Soonergrandmom, I have one pepper plant with 13 bell peppers in various stages on it, my jalapeno has upwards of a dozen and still more flowers, and only 1 out of 14 tomato plants has given me it's last tomatoes. Still have lots of green beans, too. It's supposed to be warmer than normal through the end of the month, so I'm at least leaving everything that long.

The 2 tomatoes that the Sioux set started to blush the other day. I brought them in yesterday to finish ripening. Got another handful of Sungold and SS100 too. That silly Black Cherry that I'm always so sure is dying (and therefore neglect it) has a few fruit that just started to blush. So I'm actually going to get to try it soon. Can't decide if it's too much of a diva for me to have next year or not. Something is eating holes in my spinach, and my lettuce is being poky.

I have a couple of pepper plants that I haven't even picked. One of them has the shape of a habanero, but it is green. I think I picked it up at the Fling and I don't know what kind it is. And no, I didn't take a bite in the garden. LOL I have had lots of habanero peppers in the past, but I think they had color from the start. The other plant has a small yellow pepper on it and I'm sure it is a hot pepper. I have cooked with peppers all season, and put a few bags in the freezer, but I am usually making Habanero Jam by this time of year, and I haven't made any. That unknown pepper is the only thing I have this year that looks like a hab.

I got 15 pints of tomato for market in the morning radishes are gorgeous and peppers are still crazy. Dig my first 4 sweets yesterday and was surprised they did as well as they did. About 15 pounds of edible tubers and about 20 skinny ones to save back for slips for next year.

It seems like everyone is still getting a harvest. I sure wish it wasn't getting dark so early. It's normally dark by the time I fix dinner (on the days I have time to fix dinner) and I really don't like walking to the back garden with a flashlight to pick a pepper or tomato.

Last night I could see the neighbors with flashlights looking around their coop and barn. I think they were looking for snakes. Husband saw them post something on fb about snakes and disappearing eggs.

Do flies eat houseplants? We usually have a fly or two trapped in the house and they are always hanging out by the kitchen windows. I've noticed holes in my herbs--like they're being eaten. And the two lavender plants look like they're dying. Maybe I over-watered them, though. They are a nice size and smell so nice. Sad that they are ill.

Happy to read everyone's garden news.

Amy, Our initial discovery that snakes become trapped in bird or deer netting was pretty similar to yours, and it wasn't a happy discovery to pick up netting and find a snake trapped in it. However, sometimes the netting saves someone from a nasty snakebite, even inadvertently. Last year I had a pile of netting sitting outside the garage door. I had removed it from a bed and was going to roll it up and put it away. Chris rolled up the garage door from the inside and a copperhead lunged at him, but became trapped in my pile of bird netting and stopped short of hitting him, thanks to the netting. Chris was bent over (to lift up the roll-up door) and that copperhead was less than a foot from his face. Had the netting not been there, he likely would have been struck in the head or throat. Removing a dead snake from the netting is challenging, and it is even harder to get a live one out of netting.

I think it could have been the hot days as much as the cold nights that triggered your cilantro to bolt. Cilantro seems to be hyper-sensitive to the way our weather swings wildly from too hot to too cold and then back to too hot all over again. I'm completely over having high temperatures in the 90s and wish they'd go away and stay away, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want to wake up to morning lows in the 40s yet either.

Rebecca, You had rain? How lovely! Sounds like you found some good seed bargains and that is always fun too.

Kim, I'm glad you got to take the Little Man with you. I bet he had a lot of fun.

Amy, Blister beetles are common on southern peas. I wonder if you inadvertently made contact with one and it led to the swelling of your eyelids? Other than that guess, I have no idea what might have caused the sudden swelling.

Halloween is cold if you/your kids/your grandkids have planned on wearing lightweight warm-weather costumes, but it is hot if you/your kids/your grandkids have costumes meant to be warm in cold weather. At least that's how it seems. Easter is about the same way.

This October's weather seems crazier than usual----I usually love October weather because it is consistently gorgeous and mild. Somehow, the 'mild' part has deserted us this year, and it has been a wild roller coaster ride. I think that does make it hard to plan for Halloween---or for putting up the greenhouse.

Carol, That squash harvest is close enough to a ton for me! I think you'll always remember 2016 as the Year of the Squash, obviously.

Rebecca, The holes in the spinach could be many things, but I'd look for caterpillars in the daytime or slugs/snails at night. It sounds like your fall garden is doing great. Your lettuce likely is pokey because the weather is so erratic and it probably is getting more heat than it likes/needs/will tolerate. As soon as we get some consistent coolness in the weather, the lettuce should take off and grow like mad.

Carol, I haven't made any Habanero Gold yet this year either, and normally I'd be done with it by now, but having the kitchen torn apart has messed up my routine. I do have habs in the garden if only I could brave its snake infestation and venture out there to pick them. Maybe I'll harvest some on the next cool morning in a couple of days when it ought to be too cool early in the day for the snakes to be out and then I could make at least a couple of batches of Habanero Gold. The kitchen isn't finished yet, but it is usable enough for canning.

Kim, You're having a great autumn! I'm so glad to hear that, after all the trouble you had in spring/summer with the pesticide drift that attacked your sweet, innocent market garden.

Hazel, Your neighbors must feel confident it is a non-venomous snake! The last thing I'd do is venture outside at night with a flashlight looking for a snake because if I found one, it likely would be a copperhead. I don't know why, but I see rattlesnakes more in the late afternoon/early evening and then, after dark, it usually is copperhead time. Rat snakes and chicken snakes often are out a lot in broad daylight because that's when they know they can get to the chicken eggs if they are preying on a nest that is inside a coop that gets closed up for the night.

