[mention]friedgreen51[/mention] , I'm glad you had a bumper crop too! Once again, thank you for the seed. About an hour ago I finished shelling out the last of the dried pods and sorted the seeds to save the best. Right now they're doing a one or two day rest in the freezer to make sure there aren't any bug eggs that might hatch later and ruin some of them. I'll have plenty of seed for at least 2-3 years.

Speaking of insect damage in the peas, that is something that was at the lowest level in a long time this year. Very few stings on the pods or damage to the peas themselves. How about you?

I had a great overall year with field peas. I always plant mine late June to early July and that really seems to help with the insect damage. My insect damage was minimal on all my peas (September vining, Mississippi Silver and Purple Hulls).

Robins! There was a big flock of robins in the yard yesterday, bobbing around in the mist. That's the first time I've seen them in a good while. Pickles vacuumed up leaves with the mower the day before and the robins seemed to be congregating in those areas both out front and in the back. Maybe the mower stirred up bugs for them.

The second leaf pile has been started. More good mulch for spring and it's free!



This is the really old picnic table in the garden that I use for mixing fire ant soap in jugs, washing off veggie pickings, and a ton of other stuff. This table has been there for years and I wouldn't doubt that most of the top boards are hollow from all the carpenter bees and ants working on it. Although the treated wood lasted a long time, the table is literally on its last legs. Any day I expect to find it collapsed.



I'm going to replace it using stacked concrete blocks for the ends and some treated 2x10's laid across the top. Easy to do and it will last until my garden days are done.

Got 4/10" rain last night. It's been misting heavily on and off today and rain is forecasted for the next several days. It's perfect for planting and the moon is right so this morning I put out more radish seed and got the six kohlrabi transplants into the ground. Time to start six more for setting out mid December. I've never planted any cole crops that late but with La Niña going on it will possibly be a more moderate winter so why not? We'll see.

Gardening has been reduced to a series of small putters but there is a little progress here and there.

This past Wednesday I planted out the six kohlrabi plants and started more radishes. There’s another broccoli head that will be ready this week and the first cabbage almost ready.

H\The non-fall planted half of the garden has taken on that winter empty look.



The last garlic variety, Lorz Italian, has finally come up. And speaking of garlic, yesterday I sliced and dehydrated the last of last year's garlic that didn't get planted. It wasn't going to be enough but Sam's had 2 lb bags of nice garlic bulbs on sale for 5.98 so I bought a bag and sliced up and dehydrated five bulbs of that. Those will get whizzed into powder today and will last a good while.

Thoughts are turning to spring. I did a germination test on ten 2017 Silver Queen corn seeds that have been in the freezer. 9 of 10 germinated after four days of the wet paper towel method. I’ll use those seeds this spring and replace them with fresh. And speaking of seeds, it's time to do a seed inventory and see where that stands. The new seed catalogs will start arriving right about after Thanksgiving but the only thing I'll be looking for is maybe a new toy to plant.

With more lock downs possibly on the horizon and maybe generating another run on seed, I think it will be prudent to have seed needs covered early. I'm still wondering how many people who, panicked by food shortages, ventured into the world of gardening for the first time this year and will repeat the exercise next year!

Good observation. With this new surge in covid cases, and the resulting state crackdowns, I think we can fully expect seed shortages heading into next year. Stay safe!!

Too true, I have many friends who ventured into "growing their own" this year. Made me feel quite the expert compared to them but in reality I know how much I have to learn. I think some of my friends were still at the ball catching phase let alone the throw and swing the bat. However, they all loved it, and you know, if this gives people an appreciation of what goes into the production of good and tasteful wholesome food as opposed to struggling to pull off the cellophane wrap then all the better.

As expected, everything looked fine in the garden after a few mornings of 33-35 and with temps moderating I took the cover off the carrot two days agos. Good news! There's a cauliflower button starting on each of the two oldest plants.

Last week I cut the kale and this week it was time for the collards to get their haircut before the leaves got tough. I now only plant two collard and two kale plants. They grow back so fast after cutting that two plants makes a gracious plenty of greens for two people.

The collard plants are in front and the two already-cut kales to the left. On the other side of the bed are some of the cauliflowers.



