Thanks Amy! New month hopefully cooler temps

Amy, thanks for starting the new thread. The temps have been cooler for me, but, still not cool enough. Its 91 now, but, the computer is showing that next Sat night could get down in the high 40's

I'm having better luck with fall plantings over at Jennifer's:

Collards to the right ,spinach to the left , further down is Swiss Chard , Kale , Mustard , carrots , beets ,lettuce, radishes , Kohlrabi , rutabaga , turnips at the far end. fall onions are planted in at the outer edges but haven't come up yet.

Insect pressure hasn't been as bad there as over east.

it's a work in progress. Hopefully the cool down will give it a boost.

More to come later hopefully.

Rick

Rick, your plants look good, they are far ahead of anything I have. I think the shade helped your plants in the hot weather. I have radishes and tender greens planted under a tree, they came up quicker, and look better than anything else I have planted.

I dug one row of sweet potatoes, and was very disappointed. The ground is so hard and the overgrown Johnson grass robbed most of the nutrient and sunlight from my potato vines. This is what I got from where about 20 plants were planted, many of the plant had no potatoes, some had even died. I had a lot of small potatoes, but not many nice ones. I am not going to try to feed the whole county next year, I get more food if I keep the planting small and care for it properly.

My plans are to plow the rest of the sweet potatoes out of the ground. I am not getting enough potatoes to worry about damaging them, and I am not man enough to did them out with a spading fork.

My pasture garden is getting a large infestation of stripped blister beetles, I will more than likely have to spray to save my plants. The beetles are going after the small pig weed, but are starting hit my turnips as they strip most of the pig weed.

2 and 1/2 inches here in Norman. inside of a couple of hours.

No need to water today.

Now for the cool down.

Bring it on I say.

Might have to wear a coat come Sat morning (forecasting 43).

think the heat has finally broke. (Well heck , it ought too , it's Oct now)

Might take a freeze to get rid of all the grasshoppers over east though.

Rick

Work was cancelled tonight so I came home and didn't know what to do with myself. Didn't need to water because we got a much needed 2 inches of rain.

Tom had fixed dinner because he thought I was working until 8. So much free time. So, I went to the shop and put a first coat of paint on the vanity. I really like the color.

A sad thing, tho...two roaming dogs got one of my hens today. It's so frustrating. She is a buff minorca--the same variety as Stella, my hen that was also killed by a dog a few months ago. Her name was Jonquil. I called her "Little Stella". Now, I have no buff minorcas. Tom saw it before I got home and took care of the body.

Larry, I'm watching the forecast and as soon as I see a frost on the 9-day, I'm going to dump my sweet potatoes to let cure in the hoop house.

I didn't look at the garden today, so nothing to report other than it got a good nourishing rain.

Yay for rain. Jennifer I am glad Tom handled it but so sad for you. I know how you feel.

We got a little rain, not enough to have run-off, but it did wet the soil.

No collards of mustard up from the last planting on the 1st. I still need to plant garlic, but I have plenty of time for that. I noticed that I am getting radishes up large enough to eat.

Nearly everything from my earlier planting of beets, greens, and carrots is gone, I expect to insects. I would like to plant again, but about half way expect the same thing to happen again.

Jennifer, I have one container with a sweet potato plant in it, but I don't expect to get any potatoes off of it, it received very little care.

We got better than 2" yesterday, mostly early evening.

We got rain too. Not sure how much because I didn’t have my rain gauge up.

I'm glad we all got some rain. I wish for more in a couple of days, but it isn't in the forecast.

Larry, I agree about not trying to grow too much. It's good to grow what you can care for properly. Hopefully that's enough for you/your family and a bit to share.

The garden looked happy today. I had to water the hoop house and a couple of pots on the shop porch.

Got another coat of paint on the vanity.

And blended the young girls into the main coop. That's always so scary for them. They're really upset. They look mostly grown, but their combs are fully developed yet and they are a bit smaller that the older ones, other than the two bantams. It's funny, they still have chick noises at that age especially when they're upset. I put them all on the same roost bar when it got dark. They kept trying to go into their familiar coop. They're huddled together.

Anyway....

Not much to talk about that is garden related.

