Melissia,

It looks great!

Most of my cold-season crops are in the ground but some are in molasses feed tubs I can move into the greenhouse after the weather cools off a little more. I'll just put low tunnels with floating row covers over the in-ground winter crops when it is starting to get really cold. I've been growing in molasses feed tubs for about 10 years now and, if I'd known how much easier it would be than improving dense red clay soil, I might have started out only with containers and never broken the ground.

I've battled grasshoppers all summer, but in the winter veggie garden they haven't bothered anything too much, except for the sugar snap peas and the wild garden kale. They demolished the sugar snap peas and some of the wild garden kale, but the peas are trying to make a comeback and regrow, and I planted lacinato kale plants where the wild garden kale had been and so far the grasshoppers haven't bothered it.

I have tons of cole crops planted in the garden and only found the first caterpiller damage yesterday, so plan to spray them with Bt today. I haven't seen the moths around, but since the cabbage worms are here, obviously the moths have been here.

I'd rather start early than late, other than with the lettuce. I always find the timing of fall lettuce to be challenging. Once you've planted it, if the heat lingers too long....what can you do? My lettuce will grow outdoors as long as possible. I have three big rows in the ground, then there's a whole lot more in a cattle feed trough that is not movable. It has hoops over it so that we can cover it on very cold nights. The tubs that are planted for the greenhouse will be easy to move into the greenhouse whenever the time feels right. I have two of them filled with various lettuce varieties, and hope to plant two more this weekend with a mesclun mix as a succession crop.

I have kept my lettuce in the shade as much as possible and so far we haven't noticed any bitterness. I started it much later than the other winter crops,though, because we always stay too hot too late in the fall, which drives me a little crazy. Oh, I also plant spinach pretty late because of the way the heat lingers.

Are you going to heat your greenhouse this winter? I am not. Or, at least I currently am not planning on it. The cool-season crops I'm growing should do fine without heat unless we have a very cold winter.

Today I will be sowing seeds of a lot more cool-season crops that are intended for the greenhouse. It would be too late to start much of anything in the ground, but with the greenhouse, I am not sure when "too late" arrives, so I'll be sowing seeds every few weeks just to see what they do as we move into fall and winter.

Dawn

I love the tubs... It's easier than fighting Bermuda and easier on the back, too.

I didn't have any grasshoppers in the summer...but they're making up for it now: I'm hoping the cool nights will get them, soon.

No, no heating - or, that's what I'm thinking now, too.

I have about 9 empty tubs from the lettuce I pulled... We're planting till all our tubs are full. I have cucumbers, sugar peas and bell peppers to put in tomorrow.

Back in the summer, all your grasshoppers must have been here in Love County. Having devoured all the good stuff here, they then headed your way.

There were not as bad here as they were in NE OK and western Arkansas until about late July, and then they became pretty awful pretty fast. Mostly they devoured bean plants, and by devoured, I mean they ate them down to the ground. There were some black blister beetles assisting them with that effort.

I agree about the bermuda grass and the back. I am moving towards using more containers the older that I get, though I likely never will completely stop growing in the ground too. The old farmers/ranchers/gardeners around me who keep farming, ranching and gardening in their golden years often continue doing it well into into their 80s and 90s. I think to a certain degree all that physical labor keeps them healthier. I might not think that in March or April when I'm having those "oh my aching back" type days, but the aches and pains pass.

It was a very rainy year--2007, and I as sure you remember that year because of all the flooding here in southern OK, that really got me started growing in containers. I had dabbled with containers before, but with all that flooding, if I hadn't put a lot of my plants into containers, I wouldn't have had a garden until about August.

Since then, my container gardening has been a consistent part of the garden although I plant a lot of containers some years and fewer in other years. With a good soil-less mix in the containers and a drip irrigation system on a timer, container growing is about as low-maintenance as it gets. I like that.

I had more grasshoppers than usual, but not a serious problem. I picked pole beans twice in the last week, and still have southern peas, but that may be coming to a close tonight. I have kept most of the peppers picked with just kitchen use since I did the major picking when we had the last cold spell. Used the first of the leaf lettuce that is growing in the open in wraps yesterday.

I made squash casserole today and froze 6 two cup packages of grated squash. My winter squash has still not changed color, but I can see lighter vertical lines developing in some of it in the last few days. I really hate to pull it early, but I don't want it to freeze either.

Things in the low tunnel look good, but I will be pulling the row cover back over it today to prepare for the cooler temps expected for the next two nights.

I guess I should go dig my four or five totally ignored sweet potato vines. I really don't expect anything from them.

Beautiful greenhouse!

I didn't have problems with grasshoppers this year at all. I battled my first tomato horn worm the other day. He scared the tar out of me. I was outside at 5 am, it was still dark, but I had a coleman's lamp with me, and was pruning some plants before I had to get ready for work, and I turned my head and there he was, right next to my head! I about jumped three feet back before I figured out what he was. LOL !

I had the wind knock over my tomatoes that are going to go into low tunnels, and I have some purple broccoli set to go in there as well. I suppose when it gets a lot colder I will double up on the layers. It's going to be interesting at least...