I once went outside one morning to open the chicken coop, and a very long (at least 6') chicken snake was plastered across the door in a Z-shaped formation. I don't know why, and I don't know how it was hanging on to the wood door. It's head was near where the door latch was, so needless to say, I shrieked and left and when I came back with a rake to pull the snake off the door, it already was gone. I don't know if that snake was trying to find a way into the coop, or trying to protect the coop from other snakes that might beat it to the eggs, but I wasn't happy to find it there. For at least the next week, as soon as the chickens left the coop, I closed the doors back to discourage the snakes. Usually I leave the doors open all day long so the hens can go inside and lay their eggs.

Your neighbors (or anyone else) can discourage snakes by putting phony eggs (plastic, wood, etc.) in the nests. After a snake has eaten a couple of phony eggs, even if it regurgitates them and survives, it tends to avoid the eggs after that since it has learned there's something wrong with them. Fake eggs are available from craft stores, and some feed stores sell them, with the idea being that if you have uncooperative chickens free-ranging and laying eggs away from the nesting boxes, putting some fake eggs in the nesting boxes seems to trigger them to lay their eggs in there along with the fake eggs. For fake eggs, I like to use brightly colored plastic Easter eggs so that when I collect eggs, there's no doubt which ones are real and which ones are fake.

It was in the 90s and windy here yesterday and everything wilted so I stood and hand-watered all the plants in containers. The garden looks horrible and the plants in the pastures look just as bad. I should care, but I really don't. There's far too many snakes out and about right now, so I have to stay away from any place, like the garden, that likely is harboring them. We finally took a day off from working on the kitchen last week to mow some of the pastures as well as the yard area around the house, so we now can better see the snakes, bobcats and coyotes, but the pastures farther from the house haven't been mowed yet, so remain treacherous. However, some leaves are coming down out of the trees now and they provide perfect camouflage for the very snakes that plague us the most, so I need to find time to chop up the leaves with the mower and gather them for the compost pile (while avoiding gathering up any snakes at the same time).

Dawn

I've murdered every lavender or rosemary I've tried to grow inside. I've got 2 rosemary plants right now that I started from seed. They have maybe 3 sets of leaves, so I'd really like to keep them alive.

I've gotten more of a harvest the last couple weeks than all summer. I went out and thinned my tomato jungle, so I bagged up all the green fruits and have them in a pantry. Anything that had a smidgen of color is sitting on my counter, and I now get to enjoy a tomato every day instead of once a week. The plants are still covered, so now I'm in the waiting game stage to see if they get ripe before the weather turns.

I peered outside my bedroom window this morning to see my banana pepper plant is loaded once again with peppers. That single plant has produced more peppers this year than 4 of my plants the last time I had a garden. I think it's got some sort of super powers, lol. My tomato plants still look really well and are loaded as well with tomatoes. Time is the only thing standing between us though as I am patiently waiting for them to ripen. After I harvested many seed pods from my basil plants they regained life and shot up again. I just love basil plants. I have given up on my little pepper plants. I don't even remember what they are but I've only gotten a few of them as Lilo gets to them before I can and chews on them throughout the yard. I thought they were hot peppers but they don't seem to bother her or maybe they just haven't "heated" up yet since she picks them when they are green. I don't think I'm going to get anything from my beefsteak tomato plant, sadly, since I planted later in the year. I was really looking forward to some meaty tomatoes. Oh well, there's always next year.

My husband loves the rosemary plants pruned to look like Christmas trees, and they always die. A couple of years ago HALF of one survived (there were 2 plants growing in the same pot.) I put that in my herb pyramid in April 2015 and it has thrived. (Knock wood). Of couse last winter was very mild. It is in the top level, so it is well drained, but has a deep area to put roots. The pyramid was filled with Mel's mix. My lavender is in a pot that wintered outside last year, and I think the year before, on south side of the house.

Dawn, I have decided the eyelid issue is not related to the garden. I've had what I thought was a scratch on my other eyelid for weeks. It started as an itch that I rubbed too much. Closer examination with a magnifying mirror shows that scratch looks like the blister on the other eye. I quit using the wipes I was using on my eyes, thinking I was allergic. Didn't seem to help. I put moisturizing salve in my eyes at night, that seems to irritate it. Maybe allergic to that. I'm hoping it is not psoriasis like I get on my scalp. It would be horrible to get that on my eyes! If it continues much longer, I will have to go to the doctor.

Mellisa, I have always liked banana peppers for that reason, very proliffic. To bad my best one has too hot. I have 2 bell pepper plants with peppers on them I keep holding off pulling. And the paprika looks like a Christmas tree!

jlhart, I've done well with Rosemary indoors. This is a first for indoor lavender. My outdoor lavender and rosemary survived last winter. I was so pumped this spring when I was able to raise 6 lavender plants to a considerable size. :)

Moths have been getting indoors--thinking they are eating the herbs. Flies are usually repelled by herbs.

Dawn, my neighbors may not have good sense when it comes to snakes. Or maybe they do. This is the first year we've seen snakes on our property. One tiny one in the shop. And apparently one in my shed. My husband didn't tell me the details of this until today. I have a really cute door on the shed. It has a window in the door and a little curtain. The door faces west. The snake was up in the window, resting in the curtain and enjoying the sun when my husband found him. He slithered off and my husband didn't get a chance to kill him. This is my future chicken coop. Ick.

It's possible my neighbors' chickens are molting as mine are...and one other neighbors are. And they're not getting eggs because of that. My girls haven't laid an egg in 2 weeks. My neighbors are newer to chickens than I am...by a few weeks. Do y'all put feathers in compost? Normally, I just scoop the pine bedding and poop into a container (when I'm cleaning the coop) and throw it on the compost pile. There's lost of feathers currently.

Oak mites! What in the world.?! We (the Westmoore band) was in Ada until near midnight on Saturday. The next day people starting posting about bites on the neck--figured it out today. It's Oak mites. They got the kids, but mostly the parents and volunteers. Not good. I'm creeped out now. Be careful as you're out and about apparently they are thick right now. The bites are super itchy.

