Thanks for starting the thread, Kim. I am still having trouble posting, but I did plant a few more onions this morning. It is so dry here it is hard to get anything to grow. I expect that I can get the onions to grow by watering them, but as dry as it is it is hard to water very deep. I have a lot of work that needs to be done in the garden, but the dry soil is no fun to work because of it being hard and dusty.

The brandywines are beginning to blush so I am bringing them in so the grasshoppers don’t get them first. I know that doesn’t give them the best flavor but I will be cooking these down for sauce.

I worked today but am still not 100%, but so much better. I was only able to water today. And re-pot three succulents to get them ready to come indoors.

From the other thread....

Kim, I love my houseplants, but they do get neglected during the garden season. My house isn't great from house plants. The kitchen window and dining window face south, so I have things crammed in those windows. We have a bedroom window that faces south, but we don't put anything there. Our bed is under that window (not great for feng shui, I know.) There's a south facing window in our "primary" bathroom, but it's the bathroom that Tom uses, and he would hate dealing with plants in the windows. We have no west facing windows, but I have plants crammed into the east facing ones. And some low light plants in other places.

They do bring joy especially in this darker season. And it's time to reload the battery candles with new batteries.

I wish I had something garden related to discuss but really don't have anything new.

I'm happy that we are supposed to get rain in a few days. I'll put the garlic in there. I'm also happy that there's no frosts in the 9 day.

Madge told me that she was not bringing any plants in this year, so, that leaves an east window open for me to place a plant or two in. I think I will start a couple of Covington in a pot to have for slips next spring. I don't recall growing a plant for slips for that long, but I don't think I will have a problem with it, it wont get as much heat of light as it wants, but it will give me a head start on slips.

I planted a few more onions today. I seem to run across a stray every now and then, and just place them in my junk row in the garden. As I was cleaning out a plant to make room for the onions, I removed 2 tomato plants that had the worse case of Rootknot nematodes that I have ever seen. Maybe I had been better off trying to address the nematode issue rather than planting onions in that area, but I may do something different when I remove more plants.

My garlic seems a little slow coming up, but I get impatient with about anything.

Kim what time did you plant you Brandywine? About all of my summer plant are about shot.

Jennifer, my plan was to have a window on the west and south side and put some little IVs on my half wall between the bathroom and kitchen. I had beautiful drawings all planned out of how this house was going to function and they ended up not working that way. I am thankful for my home, but I’m ready to expand. Larry I planted my Brandywine the same time as all the others in the spring. Actually, it was right after the spring fling. I brought it home with about 20 others and the ones I didn’t give away I just stuck in the outside of the fence. They did not premium soil or attention really. One of them gets full on East sun and the other one is quite shaded. The shaded one is a giant plant but not much fruit that I can see. They are sprawled all over the ground and living their best life.

I had a some what pleasing trip to the south garden this morning. I pulled a lot of henbit out of the carrots, but still a lot to go. This is my first time to get carrots up that were thin enough to weed. The onions are looking good also, but they are all bunching, and walking onions, and I don't think you can kill them, but they are large enough to start harvesting for the table. My White icicle radishes are about 7/16' in dia., I did not pull any to check how long they are. The Daikon radishes have nice tops, but I doubt they are making radishes yet, I seldom eat them anyway, I just grow them to improve the soil and for erosion control.

My lettuce, arugula, mustard, and turnip greens are large enough to start harvesting. I also counted over 150 garlic that is up. I also found enough Covington potato plants that I can dig up and try to over winter. I think that I have some Covington that are sprouting from last years harvest that I need to cut the sprouting end off and cook the rest of the potato, I will place the sprouting end in a pot to make a house plant through the winter

Got another chip drop today

Kim, it sounds like you have work ahead of you. I have plenty to do, but just cant get to feeling well. I went out to water some this morning, but have not done anything else. I did notice some elephant in a tomato row, I had tried digging it up 2 or 3 weeks ago, but was not digging far enough down the row. I think I will dig the elephant garlic up and replant it where I can keep up with it a little better.

Larry, I’ve had a rough few days, but I have convinced myself that I am going to go and move two carts full of mulch and try to do that every day no matter what

My little great nephew neighbor came and volunteered to help me with the wood chips. What a blessing we got three carts done.

