What did you do in the garden today?

[Sally PB]

@Swiss, make sure you get your potatoes out of the ground before the ground freezes. All of my plants are totally dead. I have sticks marking where they were so I know where to dig.

Today DH and I hauled about 3 yards of wood chips up to the heavy soil garden. We have about 2-3 more yards to go.

I think this looks like yummy plant food.

Freya thought it looked goo too.

We might get the rest done tomorrow. Maybe not. We're both pretty sore and there's rain in the forecast.

 

[Ascholten]

That's one thing I am seeing, my blueberry totes, the soil level has lowered a lot. its time to give them a good weeding i think and then add about a foot of wood chip / mostly composted new dirt in there. Let it all settle in and then it can do what it want's come next march.

Aaron

 

[NewBoots]

Sorry, don't mean to be so negative. I am a generally positive person, but my garden kind of discouraged me this year. Oh well. I have next year to start over again.

I'm getting ready to pull out the dead plants and then will dump chicken manure in there with whatever leaves I rake up later in November.

@WthrLady is right, just about everyone had a poor harvest this season. I've had a good deal of cukes but hardly any tomatoes. But that's gardening for you, now's the time to start getting a fall/winter crop planted (depending on region and zone) and/or planning your garden for next year. Lots of time to see to compost and soil conditioning.

Figuring we will spend another $1500 to 2000 on materials.
Wishin I could do photos but my electronic/High tech ability is limited so Y'all will just have to trust me. But I will keep Ya posted.
Tight lines folks!

Pics when you can please, love greenhouse porn.

WELCOME! Don't feel you're being negative. EVERYONE's gardens did poorly this year, no matter the experience level. I think we were all just happy to get ANYTHING from them.

Yup, I'm making the best I can of what we did get, my tomato ripening table is covered. And I'll make a big load of green tomato relish, only a few jars of last years production left.

Welp, the peaches I set out to ripen tricked me and I lost about a 1/4 to sneaky rot. However, I did have enough to make 1 pint and one partial pint to test out the peach preserve recipe. Can't wait for the partial jar to cool enough to try out. The salted caramel pear butter is to die for so next shopping trip I'll try to get a lot more cheap pears so I can make enough to give for gifts and still have some for DP and I.

 

[Ascholten]

My tomato plants got huge but I got 3 tomatos off them, bugs got 1, I think a rat or something got the other, and the 3rd, never did figure out what happened to it. I didn't see any seeds in the poop coop, so THEY got to live another day ....

Aaron

 

[Swiss]

@Swiss, make sure you get your potatoes out of the ground before the ground freezes. All of my plants are totally dead. I have sticks marking where they were so I know where to dig.

Good point! I'll keep that in mind (and try to keep a better eye on the weather).

 

[musikfan]

@WthrLady is right, just about everyone had a poor harvest this season. I've had a good deal of cukes but hardly any tomatoes. But that's gardening for you, now's the time to start getting a fall/winter crop planted (depending on region and zone) and/or planning your garden for next year. Lots of time to see to compost and soil conditioning.

Pics when you can please, love greenhouse porn.

Yup, I'm making the best I can of what we did get, my tomato ripening table is covered. And I'll make a big load of green tomato relish, only a few jars of last years production left.

Welp, the peaches I set out to ripen tricked me and I lost about a 1/4 to sneaky rot. However, I did have enough to make 1 pint and one partial pint to test out the peach preserve recipe. Can't wait for the partial jar to cool enough to try out. The salted caramel pear butter is to die for so next shopping trip I'll try to get a lot more cheap pears so I can make enough to give for gifts and still have some for DP and I.

Can definitely relate with the GREEN tomatoes. I've got a ton of them on my vine that are refusing to get ripe. I have a feeling that we are going to have to have some fried green tomatoes some evening for dinner!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Can definitely relate with the GREEN tomatoes. I've got a ton of them on my vine that are refusing to get ripe. I have a feeling that we are going to have to have some fried green tomatoes some evening for dinner!

Welcome out here I have had onr tomato redden on the vine. A rat ate it then spit it out.
I was so mad.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Just now found this part of the forum and this particular thread.

I am a "wanna be" farmer -wishing I had two acres for a farmette but alas I am confined to a rural in-town property with maybe a quarter acre at best. I have three 4x8 raised bed plots and one 4x4. My soil is horrible so I had to import mushroom soil to grow my limited quantities of bush beans, tomatoes, peppers, zuchinni, and strawberries. I did some potatoes this year but the bed was invaded by yellow jackets (of which I horribly allergic) so my potato crop was basically ruined because I had to spray to try and get rid of the nest which is STILL persisting. That soil is now ruined until I can do something about it.

All that to answer the question "What did you do in your garden today?" I don't know about the rest of you, but this was not the best year for my garden here in Pennsylvania. However, my Roma tomatoes did wonderfully and we had a bumper crop, thanks to the humid summer here. But overall , it was not a good growing year. I picked a few straggling bush beans that I've been trying to coax. My first round of beans were wonderful but I lost my plants due to them being so heavy - they fell over and the stems broke - something that I rarely have ever had a problem with. I'm on my second round and I have tons of blossoms but the beans just don't seem to becoming like normal - probably because its cooling off now. Just not the best year for my gardening, unfortunately. Even my zuchinni were weak - I think they were not getting pollenated for some reason.

Sorry, don't mean to be so negative. I am a generally positive person, but my garden kind of discouraged me this year. Oh well. I have next year to start over again.

I'm getting ready to pull out the dead plants and then will dump chicken manure in there with whatever leaves I rake up later in November.

Welcome to the thread! I spend more time in here than anywhere else on BYC...

 

[TJAnonymous]

I have a type of apple cactus here that grows big fruits that are supposed to taste a little like apples. Well, the last few years I've tried them and didn't get the apple bit. This year I finally found the perfect ripeness and they do taste like apples! View attachment 3271402

I started growing yacon last year. It's a tuber that grows like a potato and (allegedly) tastes like a cross between an apple and a pear. I tried some last fall. The taste was sweet but the texture is more like a water chestnut. I really dislike the texture of water chestnuts... I am growing the yacon again (it's a perennial rhizome) and I'm not giving up on it but I'm definitely going to have to come to terms with the texture. Maybe I can cook it like an apple... Not sure yet.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I have dragon fruit, blooms like crazy never really get fruit on it. Star fruit, same thing, some apple cactus thing, same thing, some other kind of cactus fruit same thing.

Its just like my vanilla plant, you have to catch it JUST at the right time, and pollinate it JUST the right way. (now i know what that crap is 8 dollars a bean, it's a HUGE pain in the ass to get bean off it finally !! )

They say there is a certain bee that pollinates the vanilla plant natively. I wonder, honey bees, do they not like it, or .. they are NOT native there? They were NOT native in florida until they were introduced to the states etc. I am going to try an experiment next year, when my van van starts to bloom, im going to try to bring my observation hive over by it, see if I can get some honeybees to do the magic to it. Maybe they just are not where it naturally grows BUT if you put the two together they'll tango? I dunno, ill try.

Don't give up on the plants, it's a HUGE learning experience and YOUR plant is different than MY plant and you will have to learn it's quirks. FWIW it took me 10 years to finally see fruit on my vanilla plant, so patience IS a virtue when dealing with these kind of exotics.

Aaron

Definitely interested in your experiment with pollinating the vanilla plant. Mine is still growing...slowly but surely. I have a long time before I can expect flowers so I'll live vicariously through you in the meantime.