Jen, Both rosemary and lavender have low-water needs and can be tricky to grow indoors in containers. It usually is the watering/humidity that get to them. To grow them indoors, I do not use the standard soil-less mix normally used in containers. I use a mix for cacti. I think the one I buy is made by Miracle Grow and it comes in smallish bags and usually is not with the regular MG soil-less mixes at Lowe's or Home Depot. It usually is with specialty growing medium like the sort of bark sold for growing orchids and such. To grow them outdoors in containers, I mix together a standard soil-less growing medium with a whole lot of added sand and gravel. Both rosemary and lavender do best for me if I grow them in incredibly well-draining mixes high in sand and gravel (think of what sort of soil they grow in naturally in the Mediterranean). When they are indoors for the winter, I barely water them at all, so make sure you don't overwater. Too much water or a soil-less mix that holds water too well will harm them.

When you see that a freezing night or hard frost is inevitable, if you pull up your existing tomato and pepper plants and put them in the tornado shelter or garage (I pull them up by the roots and hang them upside down), the green fruit on them will continue to ripen and color up over a period of 4-8 weeks. It is amazing how long they will last, and it beats losing the last fruit to a frost or freeze.

Melissa, You had a busy year. Now that you're settled into the new house, I know you'll get your beefsteaks planted early enough in 2017 to give you the fruit that they aren't giving you this year.

Amy, Your poor eyelid. I hope it isn't anything too major. Last winter I was using an eye cream that I apparently was allergic to as my eyelids swelled up something awful and turned really red. After I stopped using it, they slowly returned to normal but it took several weeks. Needless to say, I threw that eye cream away.

I love the Rosemary plants trimmed into Christmas tree shapes and they do really well for me indoors as long as I keep them away from any HVAC vents blowing warm air and as long as I don't overwater them. What I have learned is that I really have to fight my desire to water too much and just leave them alone and let them stay on the dry side all the time. I love having a rosemary plant sitting on the kitchen counter all winter---not just so we have rosemary to use without having to walk out to the garden to clip some off the big plant there, but also just to have a bit of living green life inside in winter.

Hazel, It isn't the snakes you see that you have to worry about, it is the ones you don't see. (grin) There is no logical reason for why I haven't been bitten by a rattlesnake, cottonmouth or copperhead because I've been uncomfortably close to all of them upon occasion. To be fair to the snakes, most would rather flee than bite you so you're okay as long as they feel like they can safely run away from you instead of coming right for you. Our son was home from college one weekend and stepped on a copperhead around 9 pm while he was getting out of his car. It didn't bite him. However, it headed straight for a place in the yard where we were sitting in lawn chairs with a couple of our friends, so when he hollered that he'd stepped on a snake and it was headed our way, both the men (Tim and his police partner, Ken) jumped up, grabbed their guns and shot the copperhead. I felt kind of bad for the snake---it could have bitten Chris but chose not to, but the poor snake got killed anyway. However, I think it is always smart to shoot venomous snakes that hang around your house because you just don't need to put up with the risk of having them there. I feel like we are pretty reasonable---the snakes are free to roam at will over roughly 12 or 12.5 acres of our property, but if they are seen within the couple of acres that surround our houses, outbuildings, fenced garden plots and mowed lawn areas, they aren't tolerated. We don't got out in the pastures and woodland looking for them and shooting them, but if we run across them near the house, that's their mistake.

It probably is molting time. Our big tom turkey has been molting for seemingly months but now has all his gorgeous new feathers grown in, except for some of the tail feathers which seem slower to grow back. I think he started molting in July. Our older chickens have begun to molt a little bit (but not all of them yet, some are later than others). Most of our young chickens that were hatched this past winter or spring aren't molting, and they usually won't molt until they are roughly 12-18 months old.

We have had a 15th chick hatch out within the last couple of days. Apparently it somehow left the nest at the back of the coop, made its way about 12-15' to the coop door, fell out the door and laid on the ground until Tim found it around dinner time a couple of days ago. We weren't sure it would survive as it seemed very weak and fragile,but he picked it up, put it in the brooder cage with all the chicks that have hatched in the last couple of weeks, made sure it drank water and then left it there with the mama hen and its 14 new brothers and sisters. The hen who hatched it out is still sitting on her eggs, but no more have hatched. Her nest is in the lower cage of a two level brooder but when she hatches a baby we move it to the upper cage where we keep a heat lamp on 24/7 for the chicks. I don't know why the mother hen let that one freshly-hatched chick wander off. Usually a hen will keep the new chicks very close to her.

We do compost feathers. It takes them a while to break down, but they will break down over a period of months. We keep separate compost piles---the one for the big garden doesn't get chicken coop litter added to it because we don't buy organic feed. The chicken coop litter goes to a separate pile whose compost is only used for ornamental plantings. This is a precaution I use just to avoid ever getting herbicide residue in my veggie, herb and fruit garden. I don't know that it is necessary to compost the chicken litter separately, but ever since a lot of people in the northeastern US bought contaminated compost/manure a few years ago (which killed their veggie gardens) that was traced back to Purina horse feed contaminated with pesticide residue, I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Sammy has had a lot of trouble with those oak itch mites in her neighborhood. I believe she is in the Broken Arrow area, and she has mentioned them several times the last few years. We have oak trees everywhere and never have had them here (knock on wood). If we were to get them here, we couldn't avoid them. Most of the shade trees that surround our house on all 4 sides are oak trees.

Here's a recent article on the oak itch outbreak now underway in parts of OK.

Tulsa World article on Oak Itch Mites

Dawn

Just when I think I have the chickens contained, they get out and tear stuff up. But yesterday I didn't think they got out, yet today 2 plants are missing. Well, one is gone, the other just pulled up. I wonder if the rabbit is back. I am tearing my hair out!

