What did you do in the garden today?

[Birdsong 82]

Freeze will harm them. ( learned that one year) Mine are usually ready by now but started late this year. I’m gonna bring them in and hopefully the bigger ones can continue to dry inside. Guess I’ll find out

Someone on here had said to be sure I brought them in before the frost got to the because it would ruin them. So that’s what I was basing my decision on.
I’ve never grown them before. I plan to use them as sponges.
So, it will be okay for them to freeze or at least get frosted on the vine?

 

[TJAnonymous]

Freeze will harm them. ( learned that one year) Mine are usually ready by now but started late this year. I’m gonna bring them in and hopefully the bigger ones can continue to dry inside. Guess I’ll find out

Can you elaborate on how yours were harmed by the frost? I've always let my loofah fruits turn brown on the vine. This makes the shell brittle and paper thin. Super easy to remove... Frost can and will kill the vine/plant but I've never had it actually ruin curing fruit... I'm curious for more details on what you experienced...

 

[Sueby]

Hey all. Raining here. In laws are here & we're headed to VT for a wedding. It's time to pull the garden - hopefully this weekend. Most of the spaghetti squash are ready, the rest will ripen inside. The tomatoes are done, except the sungolds, those go till frost. Which shouldn't be far away. I'll wait till a frost warning to pull the peppers.

Peach tree is doing super well. The soil test came back good, doesn't need much but I'll put a little blood meal down.

Leaves are turning colors now, will be cleaning them up in a couple weeks!

 

[Acre4Me]

Its official: The sweet potatoes are done! Guess it got a bit colder than expected last night. The greenery is looking pretty bad!

We were planning to dig them up over the next few days, so perfect timing, I guess!

The cured ones are very sweet, so far. Yum!

 

[WthrLady]

Irrigation hoses have all been drained and disconnected.
I raked the garden this morning and moved all the orphaned mum plants from the roofless hoophouse to the front porch. I may as well let them bloom and show their glory out there.
I still need to cut the green off the horseradish and cut down the sage. But that is for a day when the dust/pollen/smoke isn't so bad.
I was going to rake the barn this morning, but a fox slept out there, and OH it STINKS. I'll wait. LOL.
Wasn't it just yesterday that we were all putting IN the garden and doing this all in reverse??

 

[karenerwin]

We pulled in a bunch of stuff from the garden yesterday. Pie pumpkins, a volunteer Hubbard, tobacco leaves, strawberries, and a bunch of tomato’s and zucchini. Cut out a lot of dead and dying squash vines, powdery mildew creeping in. Hubbards not ready yet, even if some look like it. Will do potato’s next year but will put them in the ground instead of bags. Probably got 1-2 for every one that was planted.

The chickens are enjoying their outside roost. I’ll be adding another one or two today. Eggs are getting larger as well. Sitting on 4 dozen right now but we’ll be making zucchini bread shortly so that’ll take a big chunk out of our stash.

Work and the house have been demanding so I haven’t gotten out hunting like I would like to, but rifle season is around the corner, and things at home are slowing down.

Here’s the photos.

Care to share your zucchini bread recipe?

 

[Liz Birdlover]

Rainy & windy here, 5 days straight, remnants of hurricane Ian. What's odd is the temperature. Usually 70s this time of year, 50s & 60s at night, but it's been in the 50s the past several days. We should finally see sunshine Thursday. A week without sun...my mood is like a dying Sunflower & I'm humming Beatles Here Comes The Sun!

Right before this rain I got what I think will be the last tomatoes for the year, and wow were they sweet & delicious

Farmer across the street harvested their corn.

Farmer in back of me, the soybean field is turning yellow on top, made for a pretty picture, looks like a blanket of sunshine leftover from the day.

Lots of spider webs, I try not to walk through them, those Orb spinners are hard workers.

Darn stink bugs are trying to get indoors...barn, house, garage, etc.

I also found "my brain" out in the yard. A crazy looking mushroom...well that certainly explains my forgetfulness lately.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Irrigation hoses have all been drained and disconnected.
I raked the garden this morning and moved all the orphaned mum plants from the roofless hoophouse to the front porch. I may as well let them bloom and show their glory out there.
I still need to cut the green off the horseradish and cut down the sage. But that is for a day when the dust/pollen/smoke isn't so bad.
I was going to rake the barn this morning, but a fox slept out there, and OH it STINKS. I'll wait. LOL.
Wasn't it just yesterday that we were all putting IN the garden and doing this all in reverse??

Yes... This season went incredibly fast.

 

[NewBoots]

She is one of the hens I wanted to butcher so I'm not too upset if she doesn't make it but I certainly don't want her to suffer.

Same here, an I'm glad she's feeling better. My problem is the two barred rocks that I intended to have culled by now are among the small group that aren't molting and so still producing well so they're certainly safe for now.

I'm living in a dust bowl. All the grass is dead. Again. Weeds are dead. Trees starting to droop and leaves are dying. Not because of fall but lack of rain...

The Pacific Northwest is known for being lush and green but we've had trees losing their leaves early in August due to lack of rain. A worrying trend.

Lots of spider webs, I try not to walk through them, those Orb spinners are hard workers.

Yeah, the seasons here are Winter, Spring, Summer, and Spider. I've grown up enough to hide doing the spider-web dance as much as I used to.

@karenerwin, I got the rose of sharon seeds you sent, thanks so much! I got 3 more boxes pints and 1 of half-pints from walmart yesterday. Canned up 5 pints of crushed tomatoes and 3 quarts of tomato juice. I was sure I'd smooshed the tomatoes to remove as much of the jelly and seeds before jamming them into the jars but there was still clear juice in the pints when they came out of the canner. The quarts of juice were even more startling looking:

Doesn't matter to me but sure looks funny.




I've already removed the screw-tops and shaken the pints and they are fine now but this is how they looked after processing.

I took the rest of the rhubarb out of the freezer and I'm going to try making some jam using much less sugar than the recipe calls for. I have low sugar pectin so it should be fine. The older I get the less sugar I want in jams and jellies.

Time to clean out the greenhouse to make space for the peppers I'll try to winter over this year. It got too cold last winter and I probably didn't water them enough. I was more afraid of overwatering them than I should have been.

A new friend came by and told us about the master preserver class she'd taken so I'll be going to the next one. She's also keen on getting together for a trip to the valley to stock up on available produce for canning so that's in the future as well. It's a good hour and a half drive so a companion sounds nice and I'd need a gun to get DP to go for one.


Edited to add: I agree, this season went by in a blur. We had such a cold rainy spring and now the tomatoes are already starting to collapse from the cold and damp. I need to get out there and pick the green tomatoes right quick.

 

[WthrLady]

Winter, Spring, Summer, Spider. LOL