At what temps do grasshoppers go away

Kim, I can't tell at what grasshoppers go away, but they can hang on a lot longer than you would think. My best guess is that the frost kills a lot of their food, the cold weather slows them down and many get eaten by predators. I think they can freeze to death also, but I don't know at what temp. I did notice a few grasshoppers here in late winter and early spring.

I noticed that the Vates collards and the curly mustard that I planted on 10-1 is breaking through the soil, and I did not see any blister beetles, but I expect that the beetles will be out when it warms up, my min/max says that it got down to 52 last night.

I pull the plants out of 6 mineral tubs. I had one tub with a sweet potato in it, but I got to pull the plant from 3 tubs, where it had grown across them and rooted. I also had bunching and onions in 3 tubs. I don't know how the onions lived, they received so little care. I saved 2 sprouts from the potato that I hope to replant, if can remember to go back and pick them up. I have got to change my habit of trying to save everything, that is one reason I get more plants than I can care for. I think I will try to save a few of the bunching onions, and just cut the root end off and plant it. I am thing that may give me a young tender onion in a few months. I have onions running out my ears anyway, so It won't hurt to play with a few of them. If I were a smart man I would just buy a package of seeds and plant them.

When it drys a little I will go dig a few more sweet potatoes, It looks like we will get enough for me and Madge, but there wont be a lot to give away, and if I think I will be low on supply I can buy some to store.

Well, I have rested long enough, I had better go play in the dirt.

Jennifer, I think that you were the one that said that you was interested in my sweet potato jungle. This is a picture of the harvest from the 2nd row. I started with 21 plants in each of the 5 rows, spaced on 3' centers. I have never planted that close before, nor have I ever let the weeds take over as much as this year. I started with 104 plants spaced at about 14 to 18 inches apart. My production really dropped this year, I think because of me not being able to care for the gardens. We had a lot of hot weather, up to 108 degrees here, and I did not water much.

I have mowed a path over the next row I plan to dig. I expect to dig those potatoes tomorrow, I am just not able to work very long at a time.

The date stamp is wrong on the picture. I had the battery out to recharge, that may have been what caused the date to be yesterday.

Those are great looking potatoes. Even if it’s not as many as you hoped for. I am already planning next year. I really need to do a full seed inventory.

Larry you got enough sweet potatoes for a few Thanksgiving dinners at least.

All my Covingtons died from heat or grasshoppers way early on in the summer.

Rick

Rick, all of the potatoes I have dug so far are Covington. I still have 1 row of Covington, I row of Red Wine Velvet. and one row of Purple sweet potatoes, plus 4 plants that I planted in the north garden, which are Covington yet to dig. I planted the 4 slips in the north garden because I was afraid I would lose the plants ( shown ) in the south garden. I have had good luck with the Covington and did not want to lose them. I cut 4 ends of of the plants in the south garden and planted them in the north garden where it would be easier to care for them. I have cared for the 4 plants in the north garden much better. they are just much younger and I want them to grow as long as possible. I feel sure I will have enough potatoes to make slips, plus plenty to eat, but I cant give away as many as I normally do.

I just cant do like I did this year any more. I must have started close to 1000 slips, and 1000's of other plants. We just planted way more plants than we could care for. My wife tells me ever year that I am planting too much, I think that it is about time to listen to her.

I hate to say it Larry but I think she is right. If we over do it we can’t take care of it all. I had to cut my garden in less than half. But as I can I might add a little. I might not. I hope to get some stuff done in the garden.

Our average frost date is in late Oct.. We are not down to frost weather yet, but it looks like we are headed in that direction. My min/max is showing 39 degrees, I found that hard to believe so I went out to the car to check the thermometer on it, it showed 38 degrees. We often run about 5 degrees colder than Fort Smith, which shows a temp of 45. I checked the 15 day forecast and it looks like we just had the coldest night for the next 15 nights. The forecast did not show a lot of chances for rain in the near future, but with the weather staying cool I can water enough to keep the plants looking good.

I feel so much better when it is cool enough to get out and a few things. October has been my favorite month for a long time, when I was young it was because of hunting and camping.

I hope all of you have a great day. As soon as dew drys I want to work on digging another row of sweet potatoes and cleaning some of the old plants out of the south garden.

Goodness it cooled down today. Spent most of the day outside away from home. It was wonderful

Kim, I read an article about grasshopper eggs. Apparently, we need a very wet May--like too wet in an almost bad way, to drown the eggs and slow them down. I don't know how cold is too cold for grown ones, tho.