What sort of plant was pulled up and what sort was eaten? Our bunny population has dipped to almost nothing because the coyotes are eating them, but we're more rural so it is not uncommon to have coyotes in the yard every night and also fairly often in broad daylight. Do you have squirrels, voles or anything similar?

Had a nice surprise today.

Dawn, I think it's Speckles. Caught her in there again today. They were cabbage and a broccoli. Several other plants look munched on, though, all brassicas. Now I'm trying to get the garlic bed ready. Had to water today.

Hazel, you're getting more than I am!

We're going to take these trellises down today, so I took a picture without anything growing on them. There are pvc hoops on that back bed. It is one of the first beds and has a vertical trellis in it. You can't put your hands through that welded wire fencing on that and can't get tools under it. The cattle pannels are just propped between the beds.

Amy, I don't remember planting those beans. I found them lying under a trellis that had fallen in the wind a few weeks back. Maybe...I sorta remember now, but not clearly, which is why I need to keep a journal--someone made a post about gardening journaling a few days ago. Hmmm...Blue Lake pole beans vaguely sound familiar.

I like your trellises and hoops. That is something I need to focus on next year. I also like how your garden seems to be hidden a bit. Ours is just right out there for everyone to see--the east garden especially!

Hazel, That's the kind of garden surprise that is fun to find.

Amy, Speckles has turned into a little demon child. I think she spends her nighttime hours dreaming up new ways to get into your garden beds and destroy one more thing each day.

After I stopped watering the garden and essentially abandoned it to work on remodeling the house, the chickens abandoned the garden too. I would open the gate for them and leave it open all day and they wouldn't step foot in it, which is completely opposite of how it was all summer, where they'd be standing at the gate waiting for me to open it so they could run in, even if I didn't want them to. I think it might be the fault of the four o'clocks, which have grown so tall and so thick along the garden fence that you cannot see the fence. For the chickens, since they cannot see what is in the garden, they seem to have no interest in it. With all your hoops and trellises, I am surprised how much time the chickens (especially Speckles) spend in the raised beds. My chickens prefer the pathways as long as the pathways are well-mulched and, apparently, full of good things to eat. When a chicken jumps up into a bed and encounters hoops, trellises, or cages that get in its way, it seems like it doesn't want to deal with those things so it jumps back down into the path and just stays there. The chickens will dig and scratch endlessly in a heavily-mulched path. However, beds with no physical obstructions like cages or trellises do get dug up and torn up pretty well--it is just that almost all my beds either have a trellis down the middle or two rows of offset cages, both of which seem to be inconvenient for the chickens to deal with.

Another new chick hatched out overnight or very early this morning. That's the 16th one in the last two weeks. This one was from a nest set on by a black Cemani hen, but I don't think the chick is a purebred Cemani because it isn't the proper color. Of course, the hens have communal nests and when one goes broody and starts setting, she is hatching out everyone's eggs, not just her own. I was hoping we'd have a least a dozen chicks hatch out this summer or fall and we've had more than that, so the broody girls have had a good late hatch. We're keeping a heat lamp on the one brooder cage where the chicks are locked up (for their own safety, to keep them from being eaten by snakes) since the nights are so cool. I tried leaving some eggs for the chickens to set on and hatch in July or August and no one wanted to do it, but apparently by September at least a couple of hens were in the mood to set. I need to clean out the coop tomorrow---it will provide lots of bedding to go onto the compost pile. I've been putting it off because the hen who is setting on eggs doesn't like it when human beings come into the coop for more than just a minute. I hate to disturb her because I don't want for her to abandon the nest, but I really need to clean out that coop.

It was cold here this morning---42 degrees at our Mesonet station and 44 degrees at our house. That's a nice, cool, crisp autumn morning and just the kind of weather I was dreaming of back in July and August. I'm sure we'll be back in the 80s in a few days, but right now with days in the 70s and nights in the 40s, the weather outside feels mighty fine.

Dawn

Amy, I LOVE the trellises in your garden. Next year I want to do a least one arch of beans and probably another of bitter melon or luffa. The aesthetics is wonderful and it makes for some shade during the hot months.

Thanks George. One year I grew cucumbers on one side and tromboncino squash on the other. The fruit (well, most of it) hung down in the arch for easy picking and I had flowers planted at the end. It was my favorite place in the garden that year. Funny how a little shade in summer and some pretty flowers can lift your spirits even as you battle squash bugs.

Dawn, the other night I thought Speckles was out of the coop when I went to close it. I can see the top roost from the outside, but I have to open a side door to see the lower ones. I counted 2 above, went around to the side...2 below. Searched the yard. Came back and checked again. She must have hopped to the upper roost while I walked to the side. And to think she used to be my favorite!

Hazel, what a nice surprise! Plants are amazing, growing even when we forget them. There is privacy fence on 2 sides of our yard, but chain link on the rest, the side that can be seen from the street. Some times I'm afraid the neighbors think they live next door to the Clampets. I keep trying to figure out how to screen the back from the street. When it's all green and trimmed the garden looks great, but we all know it can look ragged at times. I tried to get DH to paint the shed, but he wants to replace it, so the rust remains.

They sell gray electrical conduit that works like the white PVC and if I need to replace those hoops I will use gray. It blends in better. The metal hoops would be even better, but you need a jig to bend them, or pay $ to get them.

That blue pot, in bottom left corner of the first pic was NEW last year. It is held together with duct tape. Obviously doesn't make the cut for planters! There's a volunteer tomato in it.

Can you see the tool belt around my bucket seat? I had resisted, because most of them fit over the top of the bucket, but this is under the rim. I can even stick a water container in one pocket. Of course, DH had to run out it the 3 minute rain storm to retrieve my phone from it, but it does have a nice pocket for it.

Garlic is in the ground. What pests/diseases have you run into with garlic? A couple of varieties didn't store long enough for me to even use. The others some times have brown spots, like little bites maybe? Could just be damage from pulling them up, but I'd like to know what I might have trouble with. I haven't been thrilled with taste the last 2 years. I thought 2015 was because we had so much rain. If this crop doesn't do better I think I will get new seed cloves next year.