Kim, we have to try to keep going, but most have to learn to pace them selves. I never get everything done that I want, but I try to do a little each day. I watered today and dug up 14 elephant garlic, and worked on a row in the garden to plant them. I made a new row on the south side of my south garden, so the digging was tough, and I still have a little to finish, it will be a 30' row of onions and garlic, I don't need any more of either, but I will enjoy watching them grow.

I need to get up in the morning and work on the deck for a while, then go to the funeral of a classmate tomorrow afternoon. I am just not man enough to do much on any day.

I just tried another way to add a picture, I dont know if it will work, but these are my bunching onions I planted this fall.

Congrats on all the wood chips, Kim, and for the help from your nephew. I got home after dark so didn't have a chance to look at the garden. I left while it was still dark this morning too. Hopefully the entire garden didn't blow away. The wind and fires around here are awful.

Rain is coming tomorrow. I'm super happy about that but, of course, it's our community event.

It's been a day for sure. I got to my daughter's house around 7:30 this morning and our little sweet cheeks has his first cold. He was super fussy and my daughter was exhausted. They just got back from a weekend trip to see her husband's brother and family. I went with her to the doctor and offered to stay a couple of hours longer so she could sleep. I'm sure she's going to get sick too. I am glad she works from home.

Then, had to go into work for a couple of hours this evening.

I'm very excited for my Botanical Interests order. First seeds for next year! Well, other than the ones I save or already had.

I wish I had more garden stuff to talk about. I checked around the carrots and they're sizing up. Beets are a bit fussy. I have yet to really figure out beets.

What's the best fertilizer for root veggies?

That's about all from me. It's cool that there's no frosts on the 9 day. I don't remember such a late first frost. But, I didn't pay attention until 10 years ago.

Larry, we do have to keep going. There are many days I feel like I could do more or should do more but I do what I can and hope for the best. Jennifer I hope you’re daughter and grandbaby get better quickly. It is absolutely no fun being sick. You stay so busy I don’t know how you have time to look at your garden ever. Making my videos has really helped me appreciate the garden even more. My little nephew was so cute. He kept saying how much fun he had helping me. Now I have to be ready every day when he gets home from school so we can move wood chips. That will keep me motivated for sure.

Garden: I have a couple of pepper plants still producing, and the peas I planted a few weeks ago are about 6" tall. Hoping to get a few pods later this fall. Otherwise, all I'm harvesting is flower seeds. Everything else is toast.

Speaking of toast, there's a fire about 30 miles north of us. Bit of smoke in the air but that's about it.

Houseplants: Mine are struggling, mainly because I get forgetful of them. Before I got married, I had one entire room full of plants, and that house was awful for plants. Just about everything struggled. But that's where I learned that plain old table lamps could be substituted for grow lights. I kept things alive, more or less, but that's about it. Now I have to be careful which plants I keep inside because so many are toxic for cats or dogs. Our orange kitty would chew on my plants just to annoy me so I had to keep everything out of reach.

HJ, I tend to just use fish emulsion because it's easiest. And I've been experimenting with using fermented weeds (there's some fancy schmantzy name, but I forget what). Basically throw all your weeds, spent plants, rotting fruits, etc into a bucket, fill with water and let it sit until it stinks to high heaven. Then drain out the water and use it as a fertilizer tea. The plants I used it on do heaps better than the rest, even with this ridiculously sandy "soil" we have out here.

And since you mentioned first frosts, you know the data geek can quote numbers at you. Short answer, average is 11/3 to 11/5. Skip the rest if you're bored by statistics.

For OKC, the average first freeze has been between 11/3 and 11/5 for every 20-year period between 1900 and 2020. The earliest was 10/8 (2012) and the latest was 12/8 (1998), but most of the time in the last 40 years it's been around the first part of Nov. Mind you, this is using 32* as the "frost", and we all know frost can set above that. And this is using an official weather station for the stats and temps a mile away can be different. But for the most part, it looks like we'll be in the later category this year.

Kim, congrats on the wood chips and extra helper, my sympathies on the work ahead of you.

