SQWIBS Urban Gardening Adventure 2018

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October 16th

• Got some work done on my Rainwater Diverting project. Winterized the drip lines and the Koi pond

• Stopped at the recycle center and picked up some compost, double ground mulch and single ground mulch. I worked on my neighbors garden, laid out some cardboard and mulched.

• Cleaned up the yard a bit.
  

• Installed a hanger for my Texas Tomato Cages.

• Harvested my beans.

• Harvested my one and only Zucchini of the year.

• I have a few pepper plants still growing.

• Gathered some Maypops from the ground

• Cover crops are growing nicely, I added some diluted urea to the cover crop beds 10-1.

• Found out why my grapes were suffering, this cardboard seemed like an ant narcotic.

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October 22nd

• Fig and cover crops, I may transplant this to the deck planter.

• Laura picked up her fall Mums.

• Cut back the Listada di Gandia Eggplant and put the planter to bed.

• Kale and perpetual spinach in the Koi Pond Hugelkultur bed.

• Passion flower still going like gangbusters

October 29th

• Still getting Ruby Red peppers, just eating them green, a few tomatoes here and there. The Tabasco peppers, Kale and Perpetual Spinach and chard are growing nicely, parsley is doing great.

• Harvested my horseradish

• Made my tomato sauce and canned.

• I really love my immersion blender. Used up the last bit of my basil

• I had to be extra careful harvesting the parsley, I dint want any swallowtails in my sauce

• My last stop at the recycle center for the season. They close on the weekends at the end of October till the end of May, so I got some compost, single ground mulch (wood chips) and double ground mulch that I will be putting down when the cover crops die back.

• In situ composting.
  

• Mulch .

• Winterized the drip lines.

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November 2nd


For folks that followed this thread from the beginning know my frustration with my 3 year old asparagus, well this season I put in 10 new crowns along with 2 from the original surviving 10 crowns, well that was also a bust only a few sprouted. I think I am the only person on the planet that cant grow asparagus and zucchini.

• Anyhow, mother nature is doing a better job than me, found these 50' away up on the hill.

• Looks good.

• Lets have a look at the crown, looks good.
  

• Tossed the little guys in my asparagus bed. I got three crown from this, hopefully they will take. It's actually a bit funny, last season I saw these sprouting all over the place and didn't give them much thought. These are Jersey Knights and supposed to be all male plants, not sure how they grew up on the hill.
  

• Great, these guys again, I think they know I planted some apple trees and have two peach trees on order. This is the only guy I saw and by the looks of him, he's not going to last very long.
  

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November 5th

I got a lot done this weekend and my back is feeling it.Got 80% of the wood stacked in the back yard over the weekend. If it wasn't for my Son and Daughter I would never get this done.
First piece I picked up there was a decent size Garter Snake. First I had to clean out and level an area for the wood.

• Ants, I'm really getting tired of these things!
  

• 1/2 cord dropped off.

• Cut back the Tabasco and re-potted to bring inside for overwintering.

• Built a pressurized clean out for the overflow on the rain barrel.

• Found a new home for my irrigation equipment.

• Installed another 4x4 post for some cable and ran another length of the vintage cafe lights.

• I finished winter prepping a few more beds, I wanted to wait for a winter kill of the cover crops but the yard is looking pretty messy and I need to get it cleaned up, that and the weather was so nice especially Sunday. The yard is so small that a few buckets and pallets and it looks trashed! Topped the beds with cardboard then compost.
  

• When the beds settle a bit they'll be topped with double ground mulch and get a good watering with some rain water and urea. During the winter, leaves, rabbit manure/bedding, bio-char and other things will be tossed on top as they become available.
  

• This bed I am doing a bit differently. Rabbit manure and bedding then cardboard, yard trimmings and compost. When this settles a bit I'll top with Ramial? Wood Chips. I plan on planting a peach tree in the right corner and may be trying mushrooms this year. I checked out the wood chips I picked up and they have a lot of small branches with buds on them, there's also a bit of green leaves in with them.
  

• Started another batch of bio-char.

• Re-potted all of the Mums in compost. Funny thing when were looking at Mums, Laura grabs the ones that are all opened up and look beautiful and I grab the ones that are just buds. Re-potted my daughters neglected succulents.

• Pulled some Leeks for dinner, one of our fall favorites.

[ddsack]

MMMMMM! Leek soup!

Been a couple of years since I grew any, I think I'll have to put in just a few next year. They are expensive in stores. I tend to grow too many, and they are hard to keep long term if you don't have enough refrigerator space.

[salix]

Dee - a few years ago I dug mine and just put them in five gallon buckets, left lots of earth on them. Put them in the (unheated) garage and "harvested" them for several months. Might be worth a try...

[ddsack]

Salix, I did the buckets in a garage thing, but I had them sitting in about an inch or two of water just so the roots were wet. It probably would have been better to use soil like you did. They stayed alive, but kept growing and turned yellow and tough. Problem here is, our garage eventually freezes once the temps go below 10F for an extended time, so then I have to move things into a spare bedroom that only gets down to about 55F.

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November 8th

• My Redhaven Peach Dwarf tees from Stark Bros. came in, so I planted both of them and also worked on my "mushroom garden" layered some more compost, rabbit bedding/manure and wood chips, just waiting for the Wine Cap Stropharia rugosa-annulata mushroom spawn from Field and Forest.

• Planted one in the Hugelkultur bed (right). This will be the mushroom bed also.
  

• and one in the corner with some blackberries, it's tight but I'll prune to fit.

November 12th


Got a chance to try out my Blow Out fitting. It worked very well, just hooked it up, turned on the compressor and opened the valve slowly until the water in the lain was drained.

