarps covered the gaps left by the rounded ends, and folding tables stood on end blocked both ends of the tunnel. A space heater & low-speed fan inside circulated warm air... it was dark & relatively comfortable inside. This successfully protected the limas, runner beans, and BE#3 pole beans inside, which gave me the week I needed to get a good amount of seed from BE3# - and A LOT of extra Madagascar limas & Gigandes runner beans.

Bird Egg #3 in shelly stage.

It looks like a hard freeze either today or tomorrow, with nothing but low 30's in the forecast... so while we made it a week beyond our average freeze, it isn't worth covering the beans again. This will finally be the end. I'll still cover the Little Greenseed pumpkins to keep them ripening as long as I can, but the big end-of-season shelly bean harvest will have to be today.

 

[ducks4you]

@Zeedman , you are so organized! My tomatoes look like a mishmash! Your tarps look like mine!
I found (unfortunately) 2 tiny sweet potatoes, but I have only dug up 1/8 of the bed, and unlikely to dig any more up until Saturday. Home today, at the office in town tomorrow.
I cannot beLIEVE how many beans are left on the vines. I've been pulling, making piles of vines to give to the horses, and I have picked off a gallon of Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans, off of ONE 12 ft fenceline. I only have 3 rows that were still growing and one row will be tarped when I am done. Fortunately I put a slim fence support through a grommet, so I didn't lose the tarp to the wind the other day.
I found small and tiny cucumbers, so I grabbed those, too. Dunno what I will do with them, but I will figure it out. There is plenty of storage for Them in the top drawer of the fridge.
The beans I got this morning are bagged up and in the fridge.
After pressure canning 15 quarts of beans, I figured that I was done, and that we would have any extra harvest with some dinners, But, DD's will be gone this weekend and DH will want to eat at a restaurant Friday & Saturday, so, first chance (bc we are all seeing "Amsterdam" on Tuesday, the cheap night) Probably it will be a good week before we eat them, so, if I can tomatoes on Saturday, I may just Pressure can Both tomatoes and beans. Beans take 20 minutes, tomatoes take 35 minutes, and it won't hurt the beans to cook a little bit longer.
OmGosh, I have a small TURNIP harvest, too! I think I will leave the turnip bucket in the garage and deal with it this weekend. The leaves are nearly 24 inches long! I dumped them (so far) over the fence for ponies to munch.
I found at Least one square ice cream plastic containers worth of tomatoes from 4 volunteers that I thought were not that far along. Many are blushing--how could I leave them?!? Several volunteer tomatoes look like Oxhearts.
I Think I planted those several years ago. I will have to take pictures and you'all can give me your opinions.
I am not quite done harvesting tomatoes from the fencing. I spied 4 red ones but I ran out of room in my containers.
I haven't even gone Back to tomatoes on south of the cistern, the ones I couldn't kill and planted to sprawl.
I am in finishing a very late lunch. When I go out again, I will need to grab some water buckets to finish.

 

[digitS']

@Zeedman ,

Pheasants eat lettuce ... An entire family showed up in one garden I had - father, mother & baby chicks. I didn't bother them and they came back repeatedly. I had no lettuce to harvest in that garden through the season. Didn't see them the next year.

A hen turkey showed up there a few years later. I Went After Her! All I need is a flock of 12# birds going through everything planted and then, probably, trying to run me off. It wasn't a scene as with me throwing rocks at the rabbits or marmots. I just went where she was and we kept going for maybe a minute ... That was the garden with a forested hillside beside it. She left and I never saw another nor any evidence of them being there.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

I had a visitor outside the garden a few days ago. It didn't seem to mind my presence, walking up to within 15' of me even while I was working. It was chasing a locust, but didn't seem to know what to do with it... pecking it 20-30 times, picking it up & dropping it often, before it finally ate it. The first pheasant I've seen in years, and only 2 weeks after I saw the first wild turkey in my back yard. I love the fact that my suburban area is only semi-domesticated, and I never know what wild life will drop in. (As long as the garden fence encourages them to be good neighbors.)
View attachment 52632

they're so beautiful and characters. i can sometimes hear them around our place but this late summer and early fall i've not heard them much until a few days ago when i was out staining. i don't get pictures as nice as yours (don't have a large zoom lens yet for the camera), but i have some of visitors wandering around the yard. my fences do cut down on them visiting. wild turkeys come through rarely.

i can see both pretty often through the winters out picking through the farm fields.

 

[flowerbug]

...That was the garden with a forested hillside beside it. She left and I never saw another nor any evidence of them being there.

it is rare for them to wander through our yard (and more rare now with some fences up) but i am with you in not wanting them around to raid the gardens - i have enough other critters around to deal with as it is! they will visit the fields around us but are usually off about 30 - 50 yards at the least.

compared to some friends more towards the city who had a turkey nest right by their back porch, hatched 18 eggs.

 

[digitS']

Harvest … no sprinklers. That might have been a mistake but it was breezy and so many crops are finished, finished … finished.

Most of the pumpkins went to DD. Winter Squash came home. Squash is smaller this year. Pumpkins larger but they are a new-to me variety. Nicely Orange I will have to check its name.

Only some tomatoes still unloading. Zero cukes … a couple of zukes.

Steve