Larry, I'm pretty sure Cliff would say pacing myself is my biggest downfall. I grew up with the "it's gotta get done" mentality and my body refuses to accept I can't do the same amount of work at 48 that I could at 28. He fusses at me every time I go out to mow because it's 100* out there, I'm going buggy eyed and refuse to sit for more than a few minutes.

Hottest ,driest October on record.

But no freeze yet

Guess it's a trade off.

Weather boys say it's all about to change.

I believe it with the way the winds been blowin.

Glad I don't have any tunnel coverings up yet.

All the covers would be in the next cow pasture.

Rick

I’m in the same dry windy situation y’all are. Thankfully we have about five days of rain in the forecast. I feel like we should get at least one of those days. The garden is looking great. The sugar snap peas are all blooming. My bunching onions are about a foot tall, the onion bed is empty, but I have not dug it out yet. The Roselle has taken over and is shading so much stuff that I’m almost ready for it to be done. Which I know will probably happen in the next two weeks. I’m already preparing what to do with all those calyxes. I have pac Choi, broccoli raab, beets, chard, red cabbage, carrots, dill, sage, rosemary, and some non edibles doing great. Jen I have been doing compost tea and it has helped tremendously. Especially growing in pots I have to use something periodically. The comfrey seems to work the best. It is very fragrant.

Jen, I use to push the limits also, but I reached a point to where my body would rebel, now I am afraid to not listen to my body. My wife still says that I do too much, and I tell her that she does too much, and nether one of us is very good at listening to the other. But, I think we do pretty well, considering the health issues we deal with. We are both very thankful things are as good as they are, we both count each day we spend together as a blessing.

I have not been out to the garden yet, but I expect to have more garlic up, the count late yesterday was 215. I did not get out to plant the elephant garlic that I dug up, I hope to do that this morning.

I also need to unload the truck and put the building supplies in the dry. I really dont have a spot to unload it, but I may have some plastic I can put over the lumber.

Rick, the wind has been whipping around here also. This up-coming rain may make me want to plant more turnips, maybe even some grain rye.

Taking a few minutes to catch up before it gets crazy around here.

(I'm laughing because I started this post an hour ago and have been interrupted 3 times)

Jen, it's possible that I'm not remembering every year since 2014. That year the first frost was on Halloween. My garden was very small, but I had nice basil plants on the west side of my house. I had just come from a party and was wearing a black cloak and quickly cut the basil to bring indoors. I saw neighbors watching me from afar. I'm sure they were wondering what in the world I was doing wearing a cloak, cutting herbs in the dark. BUT, they were really confused by me in general. I built my kitchen garden around my round wine bottle bed that's in the middle of that garden. For that year, it was the only thing there. Neighbors asked if it was an altar.

Now, 10 years later, they still think I'm weird.....but normal weird.

BUT, it does seem like every year in my FB memories our first frost came in October since living here.

Technically we've had a frost already but it was very light and only on the top of our cars.

I would like to dry more roselle and have goji berries to pick. And plant garlic.

I have been out working on another row for onions and garlic. The row is on the edge of a wood chip berm, and is pretty crooked, some of the soil was so hard I could not dig it with post hole diggers, but I did get 24 shallow holes which I tossed in some potting soil, and fertilizer. I will rest a while, the go back and plant the 14 elephant garlic, I will plant about 4' of regular garlic, then finish out the row with walking onions.

Our roselle did not do well, it looks dead now, but I think I can save some seeds, and maybe pick a few peddles to try to dry.

I still have some mineral tubs that I need to plant. Not being a "container" grower, it is easy for me to forget them, but I need to work on that, it is bound to be easier or so many people would not be doing it.

This rain better come through! I'm ready to put the hose accessories away for the winter and not have to worry about keeping the entire property alive with a 5/8" orifice. Hopefully all the trees bud out next spring and shake all of this nonsense off.

We actually had a really early frost at my place. Was gone for the week of Oct 14, came back and noticed the zinnia and a few other flowers were toast. Mottled patchwork of bermuda also in a few spots. Surprisingly, the potted lemon tree shrugged it off, albeit a little paler than it was before. Peppers took a little bit of a hit on the foliage, but were still going.

Bring the rain! I'll even tolerate the cold for it.

Larry, you know I was just thinking this morning that my Roselle is planted where my chicken coop set for a year and a half. Might have something to do with why they are so ginormous.