Added some Bio-char and compost out front where I plan on putting in an Apricot Tree to add to my "Mini Orchard" Dug out the Tiger lilies to plant my Pear Tree for the "Mini Orchard". I really need to stop buying trees.
There is a black walnut in the neighbors yard that I am a bit worried about, its about 50' away.



Finished prepping my Mushroom bed and planted my King Straphoria spawn. Started with a layer of wood chips on top of the already covered beds, than worked in the spawn, added another layer of wood chips, followed by some double ground compost then cleaned my back yard pond filters on top to add pond sludge as a cap. This area gets a good bit of sun but I'm hoping that when my annual veggies are planted they wil provide some shade. I did add some spawn to shaded areas just in case.

Finally got around to making my horseradish this year, I was really impressed with it, lets just say my nasal passage is clear. Some will be gifted to a friend and some will be used for Horseradish Mustard, the rest will be left as is. I'm not sure I am going to grow this next year, its just too hard to dig up, but then again, if I missed any roots, I will have it growing anyway!

I decided to Knee High my dwarf peach trees, I took off more than half of the tree, ouch! This is a very emotional cut and hopefully I done the right thing.

I had my daughter Sam help me with harvesting the Yacon, I figured she would get a kick out of seeing the tubers as the were pulled from the bed. It was time, we had a decent frost the other night and the plant was done. I was happy with the harvest and Sam was intrigued by the tubers so I asked her to make a Yacon Pie for thanksgiving. The rhizomes are stored in some mulch in the refrigerator to hopefully grow next year. I chopped and dropped the Yacon and topped with a bag of shredded cardboard for its winter nap.

Finished picking my Tabasco peppers for my sauce, It has been resting on some charred oak for 4 years. I'll process this next year into some hot sauce after another batch of Tabascos are added.

Stacked the rest of the firewood, cleaned the yard, burnt some yard scraps, pallets and some hardwood for Bio-char.


Topped the beds with a layer of double ground mulch and added rainwater and urea to 6 of the beds at a ratio of 4-1 except the mushroom bed.

And what was my reward for all of this hard work.? Dessert! This is a banana that I ran through a Magic Bullet Desert Bullet, OK maybe the butterscotch isn't a healthy choice but hey I'm trying!

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November 18th


Put in my Apricot tree.




Winter prepping my Rosemary. I had a three year old plant here last season that didn't make it, I usually put a fluorescent lamp by the base and cover with a blanket, last winter I did not and the plant died. This year I am going to try just mulching the entire plant with leaves and pine needles. I don't expect it to make it but I am curious to try.

I finally winter prepped this planter, I waited till the last minute because I was still getting tomatoes. The beet was mulched in.

This was the last bed that needed a winter blanket, I used some pine needles and leaves that I liberated from Trap Pond.

Had this packaging material that I used around my Pear Tree.

Although this bed was actually put to sleep for the season it was topped with Rabbit Bedding/manure. I will continue to top a lot of my gardens and "in-situ" compost all winter long.

Finished winterizing my Rain harvesting sysytem.






November 22nd

My daughter Sam made me a Yacon Pie for thanksgiving.

Found a bag of maters in the freezer so I canned some stewed tomatoes, test recipe for next year.

The next two items are not from the garden but here are a few ways I like to use up my Thanksgiving Turkey.

Turkey Panini club w/fried salami, fried ham and American cheese with a bit of mayo.

And turkey soup, but this year I canned it. For this batch, I reduced the stock to make it like a concentrate so when we go to reheat it we can add three cups of water with a cup of Amish noodles, giving us 2 quarts of soup.

For dinner last night Laura and Samantha made us a Pizza.

Here I am attempting to grow Black seeded Simpson and Paris Island Romaine for my wife, I felt bad for her, she loves romaine but has gotten sick from it twice so she won't ever buy it again, last time she got sick we ended up in the emergency room. I also tossed in some Beets to hopefully get a beet harvest so I can make some pickled red beets, but I'm not holding my breath.

[clkeiper]

everything looks great. a lot of work goes into buttoning up the garden for the Winter.
I saw your topped peach tree.... yah, ouch. I would have waited until Spring to do that myself. An open wound lends to fungal disease in that spot when its left open for the long winter and Spring season until the bark starts to grow again. get some pruning paint and cover that for the Season then come Spring give it a close inspection and recut to where the bark had dried back to. the new cut will encourage the bark to heal around the new wound.
As you mulch the trees keep the bark open to air. You don't want to have any mulch right up against the bark and have insects bore into or eat the bark or fungal issues set in. also wrap chicken wire around or get a tree guard to for the trunk to keep the rabbits from nibbling off the bark over the winter. they are pretty sneaky about getting into even an enclosed area to find dinner.

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Originally Posted by clkeiper

everything looks great. a lot of work goes into buttoning up the garden for the Winter.
I saw your topped peach tree.... yah, ouch. I would have waited until Spring to do that myself. An open wound lends to fungal disease in that spot when its left open for the long winter and Spring season until the bark starts to grow again. get some pruning paint and cover that for the Season then come Spring give it a close inspection and recut to where the bark had dried back to. the new cut will encourage the bark to heal around the new wound.
As you mulch the trees keep the bark open to air. You don't want to have any mulch right up against the bark and have insects bore into or eat the bark or fungal issues set in. also wrap chicken wire around or get a tree guard to for the trunk to keep the rabbits from nibbling off the bark over the winter. they are pretty sneaky about getting into even an enclosed area to find dinner.

Ooops! Thanks for the advice.

[clkeiper]

no oops really. It is just better to do it in Spring. everything looks great though.