What did you do in the garden today?

[BirdsBeesTrees]

I've harvested 12 Acorn Squash so far. We are loving them, and I also froze one meal worth.
How can I tell when the Cushaw Squash are ready?

 

[WIchickMama]

Nothing, cold and wet here today. Gonna spend the day with the kids on the couch watching Hocus Pocus

 

[Swiss]

I always remove the juice.

I remove as much as possible with the seeds otherwise you simmer forever with slicing tomatoes

Good to know! Hopefully, I remember this the next time I make tomato sauce!

 

[PopoMyers]

I wondered about the possibility of storing it in a freezer over winter, but that might be too much.

When we lived on Okinawa, I would store all my seeds in the freezer. They did fine without the soil, but not sure with soil. I seem to get volunteers in my garden each year. One year I let a few grow, and they were the larger grape tomatoes, probably from compost or manure.

 

[PopoMyers]

Yesterday picked more blushing tomatoes, decided to leave the last green beans and pickling cuke for seeds. Cukes are pretty much done, last dill pickles made a couple days ago (fermenting). Got some boxes to store/ ripen Tom's. Grew Amish Paste Tom's this year. Very happy with them. Finally able to install new soaker hoses in my raspberry rows, after pruning. Hopefully these last longer than one year.

 

[Acre4Me]

A little watering done for the fall crops and sweet potatoes.

A little cleanup in the pumpkin area. Harvested three pumpkins. Also harvested 9 smallish butternut. Plus 3 others that look like they are suffering some kind of fungus on their shell, so I don’t know if they will be able to be used.

Need to harvest and can some beets today. I am also thinking of making “Creole sauce” from the Ball canning book. I missed my window of opportunity with many of my canning tomatoes, plus the lack of rain/relying on watering, has left many of my canning tomatoes cracked and rotting, not to mention small and light feeling.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Anyone have any thoughts for how to over-winter these seeds (per their method) in a warm climate like ours? We don't get those cold winter temps. Our coldest month (DEC) averages high of 67 and low of 46. Could that be cool enough for this process?

Any seeds that really need cold stratification, I will overwinter in the fridge. The rest I simply keep in a cool dark place in the house. I have a closet at the back of the house that is pretty warm in summer and cool in winter. I keep most of my seeds there in storage.

 

[ChicksnMore]

Anyone have any thoughts for how to over-winter these seeds (per their method) in a warm climate like ours? We don't get those cold winter temps. Our coldest month (DEC) averages high of 67 and low of 46. Could that be cool enough for this process?

I also use the fridge and freezer for seed storage. For that Amish method, I'd skip the dirt at first and freeze...then toss on dirt to thaw when your ready to use. The only seeds I know of that can't go in the fridge or freezer are moringa seeds...cold kills them. I'm sure there's other seeds like that though.

 

[TJAnonymous]

It's finally not a million degrees outside although it is supposed to warm up again next week so I'm waiting to transplant the tree saplings.

Have some black beauty zucchini seeds to harvest and process for next spring. Will do that today.

Also have a bunch of pepperoncinos and tobasco peppers that I gotta figure out what to do with...

Lastly, I swear my chickens are like a soap opera. I had 4 broody hens sitting on eggs. Three are experienced, one is a first time sitter. The new mom hatched out a Marans cross but still had 2 more eggs under her. After 2 days, she still wouldn't leave her nest and I was concerned her baby would die if she didn't take it out for food or water. So I moved her, the baby, and the eggs to a ground level nesting box. Brought her some food and water. A few hours later, I realized she abandoned the remaining eggs and had taken her baby outside to scratch around in the dirt. A few hours later, she abandoned the baby to return to her ORIGINAL, empty nesting box to sit again. I took her baby and slipped it under one of the experienced hens who had just hatched a baby. Then last night I decided to move the experienced hen and 2 chicks into a brooder where they'd be safer since the nesting boxes they are using are small. The hens frequently fight over them and chicks are easily trampled and squished in the fighting. So at dusk, I moved experienced mom and now THREE chicks (she hatched another) into the brooder. This morning I was feeding everyone and realized new mom has figured out that experienced mom has HER chick. She keeps pacing the brooder and clucking to her baby that she cared about for a few hours... Until I started tossing feed and suddenly she could care less about the baby again.

 

[Acre4Me]

Working on fence replacement today. Trench is to be able to set in the posts that will attach to roof structure and hold the new 1x2 welded wire. Also, we will extend the wire down, below ground to help resist diggers. The Nigerian dwarf goats will get this corner, with a house.

The plan is to replace all the chain link fence with the welded wire. We have one shirt side done, but it took forever to find more 1x2 welded wire, for which we paid a lot once we found some.