Kim, the first time I tried to grow sweet potatoes was in a spot that had been a chicken pin. I added a lot of compost and tossed in a good bit of commercial fertilizer, and watered often, and heavy, I had vines running everywhere, and long fat roots running everywhere, but no worthwhile potatoes. That was a good lesson in growing sweet potatoes, you can be too nice to them. I think roselle would like those conditions better than the sweet potatoes did.

I did get my onions and garlic planted before going to the funeral of a classmate. I enjoyed seeing other classmates, but it is not pleasant to say good bye to one, but we did discuss about having a reunions more often. we use to have them every 5 years, then changed to every year, then covid hit and things seemed to change. When you hit 81 the odds seem to change much faster. Some of us were talking, and made the statement about not planning on being here 81 years, but no one was wanting to go right now.

I need to go water the onions and garlic in, then cover, or unload my building supplies, then call it a day. This old man has had enough fun for one day.

Not sure if this will come through

It came through, and they look very nice.

It was supposed to be a video but glad the I image showed up

submitted long post earlier and everything including photos were clear and appeared to go through. Never showed up so I may end up with duplicate posts. Houzz does not work well for me. We were blessed with 1” of rain last night. The winds the last two days wreaked havoc on everything and we’ve had so many wildfires in the state. The fire on the 18th burned to our back fenceline and got 150- 170 round bales of my brother’s hay. Jennifer, were the fires this week close to your daughter?

I still have fall tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, several peppers, and a few green beans. We cleaned most of the garden earlier this week, picked all green tomatoes off old plants and made chow chow, then trashed the vines.

I planted sugar snap peas, greens, and a few old onion bulbs for green onions - we’ll see if anything comes up after this rain.

That for is too close for comfort. What kind of tomatoes are those? That is such a healthy looking plant.

Fire

Glenda, most of Arkansas has been under a fire ban for a good while. The closest wild fire that I know of was approx 10-15 miles away, although 3 people died in a house fire in greenwood night before last, but I have no details on it, but it was not related to the wild fire near town.

Your plants are beautiful, I don't have anything looking that nice. The 2 cold night we had a couple of weeks ago killed of damaged everything I had, other that what little fall crop I have. I have such a hard time getting fall crops up, it nearly always my crop late.

I admire the way you seem to always have a beautiful garden. I picked my last cucumber, and pulled the plant a couple of days ago. They were some that I planted from an earlier plant. I found a large cucumber when I was cleaning after the first crop, I hacked the old cucumber into about 1/4" slices and just replanted them under the trellis. I had never done that before, but they grew and gave me a second crop.

I still have a few tomato and pepper plants alive, but they were damaged be the cold night, and I have not been watering them, there are some fruits hanging on them, but very little growth.

I am trying to repair out deck, Madge said that she would like to have it finished be Thanksgiving. some of it I can do, but I am not supposed to lift of exert myself, so I am afraid to do much at a time, so if I start having chest pain, or trouble breathing I just quit and go rest. We hire Madge's son to work when he has the time, but anyone with building skills can stay busy all the time, plus he lives about 65 miles away, and we had rather he take care of his regular customers first, then if he has any free time, he can just come and stay with us and work when he wants to. I think he enjoys his mom's cooking anyway. He lives alone, and other than feeding his horses he has no ties at home. Madge really enjoys her kids and want them to come often, but it just wears her out, and it is almost impossible to get her to sit down and let the kids do the cooking, and I don't think they would want to eat my cooking.

I just sat down to catch up on the forum, I did not intend to write a book, so I had better go and see what I can tear up.

Kim that one is a Better Bush - I have 2 of those and 3 Patio tomatoes in an old feed bunk. I put those plants out about 1st week of August. I’m trying to decide whether to try to cover it and let them grow or pick off all the tomatoes and give it up for the season. I have row cover long enough to cover it but expect I’d have to remove it everyday for light, and some nights it would need a quilt too. Several are big enough to ripen on the counter and rest I can use for chow chow or green tomato relish.

