Change-over and Clean-up Time!

[GoDawgs]

Earlier this week a northerly breeze and lower temps were a blessing and a half. The two old black walnuts continue to rain down leaves. They're also starting to drop a few nuts in what we call the fall hard hat zone.

This week's mission has been one of cleaning up. The two trombone and spaghetti vines are done and the sweet potatoes will be dug as soon as some rain softens the ground. Both areas were overgrown and met the mower.

Before: Sweet potato area in the front where the vines had run into, squash area behind the two big pots.



After: Pots gone and both areas mowed except for the actual row of sweet potato hills.



Well, I rolled the dice last week by taking down the deer netting from around the field peas. Duh. That was a stupid move. They're back and did a nice munch, not only along the edges but also inside the bed.



So I got the netting supports back up and the netting tied to it. I just know the peas will be all up into the netting before it's all over. Those vines seem to grow a mile a minute.



Two evenings ago I got the first few brassicas planted. I was about to head to the house and remembered the deer and how they love broccoli, etc so I put a netting tunnel over them and a small welded wire tunnel over the first two cauliflowers. The broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower are being strung out time-wise and by variety. By the time all are planted the bed will be full.





The carrots also got sown, 18' each of Bolero and Yaya. I forgot to soak the seed overnight so they'll probably taker a bit longer to come up. Until we get rain I'll just have to mist the rows twice a day. They're saying rain by the weekend. We'll see. The weekend's almost here!

[b54red]

You are way ahead of me in getting fall stuff in the garden. My broccoli and such are only about one inch tall now and won't be ready for transplanting for at least a few weeks. I did set out twenty feet of Maxibel beans for fall and a few Sweet Success cucumbers this morning after a half inch of rain yesterday. I will just have to see if the worms and whiteflies will give them a chance and pray for cooler weather soon.

I have taken out a lot of my tomato beds but still have to deal with taking down the racks and preparing the beds so I will have somewhere to plant. My bells are dying daily but I don't know what is killing them and most of my okra is gone now due to RKN. I guess I will try to plant mustard greens in that bed as soon as I can clean it up and hope they help with the RKN next year.

Other than bell peppers and a few Jalapenos there is nothing edible coming from the garden now. I really don't like this time of the gardening cycle due to all the work in cleaning up and it is still so hot here. It is still in the mid 70s at daylight so unless rain is coming there is very little time to work comfortably before it gets too hot.

Bill

[GoDawgs]

Bill, these are the roots on the Cajun Jewel that I pulled out two weeks ago. The plants were very healthy with trunks 2" thick, just winding down in production and I needed the room. The remaining Choppees would produce all we need for fresh eating.

Imagine my surprise when I saw these knotted up roots! I would say they were pretty nematode resistant although it's not in any description I've read for the variety. Not even one lower leaf dropping over the season! No yellowing or even wilting in the heat.



On the downside, I've not encountered RKN in this bed before and have been soooo very careful to rinse with water and to spray all tools with 10% bleach solution before using them in a bed. Every time!

It will be interesting to see what the Choppee roots look like when it comes time to pull them. Until then they're still putting out good.

[b54red]

Dawg I pulled all but the last two plants in my bed and they all had RKN. I'm sure the other two have the same problem but they are just much larger healthier plants so it may take a while longer for the RKN to get them to the point where the leaves start dropping off and eventually no more new blooms.

When I set out my bean plants the other morning I went out to check them that afternoon and was surprised to find a lot of leaves damaged from birds pecking and eating the leaves. I have had a ton of sparrows in my garden the last two months and they have been pecking everything. My backdoor neighbor is a maniac about bird feeding and now it has gotten out of hand with large swarms of sparrows descending on my garden daily. My last two large okra plants which are both around 7 feet tall and very broad also sometimes look like a bird roost and they are constantly pecking holes in the leaves. Some of the leaves look like they have been shot with a shotgun; they have so many holes nothing much is left. It doesn't seem to have hurt production much on the okra but I worry about the beans. I went out this morning and some of them are really shredded like a hoard of grasshoppers were on them. I put a few aluminum pie plates on string and they are sure flapping around in the wind and maybe they will keep them away somewhat.

Bill