I haven't had disease problems with garlic but I only grow it in raised beds with really well-drained soil because it can become afflicted with fungal diseases if it is growing in soil that stays too wet. So, your brown spots could be a sign of a fungal infection. Possibly they are a sign that some soil-dwelling insect is nibbling on them. Another possibility would be bruising of the tender bulbs from growing in heavy or rocky soil. Finally, the brown spots could be a sign of fusarium. Without being able to see the brown spots, I'm just throwing out guesses.

In this link, you can see some brown spotting on some cloves.

Garlic Disease

Thank you Dawn, my limited research yesterday didn't turn up that site. While one of the pictures of fusarium kind of looked like what I had, the others did not. I really didn't look at the rotten cloves, but they weren't pink, just soft and obviously bad. On that site, I found another page that included a pdf about mites. I am inclined to believe the brown spots I saw were mite damage. I soaked my cloves over night in water that started out as hot tap water with liquid seaweed fertilizer and baking soda. It was recommended to soak briefly in alcohol (vodka), but I chose not to do that. I did however slip the wrappers off, which is supposed to be where mites hide. This year's crop may be a mess, new seed cloves seem like a good idea next year.

I was just thinking about garlic. The garlic I harvest in June seems a little off and maybe have a few of those brown spots in the one pic of the link. They might have stayed too wet during the rainy times. Thinking about planting in a container this year. Has anyone planted garlic in containers?

Yes, you can grow it in containers. I plant it in large ones that are a couple of feet tall, but you probably could plant it in anything that holds at least 12" of a soil-less growing medium. Just remember to keep it moist (not wet) in the winter months so it doesn't dry out too much. Garlic has such a long season---from whenever you plant it in autumn until the following summer, so don't forget about it. (It is easy to forget plants in containers in winter unless they are someplace where you walk by and see them often.) Plants in the ground can spread out their roots and search for moisture in dry weather, but plants in containers are at the mercy of the gardener.

Confession time:. I don't think I like Black Cherry tomatoes. I know that makes me odd. But I just don't get what's so fantastic about them. I mean, they taste fine, but I'm not blown away. May not grow them at all next year.

Anyone familiar with bearded iris? My mom and I were dividing and moving some from a planter where they weren't happy, and they look different. My mom has been gardening easily as long as Dawn, anc she's never seen the rhizomes look like this, with the long skinny roots. The planter tended to get very dry and didn't have a good food web (one reason why we moved them), maybe that's it? Thought I'd try here before posting on the iris forum.

Also, my mom has a Brown Turkey fig tree in her yard that she loves (came with the house), but needs food to make as many figs as she wants. Can anyone recommend a good fig tree food? I'm collecting Christmas presents already.

Oh, and she loved the Early Girl tomatoes, until I gave her a couple Sioux. Now she sees the difference. I thought so.

Hey everyone, will y'all be publishing your grow lists here when we get closer to spring? If La Nina turns out to affect things, it'll give gardeners like me a heads up on what specific varieties y'all believe will cope.

Charles

Oops! Posted that question in the wrong thread!

Rebecca, It is okay to not like the flavor of any tomato variety (or anything else). Flavor perception is controlled by our taste buds and every single person's taste buds are as unique as they are, so there's no way we're all going to like the flavor of the same things. There are thousands of tomato varieties available for folks who grow their own plants from seed, so of course there's going to be varieties that taste better (and worse) to different people. You shouldn't fret over it. If Black Cherry doesn't make your taste buds happy, look for another variety that will! Finding those special varieties that delight one's own taste buds is my favorite thing about gardening---I've grown many hundreds of varieties of tomatoes just searching for the ones that make my family's taste buds happy. It was the search for the tomato flavors that made our taste buds shout "Wow!" that led me into growing heirloom varieties in the mid- to late-1990s, and that has been the greatest adventure of my gardening life.

Charles, It is okay that you posted your comment here. We're pretty easy-going on this forum and don't care where a person posts their comments. I assure you there will be plenty of favorite variety posts coming soon.

I start the monthly harvest/conversation thread each month just to give all of us a place for general garden-related (or off-topic) conversation of all types. It seems easier for all of us to keep up with what is going on in gardens across the state on this thread, instead of searching through dozens of more specific topic-oriented threads. There's nothing wrong with specific topic threads like "What is your best-producing tomato?" or whatever, but I also like a general topic thread like this one where everyone can just say what's going on now, ask questions about it, and read along to see what is happening in everyone else's yards and gardens at the same time. Sometimes we are all seeing similar issues/problems/pests at the same time, and yet at other times, one specific part of the state may be having an issue of some sort that the rest of us aren't encountering. I learn so much from others who describe what is happening where they live.

Oklahoma has a very wide variety of soil and climate areas, from the normally wet/moist/humid eastern and northeastern parts of the state to the normally hot/dry/parched southwest quarter of the state ,etc., and it always is interesting to me to see what is going on in various regions all at the exact same time. Sometimes we have folks in one part of the state flooding while folks in another part of the state can't get rain to fall at all. We help each other through the bad times and rejoice together in the good times, and we have a great gardening family right here, 365/24/7.

Dawn

For years I would read rave reviews of black plum (tomato). I tried and tried, but it was the only tomato I can recall which, for me, was a true "spitter." Dawn's right, everyone is different and there are plenty of varieties out there.

I chopped up my red onions yesterday. The 1015s are doing ok in storage, but the reds were sprouting. If you haven't checked your onions and garlic lately, you should.

Stupid chickens will NOT stay out of the garden. Speckles new name is #@%& head. I was IN THE PEN, thinking I was plugging an escape route when I heard wings flap and she was outside. She was in the spinach bed when I got up this morning. I am spending all my garden time chasing chickens and trying to find ways to keep them out of the beds. Wings. Must. Be. Clipped. Or we will have chicken and dumplings.