Larry thanks for your kind words - I only show pictures of the good areas - sometimes between the weeds and all it gets away from me. When we were pulling the okra out with the tractor my husband said ”don’t plant this variety anymore” ! He doesn’t understand that growing 8’ tall with trunks bigger than my arm is a good quality. haha

We have cows to work next week and both have doctor appointments so if i was smart I’d give up till Spring. I’ll let you know how that works for me

Glenda, I have to push my okra out with a tractor also. I have a small Kubota that works pretty well for that, the larger tractors are too hard to maneuver in tight spaces. My rows are 30'or less, so I can drop the bucket down to just skim the ground and push the stalks out to the end of the row, waller them around a little to knock the dirt off, then push them up on a 4' x 12' conveyor belt that I have made to drag behind the mower, RTV, or whatever. I then drag the garden waste to the burn pile in the pasture. But, I agree with your husband, I don't like tall okra either, mine got to over 10', and it is too hard to pick when it is tall. I got my okra too thick this year and that may have made grow taller than normal, plus, we had a wetter growing season than normal.

I planted a few more onions today. I quite often find onions or garlic sprouting, so I just find a spot to stick in into the ground. I found a couple of heads of garlic in the shed yesterday, which gave me 27 more cloves to plant, or preserve.

Trying to grow celery from ends I grabbed at work. Some are sprouting really well

Kim, I have tried that with a few things, its fun, but it takes a lot of time. As I was typing this, I happened to think about a cabbage, but I can't see ever wanting to fool with a cabbage.

I cut off a bunch of Madge's house plants this morning, trying to help her get a few of her projects done. I thought, "man what a bunch of material to work with", but we are trying to cut back because we have too many plants, and we have better things to do than working with a bunch of cuttings. Getting old sure takes up a lot of your time.

I was picking out some sweet potato plants this morning while out in the south garden. I want to make sure I have some Covington plants next spring. The two freezing nights we have had killed all the sweet potato plants that I had in the north garden, but I tilled the south garden and replanted with a cole crop, in the process of mowing the vines, and tilling everything in, I have sweet potatoes coming up everywhere, but I am not sure which ones I want to keep, I can't tell by looking at the vines. I will let them grow for a while, hopefully when I dig them up there will be enough of the potato attached to the plant so I can tell what kind it is, if not, I will have to depend on using some of my harvest to make slip.

Josh, did you get rain? We got a little bit and it was nice. I love thunderstorms and rain at night while I'm sleeping.

Glenda,, your garden looks nice! I'm very sorry about your brother's hay. My daughter lives a bit of west of I35.

Not much to update about the garden. I was finally able to look at it this evening. I hadn't put eyes on it since Monday. Everything looks pretty good. The hoop house door had slammed shut probably on Tuesday and remained that way until this evening. Luckily everything seems fine. The spinach seedlings were the only thing that looked a bit fussed.

I did feel good to get home before dark. With the time change coming, there will be days that I'll only get to the animal chores before dark. But I'm ready to rest a little.

Rest and dream about garden 2025.

We are supposed to get more rain this weekend and maybe next week. The garlic will go in at some point in the next week. I'm still not seeing a frost on the 9 day.

Fort Smith is showing a low of 46* tough 11-15, I am often 5 degrees cooler here than Ft. smith, but that still gives me plenty of hope for no more frost for the next 2 weeks. My garden looks pretty good except for the spinach, and the skips in the beets. I still have a lot to learn on spinach and beets. I don't understand why my carrots, collards, and spinach are so slow growing. The lettuce, arugula, and other greens are growing well, I will pick different greens and take to my aunt, uncle, and cousin this afternoon, they love tender greens, so I planted a short row for just for them. I will also take curly mustard and turnip greens, as well as salad fixin. I feel sorryfor my aunt and uncle, they have been so busy all or the life, and now they can't do hardly anything, but I guess we all have that ahead of us.

I hope this rain helps everything grow. Some of my brassicas seem in slow motion. I might put down some plant tone in the morning. I am still moving wood chips and it seems the pile shrunk in the rain. Which makes me look good to the neighbors lol I have a big canning weekend. Trying to get ready for the Market on the ninth

I did not do much today, other than pick veggies and take to aunt and uncle. Aunt and uncle did not look well, so I got medicine and took to them, Madge is making food to take to them tomorrow. It is hard to see someone that use to be so active barely able to get around.

Larry, I know it is so very hard.