Larry, that looks like a great harvest of sweet potatoes to me. I would be thrilled with that amount. I'm hoping to get a dozen of nice ones.

I really enjoyed the cold morning and the perfect weather day. I like it when you can wear long sleeves and it's fully sunny, but cool enough that it's not too hot at all even in the afternoon.

I walked through the gardens and pulled the okra, but that's all I did, other than watering a few pots.

Everything looks good for the most part. Rick's plants in the SG are really coming along.

I was excited to see tiny beans on the plants now. Fall green beans are a great thing!

I bought some pansies and need to figure out a time to get them planted around. The white and black ones will go in the front and the colorful ones, in the back.

We spent most of the day shopping for various things from groceries to bathroom remodel stuff. We've ran into the next issue. The vanity is sitting in the shop and I've painted it so it's ready to bring back to the house. The latest problem is the countertop. Once again, we're trying to do this on a budget. The issue with our countertop/vanity is that it needs a right side sink because of the drawers in the vanity. A center sink wouldn't fit because of the drawers on the left side. There's several options including a vessel sink with a specially cut counter. But, we don't want to spend a lot of money. I've talked Tom into making the top drawer look like a drawer (a faux drawer!), but it will be glued shut. He doesn't really need the top drawer because his new mirror opens up for storage. Great. That is all fine. But, our vanity is not a common size. I found a cheap countertop/sink and vanity combo that is the right size. We'll just use the counter top from the set because it's cheaper than having a piece of quartz cut. It's cultured marble, but looks pretty decent. What a pain this remodel has been. I really want to use this vanity because it is solid wood....and I like the sage green that I've painted it. Honestly, I wanted to find an old dresser for the hall bath and paint it sage green and put a sink in it, but bought a vanity instead because of the work involved.

Trying to think of something else gardenish to talk about, but can't think of anything right now.

Jennifer, the sweet potatoes are not the quality of potatoes I normally get, many of these potatoes are crooked. I think they spent too long in the potted container. I don't normally do that, but with the number of plants I was trying to get I did not spend the time I should have on quality. I will know more about my theory when I did the 4 plants in the north garden because they had no roots at all on them when I planted them, of course my very hard soil has not helped.

I will try to dig another row of sweet potatoes today. I am also trying to do a little work on the pasture garden, it seem that there is always extra work when starting a new garden. I may sneak out and take a picture of it, its not much, but I enjoy going out there and getting dirty. I will have to put a hot wire around it to keep the deer out of it this winter when their food supply starts to drop, but I wont worry about it a lot because I will have plenty of fall and winter food in my north and south garden. I am not planing on planting any food in the wildlife garden this fall.

Looks like what I'm trying to plant out over east.

Rick

Well, I have all of my sweet potatoes dug out of the south garden, my grand daughter has a row of purple sweet potatoes out there that I may dig for her, but I am really ready to retire from the sweet potato business for this year.

Here are all my Covington, except for the 4 plants in the north garden.

Here is the one row of Red Wine Velvet. Note that these are sprouted very badly. My guess is that these potatoes were in the ground too long, plus, I doubt that the very hot weather that we had for so long, then followed by a good rain helped any either. I probably should have dug them shortly after the rain.

Those look great Larry. How do you like to eat them? I like them cubed and roasted in the one in bacon grease :)

Kim, we eat them mostly as dessert, Madge likes them just baked with butter on them. I also like them raw. The Red Wine Velvet is the best, but I sure need to learn how to grow and store them. The Covington store much better for me, but this year was a let-down, but it could have been much worse. I am in a hurry to dig my other 4 Covington plants. This is the first time Covington potatoes have let me down, or maybe I let them down by not taking better care of them.

We had a grand daughter that came to see us and fix some like french fries, they were pretty good, but it was a little strange for me, I had never had a sweet french fry with garlic salt on it.

After I dig the purple sweet potatoes I will try to fire up my John Deere and plow the area, I think I can find a few more potatoes, but the ground is too hard to dig. I just pried out the potatoes right under the plant.

Kim, I use to like bacon grease on everything, but Madge does not use bacon grease, and I have not had any in so long that it would probably make me sick.

I like sweet potato fries with cinnamon sugar. I’ve never eaten one raw.