Half way through September ..!

Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one,
Except for February ...

I feel like the growing season is sliding downhill except for "this week," "this day." The slide is the ground shifting beneath my feet. It really is ... nothing can be done. We just need to try to stay upright and not tumble, get banged up.

Steve

And Hey!

The Full Moon occurs tomorrow at 12:05 pm Pacific Daylight Time.

Since this is the Full Moon that occurs closest to the autumn equinox it will be the "Harvest Moon" ツ.

Steve

I think we're here to love each other and to leave things better than we found them.

Definitely on the downhill slide here. I'm in bulb mode, looking over the garlic bulbs, picking the biggest and best for fall planting, choosing flower bulb varieties to order. I should have already planted fall lettuce but haven't gotten to it yet.

I have compost on hand, ready to amend the beds as I pull out plants. Mostly watching and waiting, Watching the parsnips get bigger, waiting for tomatoes and tomatillos to ripen and the last of the summer squashes finish up.

I will be watching this harvest moon. It was beautiful in between the showers last night.

Barb

All my corn has been picked, beams are all done, except the ones I'm leaving for seed ("bean" saving seed from these guys for quite a few years now) pumpkins and squash I will probably cut off the vines this weekend and let them cure for a while. The tomatillos put out a new flush of fruit that, as long as the frost hold off for a couple weeks yet, will probably give me about another gallon for the freezer. Peppers are probably ready to be picked clean, got dozens of those guys and still waiting for the tomatoes......

Also got moved in to our new place. Commuter gardening kind of stinks, but oh well.

I can almost say: All the Way There!

It was 40°f this morning, after 63° yesterday afternoon. I think those are right on the averages ...

The horticulturalists use an average daily temperature of 50° for calculating growing degrees for most of the crops we have in our gardens. It matters very little to have a couple of degrees above that.

Most things are in Going Nowheresville. There are some exceptions. I'm always surprised how some weeds grow! Many flowers just keep right on with the reproductive cycle. Fruits mature. The sweetcorn gets sweeter ... unless there is serious freezing shutting everything down.

I need to have a serious conversation with DW about how many ripe tomatoes do we dare leave any longer on the kitchen counter. I'm doing things a little differently this year by freezing soup. Usually, I leave tomato soup making to the time when the green tomatoes ripen. This year, I've enjoyed the soup early and "sacrificed" some tomatoes that could have gone to pasta sauce. Of course, there is not too much difference in the process.

Beyond this, we aren't much for preserving. Have some frozen corn but there is also still the fresh! Off to haul in the winter squash and punkins! Lots to go on basement shelves but for now, onions are still on the greenhouse benches and, even, in the ground!

Steve

Mid 30s predicted for the lows this week. I'm debating whether to cover the tomatoes or not, probably I will, there's a handful of good sized ones that are about ready yet. I hate to let them go. Of course, green tomatoes are plenty useful too, I use them in green chile. Unripe fruit has more pectin I believe, and so I think they help thicken the stew.

Otherwise everything else is done except the beans, which I will cover because I need seeds. I have a green bean I have been saving and growing for a long time and while I have plenty of seeds from 2015 left, I like to get a new generation as often as possible. Capirame, which comes from the mountains of Northern Mexico and I got through a friend in Michigan are incredibly early for a dry bean. I planted my beans in early July, and these were all dried down and ready by the middle of September. A definite winner.

Peppers seemed to slow down a little early this year, could be because of some early cold snaps but still I'm not disappointed, they came through in spades. As always one of my most dependable crops.

I too am trying to figure out what in the world to do with a counter top full of tomatoes. After bitchin' all summer about how bad they were they finally got their butts in gear.

The (green) beans in the little garden I put in for my neighbor were harvested as dry. I really doubt that they were half as pretty as Zach's and I was a little disappointed that he made so little use of any plants in the garden. Oh well, a single guy, he had said that he tended not to eat out of his gardens. Besides, he has been having real problems getting around this year.

It's all over except the saving of dahlia roots and a little more harvesting of the bok choy. I also have to ready the greenhouse beds and move some of those transplants in. Two overnights of hard frost was followed by this miserably dark day of rain. Tomorrow has a windstorm forecast. The local utility company is putting out information on what to do in power outages.

Garden clean-up will be beyond "all the way there!"

Steve