I just re-read the last post I made. Lots of typos. lol

Looks like we're in for a rainy time. I still do not have my garlic planted. It looks like Wednesday is supposed to be dry, so I might shoot for leaving work by 330 and plant it then. I do need to clean out a bed to plant it. I'm not doing tons of it. Just one bed. And I might put some in the hoop house too. I could actually plant that tomorrow afternoon since it's covered, and I won't be sitting in the rain.

I still have a goji berries and roselle to pick. But, who knows if I'll get to that. I have a jar of dried roselle and I might need to call it good on that.

I remember that Dawn talked about roselle a lot her last year.

And the Persephone songs popped up on my Spotify. It knows.

I slept until 730 this morning and it felt so good. Tom had to get up early for work, tho.

My cousin's daughter's son is turning 1 today, so I have the BD party to attend.

(First cousin twice removed???? I think I finally have the "removed" and 2nd cousin, 3rd cousin, etc. figured out. Your first cousins' kids are once removed and so on. Your second cousins are the ones you share great grandparents with. Third cousins, great, great grandparents shared and so on)

Sure hoping for a normal, quiet week. I might take down my Halloween decor and put up Thanksgiving. And do some laundry and mess with the house plants a little this evening. Make some soup.

But now, it's off to a BD party.

Sounds like you have your work cut out for you Jennifer. I was going to get my Roselle harvested in stages but decided to wait until it rained really good on it and then I will just pull up a chair for a few hours and get it done. I don’t like the time change happening, and I do not look forward to losing an hour of daylight in the afternoon. When I come home from work, I like to rest for a minute and then get in the garden by five 530 but now I will have to hurry up and get in the garden first. Today I’m going to try to get loads and loads of jam made For the market next weekend. I am starting off with plum regular plum. I got these from school. They were going to throw them away and it was about 3 gallons. They were too soft to serve not bad so I grabbed them. I was talking to my sister about decorating the house like I used to and I enjoyed it so much but I don’t really Have room here. Last year I did hang up some stockings, but that was it. no tree or anything like that of course. Jennifer, we don’t even notice typos because we don’t have time to fix all of our own. Let alone look at somebody else’s. My garden is going gangbusters and I’m really happy with it. I’ve been harvesting slowly, sugar, snap peas, and I have quite a few of those planted. I harvested three huge brandy wines. I did not even know they were in there until I moved a branch. There was one the other day that was half eaten. It was such a pretty tomato on the bottom, but the top half was eaten off. That is why I usually pick them when they are blushing. They’re gonna make a good pot of spaghetti sauce. I’m not really sharing those and I hope to get enough maybe even to can a few jars. Right now I need to go and wash about 100 jars lids and rings and all that and get to canning. Y’all have a good Saturday.

I went to town to get stuff to fix for my aunt and uncles lunch.

When I checked the south garden this morning, I found that a gopher (s) are messing things up. I use to be pretty good at trapping them, but have been a failure the past few years.

The garden looks fair, but I feel that more of the garlic should be up. Some of the cloves were a little dryer than I would have liked for them to be, but they should sprout anyway. I expect that I may have as many 250 garlic up now

I had mowed and tilled a spot where I had knuckle purple hulls. They did not produce as well as I thought they should have. Now that I have run over them with the mower and tiller, I have peas coming up everywhere, but I think I will till again and plant grain (cereal) rye, and save that spot for bulbing onions, its about 5' x 22', that should ho;d all the bulbing onions I will need, especially with all the other kinds of onions I have. I think I will plant more red onions, the family seem to like them better.

I like red onions too. So I went outside and wanted to take a cover off one of my pots because they were being chewed up pretty bad and I thought they might fare better if I had the cover off in this rain. I was very shocked and surprised to see radishes ready to eat when I thought that pot was beets and Swiss chard. I guess I need to go watch my own videos and find out where I planted what

That's a lot of garlic, Larry. I planted 47 cloves today after the BD party. The rain came in a little later than they thought so I was able to work outside from 2:30 to 4:30ish. I still have about 15 cloves to put in the hoop house. That's usually enough for me. Someday I want to grow more so I can pickle more. I only have one jar left.

Kim, how did jam making go? Your radishes look good.

Normally I don't notice typos either and when I do, I normally leave them because I don't care.