Freeze

[T]

Looks like Wednesday will be the end of gardening. The weather service is predicting a 28F freeze Wednesday night. So pick everything Wednesday afternoon.

[songbird]

anything that might be ruined by the cold. beans already dry and in the shells won't be destroyed by freezing as long as they don't get wet.

songbird

[Michael Trew]

Where is this at? The coldest it's getting in eastern Ohio is 38 over the coming days. I haven't heard of a frost warning, yet.

[T]

Well now, two days of freezing weather killed my zucchini, eggplant, peppers, and cucumbers.

Weird. One if my eggplants has new growth at its bottom.

My goji's loved the cold. My onions did not care.

Weirder yet: my cherry tomatoes survived. They are now closer to my house in a stand up 20 gal plastic pot.

And now we have a 85F daytime and 50F nighttime hot spell. GGGGGRRRRRR

[T]

national weather forecast:

Tu night 42F W night 26 Th night 25 F night 23 Sa night 19 Su night 21 M night 26

No way my tomatoes will escape this time. I will pick what is left Wednesday.

Garlic arrived today. I will plant it at the same time.

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

it's warmer here this morning, but i see it will cool down again in a few days.

mainly i'm hoping for no rains as it is already wet enough out there. i'd like to work in some gardens and have it not be mud.

:)

mostly it looks like i may just be shelling some more beans today for a bit. these rains we keep getting are spaced out just right to keep getting the ground too wet and i'm not getting all the gardens put up soon but eventually they'll get done either this fall or sometimes i can do something in the early winter if the weather is mild enough or then again i'll get them done in the spring.

what i am not getting done as much as i'd like is busting some more sod to expand a garden and reclaim it from the grasses that want to take it back over.

oh and in really good news the south field may be going into an environmental easement and that would be really nice as then we won't have to worry about more sprays from that direction.

songbird

[T]

What were they spraying?

I harvested my last tomatoes and gojis I also planted my garlic. Picked a few onions too. The rest I am over wintering. They seem to like the cold so far. My green onions adore cold.

It was about 35F all day, wind howling, and a slight drizzle. It was cold! The wind was so bad that any rain drops that got me were quickly evaporated. It was a bit miserable.

The worst part was picking all the cat scat (not my "exact" word) out of garlic bed. I added about 40 toothpicks, points up, to the bed to run the cat off. And a good water in.

Oh and I did not user up the entire bag of planting garlic, so I took the remainder to the kitchen for food. (I paid a lot for them, so I am not going to let them go to waste.)

I under watered my garlic last season and got marble sized bulbs. (You diagnosed it for me based on a picture I posted,) How often in the winter should I water? And should I water through snow or just consider the snow to be the watering?

-T

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

herbicides and pesticides. i'm sure they also were also applying the usual chemical fertilizers needed for corn when they planted that.

find a spot off to a side someplace where you can poke it in a flower garden or wherever and use it as a backup source for replanting if needed - they may not grow great but it can be a help to not have to spend money again for garlic.

yes, snow is watering and certainly do not water through the snow unless there's a good reason to do it (like it bone dry underneath). basically if there's some snow cover that is better than no snow cover because it will keep the soil moisture from evaporating plus it provides some insulation against the cold.

basically during the growing season you want regular watering during the dry spells and then ease off the last several weeks before harvest. the usual amount of moisture here that works well is about an inch to an inch and a half per week.

for us the garlic quality was so poor this past year because we had a really dry spring up until the mid-summer and then it rained quite a lot so the bulbs didn't dry down very well and had a lot of marks on the garlic from too much moisture. we can just cut away a lot of those but on the whole it's probably the worst year i've seen for quality. the added complication of growing in heavy soil makes it tough at times.

songbird

[T]

Conventional corn uses a boat load of nasty chemical.

Both my eggplants tried to product new leaves after the first freeze.

Yesterday I noticed that one had three flowers on the new growth. Made me feel both proud of it and sad for it for what was coming that night.

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

yes, it's 72F here for today's forecast but will be back to freezing and chances of snow next Tues.

time to hibernate...

songbird

[T]

You mean time for me to pull out all the dead stuff to limit cover for overwinter squash bugs, etc.. And to feel guilty for not jumping right it.

[Michael Trew]

First freeze here is tonight. I could go pick the green tomatoes, but I'm not really feeling it. There's nothing spectacular left out there.

[songbird]

we had some snow yesterday, but it didn't stick for very long. looks pretty frosty out there this morning as the sun is coming up.

more bean shelling today. maybe i get the last bag done or not we'll see... there's two flats left so that's about three hours of shelling and probably more sitting than i care to do today but no rush at this point.

songbird