George, I confess that I thought Black Plum was a spitter when I first tasted it. Yet, oddly, it grew on me (pun intended), so I still occasionally grow it, though not nearly as often as I used to. It is, I admit, the most unusual tomato flavor ever, and most people either 100% love it or 100% hate it with no in-between. The lady who delivered our mail for about our first 15 years here liked it a lot, so I usually grew at least one Black Plum plant each year just so I could leave bags of those tomatoes in the mailbox to surprise her.

I hope that Jerreth is doing well and that her health continues to improve. I know that you are taking good care of her because that's the kind of good person that you are.

Amy, Some of my Red River onions are beginning to sprout too and I need to get busy chopping them up. I'll probably plant the ones that are sprouting in a spare corner of the garden near the fence. They'll flower in the springtime and the little tiny beneficial insects love onion flowers, so they'll attract beneficial insects and then feed them as well. My white Highlander onions aren't sprouting yet, and I'm happy about that, and the garlic isn't sprouting yet.

Speckles certainly is your cross to bear this year, isn't she? Clipping the wings will help, but some chickens with clipped wings still can manage to jump/hop/flap their way over a short fence. Maybe a small chicken tractor would keep her contained. You could make it out of PVC pipe and chicken wire and keep it pretty lightweight. You could build one similar to the one linked below, but even smaller, since she already has a coop to live in. Then, you just take her out of the coop daily and put her in the tractor. Occasionally, you move the tractor from one place to another so she has a new place to dig and scratch. Some gardeners build their chicken tractor the exact same size as their raised beds. Then, when a bed needs its soil to be worked, they pull the tractor over the bed and let the contained chicken or chickens dig and scratch and work their way through the bed, eating insects and weed seeds and preparing the plot for the next planting period.

Example of a simple chicken tractor

Our Cemani hen continues to hatch out chicks. There were two new ones yesterday, and they may actually be Cemanis, though it is too early to tell if they are flood-blooded or half-breeds since most of our poultry are not Cemani. Some of the other chicks she has hatched look nothing like her, so clearly the eggs upon which she is setting are a communal nest with eggs contributed by many hens. However, the last 6 chicks that have hatched look like their mama, and I hope their looks don't change. I call our Cemani rooster our Halloween rooster because of his dark coloring. He is all black from head to toe---his comb, his feathers, his feet, everything. When Chris bought the Cemani eggs to hatch in our incubator, I didn't think much about it either way. Now that we have a couple of Cemanis, though, I confess that I find their color fascinating. We have one rooster who has nearly perfect conformation and is solid black as he should be. Then we have a second rooster that is mostly black but has some green and silver spangles. I suppose if we were breeders, we would have destroyed him so he wouldn't produce other off-types like himself, but since we're just people with chickens that we hope will patrol the yard and garden and eat bugs, we kept him. Both the Cemani roosters are very aggressive with non-Cemani roosters, but don't seem to fight with one another.

I've had my garden gate open for 2 days and the poultry won't even go in there. I wonder if the ocean of tall four o'clocks that surround the gate area have blocked the poultry's view of the garden for so long that the chickens have forgotten there is a garden on the other side of the gate.

I think I'm going to start faithfully planning for next year's crops although I don't want to yet. I had plans to wintersow and now I am starting to question whether it will be successful or not since it's supposed to be warmer than normal. I have several jugs saved and maybe I'll just save them just in case the weather changes it's mind.

George, the last year we lived in Fairland and I had a garden I had tomato seeds that I had gotten from you. I don't recall which kind honestly, it's been about 4 years. However, I sure wish I knew because that year I had the best harvest! I know a couple plants were some sort of roma. The trunk on them was like a small tree, so hardy and tough. I was so proud that year!!!

I would love to hear what those of you who live around OKC area with somewhat of a clay soil are planting. I am going to start a gardening notebook for this house so I can keep track of what thrives and what doesn't. Hopefully I can keep up with it and be diligent. I am going to throw in some notes from you all here too. :)

As for this years late planting, I am getting quite a few tomatoes now. Nothing seriously compares or even comes close to home grown tomatoes. Speaking of, I think I'll have a salad tomorrow so I can use some of my tomatoes. Starting next week, I am going to just bite the bullet and pull the pepper plants out. I've gotten enough banana peppers and Lilo has eaten enough chili peppers, lol. I sure wish I knew someone that delivered straw bales in the Edmond area.

Summer of 1980, my oldest was not yet 2, my 18 year old brother in law was living with us and it was HOT. HOT. HOT. When it finally cooled off there was a fire burning underground at a former landfill a few blocks from us. When we could finally open the windows, the stench from that fire kept them closed. I don't remember when BIL finally left, but it wasn't soon enough. It was a rough summer.

Melissa, I agree that nothing compares to the flavor of a home-grown tomato. That's why I grow an excessive number of them, and also preserve them in many ways including canning, freezing and dehydrating. I try to make it possible for us to have homegrown tomatoes year-round, though obviously not fresh ones at all times. Even preserved home-grown tomatoes are better than puchased ones. I won't even buy a grocery store tomato. Well, sometimes I'll buy a little plastic container of cherry or grape tomatoes to toss into salads in the winter, but there's no way that they are even close to having the real thing. I'd rather just rehydrate my dehydrated cherry tomatoes and toss them onto salads in winter. Their texture isn't the same, but the flavor is great.

Amy, It was a rough summer. I just think of it as the summer of sweat. My car that I had at the time didn't even have an air conditioner in it. By the time the following summer rolled around, I had a car with an AC.

Until 2011, I truly thought we'd never have that sort of heat again. I had a hard time keeping the chickens alive in 2011. Let's hope that sort of weather doesn't repeat itself in our lifetime.

