Moving right along in the fall garden

[GoDawgs]

There was more scattered frost yesterday and this morning but the row covers on the green beans that replaced the deer netting took care of it. I raise it up during the day and lower it at night. So far I've picked a tad over four pounds from the two beds but the cold nights are really slowing them down. Lots of babies on them and a ton of flowers and I'm hoping they will continue to produce. We'll see.



The peppers are now sporting bed sheets overnight. They should have been dressed like this for Halloween. :



The other fall things in the garden are doing just fine and loving the cool weather. These are the eight 'Amazing' cauliflower plants; four planted Aug 14 and four (in front of the larger ones) planted out Aug 31. The earlier ones are looking nice but no buttons yet. Keeping my fingers crossed!



These are the Packman broccoli plants in the other half of the cauliflower bed. The four early and four later ones were planted out the same time as the two sets of cauliflowers. The broccoli plants are a lot bigger than the cauliflower plants.



One of the older plants has a nice 4" head coming along, two other plants have different sized buttons and one hasn't decided to participate yet so it looks like the heads will be staggered well.



This is the spiny cuke bed with scallions down the left side. Three varieties of scallions. I had forgotten to assign a bed to them and then decided to rake the cuke vines to one side and stick the scallions in there with them. That bed won't be needed until late April when popcorn will be planted there. By then the bed will be empty.



Pot roast for lunch today! Man, the house smells soooo good as it simmers on the stove. I'm making green bean casserole fresh with beans from the garden and baking the first sweet potatoes from the new crop to go with it. Good stuff! :

[bower]

Those must be ghost peppers! twisted:
Your bean plants look really healthy. We have a tough time to grow beans here even in summer. It's only warm enough for a month, if we're lucky. If it's either bit cold and damp, they come down with assorted molds and rots - not nice. They're as bad or worse than tomato plants. So kudos on keeping them warm and dry.

[imp]

Pretty!! Laughing at putting the plants to sleep for the night with sheets, good idea to protect them.

[b54red]

Dawg you sure got the jump on me for the fall and it looks really good. I am more than ready for some fresh garden grown brocolli.

I don't know what kind of peppers are under the sheets but my bells and jalapenos did just fine with two good frosts. We got down to 35 the other night followed by 39 the next night. Last night it only got down to 42 and I didn't see any frost this morning but I will still put the frost cloths over the beans because they are just so susceptible to the mildest frost.

Luckily I had frost cloths over my beans or they would have been done for. I was glad the remaining tomatoes and bell peppers weathered the two frost. The only fall crops I have out in the garden now are a couple of short rows of carrots that have only been up about a week, four rows of mustard greens, and some nest onions which came up in less than a week. I have a few cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts that survived the over heated greenhouse and are now potted up and hardening off and will be ready to go out in another week or so. Hopefully the squirrels will leave them alone after I set them out. In my greenhouse I have lettuce, spinach, cilantro, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts and onions growing but they are tiny and it will be a while before any of them are ready to set out.

Hey Dawg I found something that works great for making the support for hoops. It is gray plastic conduit. It will bend great without breaking yet is much stronger and supports better than the black flexible pipe. I just cut off the female end of the ten foot piece and then just stick it in one side of the bed and bend it over and push it down on the other side. It will save you a lot of work setting up a hoop to protect your stuff in the winter. I wish I didn't have to have plastic covered hoops for the winter but there are always days here that are just too cold for the frost cloths which are so much easier to deal with.

So far I have dug a nice batch of sweet potatoes and will surely get more when I clear out the rest of my peppers and dig the ones growing under them. I don't cure mine and they seem to keep fine. I just wash the dirt off right after picking them and leave them drying under my shed and spray them every day for a few days before storing them in buckets or net bags. We have been eating them for a few weeks. A friend of ours showed us a neat way to cook them and since we learned how to prepare them that way we haven't baked a whole one in two years. Just take a potato peeler and peel them good and then cut them in slices around a half inch thick and lay them on some foil in a baking pan. We brush the foil with some melted butter then brush butter on the slices and then salt and pepper them and they bake really fast. We like to bake them at about 400 degrees so they get a bit of a light crust on the edges but it sure isn't neccessary. You can also sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon if you like them really sweet. It is a great way to use up the potatoes that are damaged when digging them so you don't have to worry about them spoiling when storing them. It is also a good way to use those monster potatoes that you sometimes get that are just too large to bake. I have one of those now and it is about 5 or 6 pounds and over a food long and nearly as big around as a football. We are saving that one for when we have a good bit of company because it will probably feed around ten people. Looks like it will be served at Thanksgiving.

Bill

[GoDawgs]

Originally Posted by b54red

I don't know what kind of peppers are under the sheets but my bells and jalapenos did just fine with two good frosts.

There are two Gypsy, two jalapeno, a Big Jim and one Ancho. No ghost peppers.

Originally Posted by b54red

I didn't see any frost this morning but I will still put the frost cloths over the beans because they are just so susceptible to the mildest frost.

I hear ya! This evening when I put them to bed I noticed a few leaves on the outside edge that had poked outside the cover as the plant's growing crooked and leans out. Then there were two or three leaves that had touched the top of the cover tunnel that apparently got bitten.

Originally Posted by b54red

I was glad the remaining tomatoes and bell peppers weathered the two frost.

I let the tomatoes go without cover the last two days because they're about done anyway. Seems like the frost didn't hurt them any.

Originally Posted by b54red

Hey Dawg I found something that works great for making the support for hoops. It is gray plastic conduit. It will bend great without breaking yet is much stronger and supports better than the black flexible pipe. I just cut off the female end of the ten foot piece and then just stick it in one side of the bed and bend it over and push it down on the other side. It will save you a lot of work setting up a hoop to protect your stuff in the winter. I wish I didn't have to have plastic covered hoops for the winter but there are always days here that are just too cold for the frost cloths which are so much easier to deal with.

Are you talking about using the gray conduit for the tall hoops? The black ones I have were cut 6' long from a roll of pipe. A 10' section of gray might just do the trick if a) it's not too expensive and b) if my cover clips fit over the pipe. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll check it out.

We do sweet potatoes your way too although sometimes I cut them into wedges or "fries". Then I put them in a bowl, sprinkle them with a little olive oil or melted butter and this Indian spice mix made from a recipe I found, toss them around and then dump them on the baking sheet. You're right about it being quick and easy! Good stuff.

[GrowingCoastal]

I had a sweet potato done like that for dinner tonight. Easy and delicious.

[GrowingCoastal]

Originally Posted by bower

Those must be ghost peppers! twisted:
Your bean plants look really healthy. We have a tough time to grow beans here even in summer. It's only warm enough for a month, if we're lucky. If it's either bit cold and damp, they come down with assorted molds and rots - not nice. They're as bad or worse than tomato plants. So kudos on keeping them warm and dry.

Bower, have you ever tried bush beans in pots? I have grown wax beans that way and they have done well.