What did you do in the garden today?

[Compost King]

This is a great idea and I will steal it!

Already Germinating after 2 full days.

Thinking of building a cage over it

Some Random Pictures I took this afternoon.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Hey there @Compost King if I cut a jalapeno can the seeds sprout in paper towel never tried it

 

[Fishychix]

@Acre4Me, I'm envious of how well your peas are still doing! The late pickle cucumbers are still hanging in there and they do have teeny cucumbers but I'm not thinking I'll get anything from them. I am so tired of the cabbage loopers! I finally gave in and sprayed all my brassicas with safer's soap and it did help, got rid of the freaking aphids too. I'd be really curious for a live and processed weight for a couple of your meaties. I intend to raise a couple groups of 6 or so next spring. Yours look healthy enough for their expected life span.
I love runner ducks! They're so cute! And they're supposed to be great layers, the blurb I read said 300 to 350 eggs a year but that has to be an exaggeration doesn't it?
See if you can get your hands on some scrap wood for raised beds. We built 15 beds last fall using free scrap lumber. I only had to buy the 4x4's and 2x4's and we could have just used the 2x4s doubled up for the corners. We also got a huge load of horse manure mixed with pine shavings for free as well. @Compost King is right, try and get your compost pile started now, if you have the room, pallets (free!) make a good frame. Make 2 or 3 sections if you have the room, then you can have more than one pile and not have to keep adding to a finished or nearly finished pile.
This is a great idea and I will steal it!
And one of my favorites!
Those metal beds are crazy cool! Are they full of soil or did you fill the bottoms with something else?
That always makes me think of animated movie Fantasia.
It was 35 degrees this morning at 8am but since I didn't see any frost on my first walkabout I don't think it got to freezing last night.

The guys raised the greenhouse and reset it on a bed of gravel the has heavy duty landscape fabric under it so the greenhouse is ready to be tidied (read: spiderwebs removed) and more winter crops started. Plus the root that @Birdielee -thanks!- sent me arrived and it'll be going into a pot today and put in the greenhouse. I can also put the peppers I'm going to try and winter-over. I need to get them into bigger pots first though. Still have to water once in a while since we've had a week of no rain. Got a few more garlic cloves to get in the ground and the last of the compost to put on the raised beds. But it's a beautiful day again today, got in the low 30's last night so that's a good reminder to put a new battery in the greenhouse thermometer.

Do you think I could dig a big hole and put a 15 gallon or so pot in the ground filled with good soil and grow a hubbard or some other winter squash? Winter squash need more room than I can give them and about the only space I have left is the bluff and it's all sand and rock. We've eaten all the delicatas already and even if I'd grown more of them they don't really keep well. I'm rambling.

Dotty the grey sfh is trying to go broody. I plucked her off the nest box last night after dark and put her on a roost. She's pancaking and growling and behaving like a lunatic. The rest of the pullets seem to be slowing their egg production, except for the amberlinks and the bo, those girls are egg machines. Plus the sussex haven't laid yet even though their butts are about as broad as the girls that are laying. If we lose any of the girls I'll be getting more bos or amberlinks, beauty is fine but eggs are nice too. I am pondering putting a light in the coop on a timer, we were just getting used to getting a dozen eggs every couple of days. We'll see.

Oh and I got notice from Eden Bros, they'll be shipping my peony roots soon! Yippy!

pallets are absoluetly free!
And in a normal year I could easily get my hands on about 40 of them, but only 4 this yesr (so far ). Plus side is the cost for those supplies on said pallets is also lowered. And Im very bored at work

 

[Compost King]

Hey there @Compost King if I cut a jalapeno can the seeds sprout in paper towel never tried it

I can't say it won't work but Peppers are a bit tricky to germinate. They take longer than most garden plants and if the conditions are not right mold can kill the seed before germination takes place. You can always give it a try and see if it works. I built a Bubble Cloner for propagating peppers because they can be a tricky plant to propagate by seed or cutting. I usually buy started pepper plants to avoid the issues however this winter/spring I am going to propagate my own peppers for the sake of mastering a craft.
------------
Back to a project I started back in September. The Bubble Cloner.

Mounted my Air Pump, an Aquarium air pump works just fine however I went and bought something with industrial strength.

Ran the tubing into my water basin.

