We're Not Done Yet

On Monday I managed to get the garlic in. Hooray! No pictures taken, I'm afraid, but there are two neat, respectably shaped beds out there with sand, garlic, and a thin layer of dairy compost.

A good thing, too, since the rest of the week has been rain. We got, I think, two inches. The grass is very green, leaves are dropping like stones, and there are still raspberries out there to be found. An interesting fall. Who knows when we'll get back in to finish up the fall clean-up and put the whole thing to bed. I had wanted to rototil the walkways and shape beds, but with this much moisture in the ground we'll have to wait some time, I expect.

Killing Frost --With Snow

Here it is, I think. Last night the low was 27 or 28. It was windy and wet, however, so we won't know what really froze for a while (except it will be even colder tonight, I believe). The sweet potatoes went two weeks ago, but everything but a couple pepper plants in the low part of the garden has been fine up until last night. I'm ready for it all to go to sleep except for the raspberries, which have a LOT of berries on them. I took a couple bedspreads out last night and covered some bushes, just to see.

And what did I salvage yesterday?
Parsley.
A few tomatoes. I just wasn't interested in picking every green tomato out there.
And Peter finished off the apples, which waited patiently in the basement without too much spoilage.
Now for some pictures from the lovely fall day that yesterday was -- bright blue sky all around, no clouds, not much wind, a lot of sun for warming cats in hog feeders:
And Owen, after two weeks of being sick with strep throat, was up and around and on the move. With help.

Grandma Daisy's Spoons

From the Chicago World's Fair 1892 to Bisbee Arizona and Yellowstone National Park 1909.

Sweet Potatoes

Wednesday I got out there and dug these beauties. I got two full laundry baskets, or (I think) 80 lbs. Which seems like too much, but remember, it's all really just water.

There are some nice big ones there, just like my friend Cindy's, who gives me the slips to plant. Hooray! Lots of water is the key, I think, as well as planting them close together without any fertilizer.

This bed also had a good amount of sand in it -- not too hard to dig them out. In contrast to the cabbage beds, which are quite compacted.
It's quite a treasure hunt to dig these amazingly BIG roots out of the ground. Now they are curing in the basement with heat and humidity. I need to store them more carefully than last year, too, since I had most of the little ones rot away. Oh, well.

Peppers

Here's an article I must re-read regularly. And start the peppers early!

I chose some heirloom peppers that I hoped would give me pimento-type results. But they are not red. I was late (very late) getting them in the ground. And now I read that they don't like the really hot days of summer here. Who knew. I thought being warm weather plants meant loving heat -- oh well. Why the prairie looks like it does, anyway.

Thoughts on Tomatoes

This is the German Pink, an heirloom. I like it a lot and had a wonderful crop this year. They are big, definitely pink, oddly-shaped, meaty and flavorful.

Below is something called simply Italian Heirlooom. It is also meaty, fairly large, and flavorful. No reason to not like it; it just doesn't stand out. Perhaps I'll try another old one in combination with the Pink next season. I am buying an heirloom roma to try, and I'll plant more rows of those for canning. My final batch of salsa was much improved by letting liquids drain out of it for some hours -- which seems a horrible waste, but makes better salsa.


Shall I tell you what went wrong last year? Record-keeping, remember... I plant snow peas in my tomato rows in the very early spring. They grow up on the outsides of the rows, bear, and die back in time for the tomatoes in the middle of the row to rise up and begin their season. Except that last year the peas were 4-5 feet tall and deprived the tomato plants of light for their whole season. When I pulled them all down, the tomatoes were quite puny. They lived, but bore very little fruit.

In order to demonstrate my ability to learn from the past, this season I bought a low-growing pea and used that only. It reached two feet and the tomatoes prospered.

NOW the question is, since I have a lot more room, should I forget this doubling-up completely, give the peas their own space, and not endanger the tomatoes at all. Hmmm. I really liked it. It felt like I was really get the most out of my space. I was PROUD of how it worked (except, of course, when it didn't).

Okay, I see it. No good reason to continue the practice. In fact, I won't have to worry about the height of the pea plants. And I could stick some Sweet Peas in amongst them -- how's that for a perk? Did the peas provide nitrogen for the tomatoes? Maybe. I'll see if next year's crop is as good as this.

It's Not Snowing HERE

No, it's nice and warm here still, but there's snow on the ground (just a little) in Golden and Colorado Springs.

There's Anna enduring the major garden hazard, Amanda the Climber. For some reason she targets anyone in the garden, jumping up your front if you do not bend over and pick her up first. And if you're picking beans or something else, well, she just jumps right ON.



Here are the pickles from the weekend -- relish and peppers. After tonight (my last class) I hope to do more peppers, some salsa, and more tomatoes. We'll see. Plus I MUST get the garlic planted.

After the Weekend

We worked hard yesterday and got 9 pints of pickle relish made, 8 pints of hot peppers pickled, 10 more quarts of tomato sauce finished, and tonight it might rain.

I picked several gallons of peppers, so I'll pickle them until I run out of jars, I guess -- which is in the not-too-distant future. I'm left wondering about the mechanism of turning colors in peppers -- I have these nice yellows (above) that turn red -- but only a few of them. Once they're picked, they do start turning more enthusiastically, but then they're drying (shriveling) and losing freshness. But maybe that's not a problem when pickling them. Must do some research.

The apple-dryers made big progress by borrowing a much bigger dryer. They got 2+ gallon bags of apple slices bagged, and I've hidden them, so perhaps they'll last.

Plugging Along

Let's see.

Nine pints of salsa. It's a recipe that calls for only Romas, but it still ends up much "runnier" than the store's. Of course. Maybe (if I care) next year I'll hang everything up in a pillow case before canning. What would I do with that spicy juice?

About six quarts of frozen green beans.

Two batches of dried apple rings (mostly all already eaten by the processors -- ah, well, eating is the goal, right?).

More raspberries.

More tomatoes. Anna served the first batch of homemade sauce with spaghetti Tuesday while I was at work. We are now tweaking the recipe (she forgot herbs, mainly), but it is NOT overly acidic, my main concern. Of course, the carpers will carp, but it was yummy.

Four apple pie fillers.

AND we got the stock moved onto some not-overgrazed pasture that they are happy in. Give the goats two days before finding ways out...

Little Helpers

Can you see him there? He's as long as my hand is wide and hard to spot. But he's been working the raspberry bed for at least a week, and I hope catching many a grasshopper.

The other predators whose help I treasure are concentrated up in the tomatoes, where they enjoy the help of hog fencing for structural foundations: the spider cohort. Those ladies are always ready when we come picking. We send hoppers jumping, which in turn sets the ladies to spinning. It's great fun for the bloodthirsty gardener to watch a hopper fully wrapped and ready to eat in less than a minute.