October Gardens

[CathyA]

Anything happening? We tore down our garden (finished pulling weeds, pulled up tomato/bean plants) and made it ready for all my stock tanks for next year.
We're working on making enough compost/soil to fill all the tanks.

In the back yard, I still have Swiss chard and a Fall planting of spinach in the stock tanks.

Yesterday I pulled and cleaned the 2 pumps/filters in my small water gardens. (and I'm suffering today). :~)

I was hoping to transplant some of the little tulip tree seedlings growing among my spinach and chard, but I'm running out of steam (and knee) to follow through. Oh well.......it's not like we don't have plenty of trees around here. I just can't stand to not plant a seedling I might see.

I'm excited about the spinach. I've never planted it in the Fall before. DS is home and for a salad we're going to have fresh spinach with a balsamic/honey vinaigrette, with feta cheese and sunflowers.....oh....and cherry tomatoes and grapes.

Don't you just love eating stuff that you've grown yourself?!
How are your gardens doing?

Here's a pic of the spinach from awhile back.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f129/Catherine50/Spinach%20-%2010-2015.jpg

[Tussiemussies]

Wow, that spinach looks so delicious, looks like it is at a baby stage...delicious!

[SteveinMN]

I took our garden down the day before our first killing frost. Final tally: four collard plants (two decent-sized; two miniatures), two acorn squash, and maybe a dozen green tomatoes from our volunteer tomato plant (the two on their way to red got chewed on by critters). My snowbird neighbor's collard plants still stand; I'll start harvesting them tomorrow when I have a chance to process them (won't be today). I'll be making a few changes for next year, not the least of which is location (the squash really hid some collard plants and hindered their growth). Not bad for a first outing; successful enough to go for it next year.

[Birdie]

My summer garden was removed in early September and I have a few things planted this fall.

That trough of spinach looks wonderful.

I have garlic and potatoes planted in one bed. They will be harvested in May or June.
Spinach, Bok choi, chard and kale in a second bed. I've been cutting off the outside leaves and eating them for a couple of weeks.

The rest of the beds have compost and alfalfa pellets dug into them to break down over winter. They are covered with straw mulch and I am hoping we really get some rain this winter. We have a prediction of El nino weather pattern so we are hoping to refill some of reservoirs emptied by the drought. I have 3 rain barrels connected to my gutters ready to fill. This was a tough year to keep my vegetable garden alive with the watering restrictions. The reservoir where my town gets it's water is at an all time low, scary stuff.

[CathyA]

Thanks Tussie..........the salad was GREAT! I'd never had such fresh spinach.
Steve.........how do you use the collard greens? I used to grow them for my chickens, but never used them myself.
Birdie.....tell me more about alfalfa pellets. Yes, the lack of rain on the west coast is definitely scary. (Is that where you are?)
I guess El nino can be a good thing, but seeing what happens when it rains hard in those dry mountainous areas is scary too. Good luck!

[iris lilies]

I am harvesting lily bulbs for selling and re-planting. Coins are included to show size. These are good sized bulbs!

http://www.simplelivingforum.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=1537&stc=1

[iris lilies]

DH is bringing in buckets of tomatoes, eggplant, and green peppers, their last hurrah.

He is harvesting lots of beans, both green beans and dried-type beans. Those fresh beans like Crowder peas and etc are amazingly good straight from the garden.

[Birdie]

I usually plant half my winter garden with covercrop; cut it down and dig it in about 4 - 6 weeks before planting my summer garden. This year I decided to just use about 150 pounds of organic alfalfa pellets to save me some work. They are commonly used in rose planting, but I am using them as compost that is not fully broken down. Overwintering them should let them swell and break down. Alfalfa is fairly high in nitrogen, so better than just adding compost which is lower in nitrogen. I still make roughly 70 gallons of compost annually and dig that into my beds too, in addition to adding a chicken manure fertilizer.

I am in Northern California, in the Sacramento valley. We can garden all year long and do not get snow. Last year we only got 9 inches of rain...we do need to water our vegetable gardens year around unlike many of you.

[Gardnr]

THe tomatoes keep coming. My freezer is full with ratatouille and pesto and green beans and some peppers.

We have now canned 54+28 pints of salsa. 9 1/2pints tomatillo salsa.....and some other stuff......

and I picked heirlooms for the first time yesterday!!!! My beloved heirlooms. No frost on the docket before Nov 1 so I am hopeful for more;)

I have still not picked any eggplant. I've had a very few summer squash...like 3 meals is all off 8 plants.

[SteveinMN]

CathyA, I often cook collard greens in the Southern traditional "mess o' greens" cooked with either a meaty ham bone or a hunk of ham or even smoked turkey. But they also can serve as a side dish or recipe ingredient as one might serve spinach or kale. Braise them in chicken stock or white wine.

Right now, I am experimenting with a lacto-fermented collard-stem pickle -- stems trimmed from the leaves and pickled in a brine of water, salt, and a splash of vinegar. It'll be a couple more days until they're ready to eat.

And I might try making "collard chips" following the recipe for kale chips (tear into bite-sized pieces, toss with olive oil and coarse salt, and roast them at a high temperature to make them crunchy.

[MaryHu]

I have 2 cold frames full of spinach & carrot for the winter. Found an unexpected last harvest of tomatoes the other day from the compost bin. I had thrown a bunch of green/pale orange tomatoes in the compost bin among the fall leaves piled on top of the bins. I went out the other day to add some kitchen scraps to the pile and saw ripe tomatoes peeking out from under the leaves. I dug through the dry leaves to find that the leaves had protected the tomatoes from the cold and had provided a fine ripening environment for them. Took them into the house and washed and inspected them and they were all fine; no holes in the skin, no rot. We've been eating them ever since. I know I should have brought them into the house to ripen but when we took out the tomato plants we had SO many ripe ones I just couldn't deal with the green/orange ones.