Dawn

cochiseinokc, that's a very nice sized harvest you have there!!! It's been a few years since I planted sweet potatoes but am definitely planting some this next gardening year. We go through them like crazy......baked sweet potatoes, sweet potato fries, and just eating them raw like carrots. Oh, not to mention Lilo (our mini schnauzer aka my gardening buddy) loves sweet potatoes too.

Dawn, apparently Lilo agrees with both of us on the taste of homegrown tomatoes. She goes to the little garden and picks her own cherries then comes on the patio and eats them. She's gotten pretty good at harvesting too because now I only see her eating the red ones as before she would grab a green one and chew on it.

Getting back to sweet potoates, my youngest daughter wanted to do the potato in water trick. So, now we have two sweet potatoes jars of water. They have taken off quite nicely. Not sure what I am going to do with them though when they start getting too big for the jars lol. I have decided to grow my own slips this next year. So excited!!

Cohise, That's a beautiful harvest of sweet potatoes. I surprise field mice in the garden fairly often, but do have one little orange cat who likes to hunt for them, so the field mice aren't as much of a problem in the garden as they used to be.

Melissa, Lilo seems pretty smart to me. She's the perfect garden companion animal as long as she doesn't take more than her fair share of the ripe tomatoes. Like all gardeners, she's learning as she goes. Now, if only she could master the art of weeding without harming desirable plants, then she'd be incredibly helpful in the garden.

When the sweet potatoes outgrow the jars, you can plant them in pots of soil (there will be a transition period as their roots adjust to growing in soil versus growing in water) or move them to bigger jars (like milk jugs with a larger opening cut at the top). Or, y'all could take cuttings from the plants growing in jars and root the cuttings for new, smaller plants. There's lots of ways to go with this project. Long ago, I used to grow sweet potatoes in jars in the kitchen window all winter just to have something green and easy to grow indoors during the winter.

Growing your own slips indoors in spring is easy. All you need is a container, a sweet potato or two, and moist sand.

Dawn

Sweet potato in water was my mom's standard potted plant. Except for the ugly palm she brought back from Florida it is the only indoor plant I remember as a kid.

I am envious of the sweet potato harvest. Maybe next year.

I thought I lost all the cabbages I started from seed and went and bought more at Lowes. Today I discovered like 6 plants hidden among the Brussels sprouts. Also a broccoli variety I thought I'd lost. I cleanned the grass out of the flower beds and planted my extra kale, cabbage and collards there. I will STILL have extra Lowes cabbage. What was I thinking?

I am still trying to keep the chickens contained. My pyramid bed has been planted THREE times. I thought I had it fenced and covered. Speckles just stuck her scrawny neck under the fence and dug it up. She is facinated with that bed. I nailed the fence down at the base yesterday. The plan is to clip wings tonight. They are getting up on the back fence. Only a matter of time until they are out of the yard. I don't even know the people behind us. What makes them decide they don't want to sleep in the coop? I have had a couple decide they would sleep on the roof!

Brought in my biggest harvest yet today - 5 tomatoes (4 Fourth of July and a blushed German Johnson), 2 cukes, 6 jalapenos, and a handful of green beans. (The SS100s were consumed while harvesting.) This is October 29. I am still going to be ripening tomatoes on the vine in November. This is nuts!

Saw on Facebook where Stringers put additional seed packets on BOGO clearance. Came home with 14 packs for just under $20. Mostly Botanical Interests, but a few Baker Creek. Listada de Gandia eggplant, Glacier, SS100, Martino's Roma, and Rosso Sicilia tomatoes, Peppers - Charleston Belle, Pimento, Yolo Wonder, Poblano, Cayenne, and NuMex Joe Parker, rudbeckia, cosmos, and Shasta daisies. Also got a pack of spinach seeds to put in my mom's Christmas stocking, because she asked me to show her how to grow it. Also got a packet of Super Sioux I ordered. I'm in pretty good shape as far as veggie seeds now for next year, just need to get lettuce and spinach, and Sun Gold (although I can probably buy plants here), and Ark. Little Leaf cukes. And herb seeds. They didn't have any herbs on sale.

Amy, Cabbage is very useful. You can eat it fresh. You can cook it many different ways. You can ferment it into sauerkraut (the easiest thing on earth to make). You even can make it into freezer slaw or fresh cole slaw. Cabbage soup. I am of the opinion that it is impossible to have too much cabbage. Freshly harvested heads will last in the refrigerator for many weeks. You possibly could throw chunks of cabbage at Speckles when she is digging up the garden, not that it would deter her. Speckles is either very hungry, very adventurous or she is a psycho.

When we have a chicken decide to sleep outdoors, it usually is because someone else (normally a rooster, but could be a little snake or something) upset them inside the coop so they don't want to go back in there. They usually get over it pretty quickly. If we can reach them, we catch them and make them go inside the coop. If we can't catch them, we let them roost in the tree. Usually, the next rainy night (especially a cold rainy night) convinces them that roosting in a tree (or on top of a coop) is no fun and they return to sleeping inside the coop at night. Occasionally an owl preys on a chicken roosting outside and that breaks any other chickens of wanting to roost outdoors.

Rebecca, Congrats on the harvest. Enjoy the late heat and all the good it is bringing to you----like a late tomato harvest. Sometimes the weather helps more than it hurts and this is one of those times. At least the daily high temperatures have dropped enough that the sun isn't cooking your tomatoes for you.

You do know that no matter how many seeds you have, you'll still want more, right? Just want to be clear about that. How many seeds are enough? None of us can answer that question because we all just keep acquiring more. Clearly too many seeds is never enough.

Dawn

Jerreth is constantly improving. Thanks, Dawn. We're both looking forward to going back to work. But she's not ready yet.

Cochiseinokc, nice harvest! A good harvest of sweet potatoes always perks me up quite a bit!

