What did you do in the garden today?

[BReeder!]

Heading for 70 or near it all week. ::checks calendar, yup end of November/early december::

NOT complaining.

I'm jealous. Send that this way please.

 

[WthrLady]

well on the downside, we haven't had real moisture since October 28th. VERY dusty.

 

[Elyrian1]

We haven't had rain for about that long as well. Walking across the yard sends up little puffs of dust.

 

[NewBoots]

I need to plant up another box and fill two more with dirt and mulch, but this flu/cold/covid thing is hanging around and dragging me down still. Who the heck knows what it is, but my butt is staying home and away from people so no big deal.

I hope you're getting whatever rest that you can. When DP or I are sick we drink lots of hot water with a little orange juice and honey. You can even add a little rum, for medicinal purposes of course.

I started freezing bones of all sorts of things, I'm going to just throw it all in a pot & all it 'stock', lol. I've never done a mix before, but I think it sounds delish.

I rarely make stock with just one kind of bones anymore, it tastes great and clears out the freezer quicker. Roasting the bones and veg in the oven increases the flavor and complexity too.

This week is supposed to be mostly dry till the weekend so I should be able to get the rest of the garden cleaned up, I really want to get the greens planted, the leftover spinaches are doing really well. I just have to find a good place to store all the garden stakes, I could nearly build another coop with them. hmmmm...

 

[Sally PB]

I just have to find a good place to store all the garden stakes, I could nearly build another coop with them. hmmmm...

Chicken maaaaaath!!! It's everywhere, it's everywhere!

 

[vall]

Have a gopher in a bad spot right by the mangoes, so hard to dig. Smart one too, this isn't looking good. Processed a bunch of quail over the weekend, making stock with the bones now. I don't add salt to my stock so I can use it to cook beans. I'm slowly pulling up sweet potatoes. Cooked one that I pulled up a month ago, it was plenty sweet already.

OH picked up a dishwasher cover from etsy and LOVE it.
It's stainless steel originally, but OH the drips from loading and unloading and fingerprints drove me NUTS.

That looks so much better. If I'm stuck with stainless after I move I'm getting one of these.

My question is what do you all do with the tiny potatoes ( white or red potatoes) and the long, skinny, tiny, almost root, things that were trying to become sweet potatoes ? Can/ do you save them and plant them next year to be your potato starts? Or do you just toss them?

I have so many tiny sweet potatoes I save a few and toss the rest. Careful where you toss them, they will sprout.. I always have sweet potatoes coming up in last year's bed from a tiny root I didn't find.

 

[Dinogrrl]

Recently I got three heritage variety apple treelings from a local guy who rescues old apples from around the state. Got them planted in my yard, which I discovered is the worst yard ever for planting trees. First hole, I unburied a cable, which I wasn't expecting as the utilities guy had marked the cable as running like two feet away when he came out to mark for my fence... Anyway, the first hole I dug was decent dirt, and then rocks. Big rocks. Lots of them. Pretty sure when my house was built they just covered the yard with all the rocks they could find in the area. Second hole was almost pure clay (thanks, NC)...and more rocks. Third hole was almost nothing but a tangled mess of old tree and bush roots.

But I got them all planted, and mulched in, and chicken wired up so the flock doesn't get to them. Here's to hoping they make it through the winter, and in a few years I'm looking forward to apples, and peaches from my peach tree I planted earlier in the year.

My garden is otherwise done though. Still have tomatoes growing but there's been a couple of good frosts so I just toss the unripe fruit out in the yard. Maybe I'll get feral tomatoes growing next year. I'll need to assess the raised beds in the spring and see what survived. I think I want to concentrate on herbs next year (other than the fruit trees, obviously). Still not having luck with lavender but my lemon verbena went absolutely bonkers, as did the catnip, of course. I know the rosemary is still doing fine too, everything else is buried under the catnip and the tomato vines so I have no idea how they're faring.

Brought my little aloes in for the winter as well. Almost killed them, whoops, but 2 of the 3 were nursed back to health.

Anyway that's a lot of tl;dr. I'm super excited about the apple trees, I've been wanting to get trees from this guy for years but I didn't have room in my yard until this year. Finally had enough of the original cypresses on the property die off.

 

[BReeder!]

Yesterday I dug for potatoes I was pleasantly surprised. I actually got some potatoes! Not a lot but more than I’ve gotten in the past.
My question is what do you all do with the tiny potatoes ( white or red potatoes) and the long, skinny, tiny, almost root, things that were trying to become sweet potatoes ? Can/ do you save them and plant them next year to be your potato starts? Or do you just toss them?
Of course my biggest, nicest potatoes were the ones I seemed to cut through with the shovel while digging for potatoes but at least I got some
Happy Thanksgiving everyone

I fry up tiny potatoes whole in some bacon fat and a bit of butter. They're delicious! My favorite part of the harvest actually.

 

[Sally PB]

The potatoes that are too little to peel are either air fried or tossed into stew. Air fried is our favorite way to have taters. Well, mashed is good too.

 

[WthrLady]

NO gardening, but decided to use the 70 degree day to mow the whole place. The hayfield took three passes to get it down from 12 inches to 2.5, so 7 hours on the bone rattler. Headset died and the wind made sure my ears filled with windage. So tired, so dirty, and SUNBURNED! I'll take that over frost bite in November any day!