Started inserting tomato plants. This is overkill for tomatoes but I had a mother plant that was getting too tall. I also have not studied how to do peppers by cutting enough to where I am comfortable doing it. I just wanted to get this started and get the bugs worked out so I will go with tomatoes for now.

Started with a clipping off of a tomato plant.

cut down the green leafy material

After dipping the stem end into water I rolled it in rooting hormone. over kill for tomatoes but I like the anti fungal properties in this rooting hormone powder.

insert into sponge material I get from Park Seed

put them in a bubble cloner.

Beneath that lid with the holes drilled into it is a tub full of water with a giant heavy ayirstone where my powerful air pump creates bubbles coming up. this leads to splashing and a bit of a mist covering the sponge materials. Roots will eventually form and drop into the oxygenated water.

the lid to the bubble cloner is a clear bin. I placed 2 sunflowers over it on the south side to provide shade since it was over 100 degrees inside of there at midday.

I am going to do pepper cuttings and possibly start pepper by seed in this by planting the pepper seeds in the sponge material.

 

[NewBoots]

Wow, just wow, @Compost King, that is an impressive and intimidating set up you have there.

Got a little done in the garden, not all I planned on but oh well. Bad news is my big bag of seeds seems to have gone missing. It isn't anywhere in the greenhouse or the attached shed. My memory isn't what it once was but I can't imagine putting it anyplace else. I can replace the seeds if I can remember them all but it's going to cost me. Really annoying. I'll keep looking in all the places I'm sure it isn't in since the likelihood of them having been stolen are zero to nil. I did keep a planting log so I will be able to replace them if need be.

The good news is the shrimp tacos I made for dinner were delicious!

 

[igorsMistress]

Good evening gardeners. I took the cages from around a couple of shrubs today, watered a few things and wet down the compost pile. I’ve started cleaning out the coop. Nest boxes are ready to move into the shed and the waterers and feeders are gone. I need to remove the litter and scrub the inside of both coops tomorrow, then sanitize on Sunday. I’ll whitewash next weekend and work on turning the mini coop into a pool house. I’m going to put in a few pavers and fill in between them with pea gravel. We are supposed to get temps in the 80s this weekend with early morning temps low enough to require a sweatshirt. Finally!! Time for a cinnamon roll and something to watch on tv if I don’t fall asleep first.

 

[WthrLady]

few things to do tomorrow
A trip to the hardware is in store.
Finalization of winterizing the hen house. Several inches of snow coming.
We are finally at 32 degrees. It will kill the biting flies, which makes me quite happy.
I am not ready for the cold. It does not make me happy.

 

[BReeder!]

Those metal beds are crazy cool! Are they full of soil or did you fill the bottoms with something else?

There's some branches, stems, vines, etc in them along with clumps of clay soil. It is mostly just soil from the ground right in or yard. We had to do quite a bit of landscape redesign at this place that resulted in a pile of soil that needed to be repurposed. The top 6 inches at least is amended soil that I enriched with compost. The beds perform well. The biggest hurdle here is keeping everything weeded. The beds make that task easier. We are also incorporating mulch in the garden more and more.

 

[littledog]

I've never had parsely last more than one season in a pot, however apparently it will go for two seasons planted in the ground. I'm curious to see if any of the seed that developed on it will revive it next Spring.

I have an Italian parsley that seems to live in my garden year after year, but all I do is mulch it, over winter, I don't cut it back until spring. So it could be just reseeding itself, like you say.

Sueby and Wee Farmer Sarah, I love your Fall pictures so much! It makes me miss living in Massachusetts - I moved here to Washington 30 years ago and it's amazingly beautiful here, but the fall colors in New England are like no place else.

 

[Battles house]

Good morning all. Seems y'all have been quite busy. Those fall pics have been so beautiful. It sure does not get that pretty here. Between taking care of work, family, chickens, and garden i have been a busy beaver lately. Went to a chicken swap last weekend and got my daughter 2 pullets to replace her chick we lost a while back. Trying to work in the coop is hard lately cuz my daughter keeps trying to hand me birds. Ended up with 2 on the shoulder yesterday. Got seeds in the garden, just hoping to see something pop out the ground soon. I've never planted from seeds. I usually buy started plants. I figured thats not really self sufficient. Hopefully this garden is full of green pretty soon. I learned tilling by hand is super hard work but can't buy one of those right now. Hey maybe I'll get less fat in my middle age. I doubt that I really love cookies.