By the way, we have been experimenting with sweet potato greens as a potherb. They are simply wonderful! I cut growing tips and tender leaves. We steam them like spinach and serve as a side dish. Or, we include them in stir fry or soups. I'm starting to think, "Where have you been all my life?!" Here's a picture:

It's not the best picture. But it works.

Melissa, what year was it that I sent you tomato seeds? I might be able to look it up and find out what kind I sent. I'm betting it was Baker Family Heirloom, if they were round. But, they could be any number of varieties.

Even while convalescing Jerreth is working. She sits in her recliner (between taking short walks) and studies her on-line masters degree, or she works on course for our upcoming homesteading website. I'm doing a lot of writing for the website. Last night I got about 3/4 through an article dealing with dealing with a stoppage in egg production. Our first courses to go on-line with be on yogurt, beans, chickens, starting a garden, and... I can't remember the order of some of them. I know, soon enough, I'll be writing a course on sweet potatoes and tomatoes.

So glad to hear that Jerreth is getting better!

George, It was 2012. I distinctly remember because we got a new puppy. My tomato plants were beautiful until she decided to start jumping in the 3' raised beds and going to town digging. Darned dog, lol. That would be great if you had it noted somewhere and if you do......that is awesome and I would be very appreciative!! :)

Well, sorry, it appears I didn't write it down. I searched my 2012 file on seed sent and didn't find any Melissa. What were the tomatoes like? Perhaps I can figure it out.

No worries at all George. I appreciate you looking though. The tomatoes I was talking about though that did so well were roma's. They were bigger roma's though. That's all I can tell you about them. The plant was like a small tree with the base (stalk) being so thick and sturdy. It was amazing. Although, that year I did actually repot my seedlings 3x before I planted them in the ground.

I tried beefsteak this year and honestly I don't think I'll try them again unless, of course, I have some seeds leftover that I don't remember. The one plant I got did not produce well at all. The tomatoes weren't big at all and were oddly shaped. I was so disappointed. I wanted a tomato that was beefy. Maybe you, or Dawn, or anyone here can point me to a more meatier tomato that fares well.

I have started saving the cardboard from paper towel rolls so I can make my own little pots when I start seeds. I think I have like 4, lol. I need MORE!!!!!

I need to block the seed sites. I seriously do not need to be buying more seed. I have more important things to be spending money on like school loans.....ugh. Gotta get them paid off so I can spend my extra on seeds (insert crazy face here).

Thats why im doing seed swaps, i dont ha e to spend money buying seed that way!

Looks like ill finish Oct with more tomatoes than II can eat. I cut back all my plants and brought the fruits inside, erapped them in newspaper and put in the pantry. Now theyre all turning ripe at the same time. Ive got quite a chunk on the vines yet, so ill need to do another round before frost. Hopefully that means I'llI'll have ripe tomatoes for thanksgiving.

Last day of October, Halloween and last day of the October harvest thread. I am waiting for November weather. Gave up on any fall weather in October. I cannot get into fall with out cool weather. I know we will wake up one morning to cold weather and winter will be here. I still have several projects to get done before cold weather but mid 80's is not the weather I intend to do them in. So I am behind yet again!!!!!

Melissa, Remember that you can get cardboard tubes from holiday wrapping paper too, and each roll can be cut into many little segments for seed starting.

Are you wanting a meaty beefsteak to use as a slicer on sandwiches? If you are, I can name a few, but I need to be sure you want a beefsteak versus a slicer. There's a difference, especially with older open-pollinated beefsteaks. The older beefsteaks often come in sort of lumpy and mis-shapen incarnations, particular from early-season flowers that often come as fused blossoms/megablooms in cool weather and give very oddly shaped tomatoes that are hard to use because by the time you cut out the odd lobes that have doubled back and folded over, you've lost a lot of potentially usable tomato flesh. If you want a more standard round or oblate slicer that isn't a lobed, I tend to refer to those more as slicers than beefsteaks. I happen to love beefsteaks for their flavor, but find them frustrating at times because they are so lumpy, bumpy and mis-shapen.

Jen, I am very careful about trades that involved saved seed. If people aren't growing their plants in proper isolation, properly screen-caged to prevent cross-pollination or bagging blossoms, then you never know what you're going to get. Some of the time you get exactly the tomato you're expecting, for example, but other times you get a mutt that is not something you wanted. That wouldn't matter to me with something like zinnias or green beans, but with tomatoes, I am picky and want exactly what I want, not a crossed surprise variety. I guess it is just because I am so darned picky about my tomatoes. Yes, you can build up a great supply via trades and seed exchanges, but if you are a garden control freak like I am, you might not like the surprises you get.

I've never gotten badly crossed seed from anyone on this forum, but have gotten crossed seeds from other seed trades.

Dawn

stockergal, I came back to add that I am sick of the October weather. Like you, I long ago gave up on the idea of having autumn weather in October. I'm now pinning my hopes on November and hoping that November doesn't let us down!

Usually by now I am able to do some garden cleanup because we've had some really cold nights, but with the snakes still out, garden or yard cleanup remains out-of-the-question. I'm patiently (okay, maybe not so patiently) waiting for a real cool-down so I can clean up the garden. The garden doesn't realize it is clean-up time. Thanks to all the heat, everything keeps growing and growing into one wild, crazy overgrown jungle. The good part of that is that there's lots of flowers in bloom for all the butterflies that are out and about every day loving the hot weather late in the season.

It currently is 84 degrees at our house, and the forecast high for today is 87. Does that sound like Halloween weather to anyone here? It sure doesn't feel like Halloween weather to me. At least the nights here in the latter half of October have begun to cool off quite a bit, so that's at least better than it was in September or the first half of October.

There's rain in the forecast for later this week, but I'll save that for another day since we will start the new November thread tomorrow, and the rain isn't expected until November.

Dawn

Eh, i really don't care. I don't have a discerning enough palate to know good tomatoes from bad. Besides, any tomato that actually gets ripe is "good" for me.