To: Homestead List <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] Garden Bounty Beautiful
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:01:04 -0400
Tonight we should have our first frost and freeze, and tomorrow we
should have a hard freeze. I usually subtract 5 degrees from the
predicted Calhoun temps for planning. We haven't gone below 45 yet, and
suddenly we are looking at 31 or 32 for tonight and 26 or 27 tomorrow.
We skipped the low 40's and thirties altogether!
I just came in from picking the last of the beans and tomatoes. I kept
about 4 tomato plants alive and kicking until frost, bringing in the
first, and last, green tomatoes just now. I got enough Kentucky Wonder
pole beans for a meal. Those beans have been producing since the first
week of June! A Wonder indeed!
I wish I had a few more weeks for okra as the plants still have flowers
and plenty of life even at 7 feet tall. I'll use up the last peppers
with tacos and beans tonight, and I might make some fresh salsa with the
last tomatoes. It's all good. I finally grew enough beans to freeze
and it should last until next summer...I hope. I'm going to leave the
remaining butternuts out there for tonight, and bring them in tomorrow.
I've never left anything out after frost, so this is a bit scary for
me. I usually use squashes and never have any left to leave out, but
this year, I have over 30 pounds of squash in storage already, so the
remaining 10 pounds or so is an experiment that should be successful
since most folks do leave the squashes until after the first frost.
I still have a 32 ft row of peas, half English and half snow peas, but
neither is doing well. I've harvested some English peas, but the snow
peas are slow. I have some kale to try, and a few plants of collards,
cabbage, broccoli, and yes, Brussels sprouts, but nothing is even close
to being ready. I may lose most of it after this weekend.
The springs are still running in the garden making it a mucky mess, and
a new one made a small sinkhole(about fist sized) less than a foot away
from my Mars Seedless grapevine that is 2 years old. Either those
grapes will be extra juicy or the vine will be diseased and die. Time
will tell. Anyway, I've been moving the carpet strips around just to be
able to walk enough to harvest the beans and such. The amount of water
we have this year is amazing.
I also stripped the leaves of my Malabar spinach vine, pulled two
radishes, and stripped the leaves of a lemon verbena. All the porch and
deck plants are in the greenhouse and ready for winter.
Next weekend I have some trees to plant, and hopefully it will be a bit
drier and warmer then. A friend gave me some oats to use as a cover
crop for the garden. Is it too late to plant them?
Bev
--
Sleep well tonight, for somewhere in the ocean's depths, MY son is
protecting your freedom on the USS Key West, currently deployed
somewhere in the Pacific and/or Indian Ocean. Go Navy!
EarthNSky Farm, NW Georgia, USA