The cabbages are coming along too. That one Stonehead cabbage on the end is ready to go. I already cut a small Early Golden Acre cabbage just a few days ago so the Stonehead will wait until next week. Those are broccoli plants on the other side of the bed. So far that staggered planting has worked well. No avalanche of broccoli all at once!

We’re now getting later things from the fall garden. The other day I got three firsts; one kohlrabi, three turnips and some carrots.



Today I cut the first Stonehead cabbage which has been ready the last week or so. It weighed a bit over 3 lbs. Along with that were the last radishes of the first sowing and the third Packman broccoli head. Yep, that succession planting is working nicely with the broccoli so that we’re not getting tired of broccoli.




Then there are the herbs on the front porch. In the back row, a windowbox of parsley, pot of chives, scallions, windowbox of arugula and pot of basil. In the front, two mints, a pot of parsley, thyme, Greek oregano and a Jochelos micro tomato. Some of that stuff will have to come inside for a couple of days next week.



Thoughts are turning towards the spring garden although I must admit I am really enjoying the laid back cruise control that the fall garden is in right now. January’s prep for spring pea and brassica planting in February isn’t far away so I’ll take advantage of easy time while I have it.

Could have done with that delicious lot as i am currently cooking dinner ! Some good looking veg there!

We've been cruising along in the upper 60's-low 70's but cold weather is finally tapping us on the shoulder tonight. "Remember me?" Uh huh! Here's this week:



Yesterday before the rain came in I got four beds covered. The carrot and the turnip beds got plastic over them and the two brassica beds just got light row cover as they're better adapted to the cold.



Today the wind was blowing all day, gusting to 24 at times, enough to actually blow the hoops right out of the anchor pipes! That's never happened before. That only happened on the two fabric covers, not the plastic. I fixed them twice and if they blow off again, too bad. I think the wind's dying back a bit.

The garden in winter always looks bare and lonely. Closest to the camera is an area that will have four double rows of corn.



I mentioned the other day feeling spring creeping closer. Well, yesterday I had to scratch that itch by laying out where the new tomato pallet row and double corns rows will be. Pairs of rows 1' apart and 3' between pairs. The corn rows are the short markers with the red tape tied to them. Kind of hard to see on a gloomy day.



Marked with the two white markers, the row of pallets for tomatoes will sit below the corn rows this coming spring with a bed for sunflowers below that so I wanted to see if the garden map was accurate enough that everything would fit as planned. It did!

The weather guys here pushed the two mornings with lows in the upper 20's back several days. Now it will be tomorrow and Thursday instead of yesterday and today. Well, I didn't know that early last evening so the porch plants that I wanted to save were brought indoors. What's left out there is already on it's last legs so if they hit the road, oh well.

The two window boxes, one parsley and the other arugula, are on the table with basil, two mints and another parsley on the floor



The pothos and Christmas cacti have been inside for a while. Their temporary table mates are two micro tomatoes, two broccoli sets and wedged in behind the tomatoes are pots of oregano and thyme. They'll stay right where they are for about two more days.



The wind was ripping all day yesterday though and it's to be 10-15 mph all day today. Windy days are a pain in the butt.

After two mornings with a low of 28 it seems that most everything was OK. We took the covers off the four beds in the garden and everything was fine. With a lot of sweet potato vines growing on the compost bin and a few Irish potato plants growing behind it, I covered it all as best as I could with three bed sheets. There was some loss but some vines actually survived.



Behind the bin, one potato (on right) was under one of those compost bin sheets and I had just put a plastic bin over the small potato plant (on left). The larger plant got bent over by the sheet but both of the potato plants are fine. It looks like I have a winter potato planting after all!



The sasanqua camellias weren’t covered at all. As expected, any blooms are now brown rags as are some blooms that had just broken out of buds but the tight buds themselves look just fine so there will be more blooms in a little while.



Meanwhile, with highs back to 56-60’s and lows in the 30-40’s for a while, the herb plants and micro tomatoes are back on the front porch.

We hit a low of 29 again this morning. I didn't cover up anything in the garden last night, figuring everything's good and hardened off. However, the herbs, etc on the front porch did get brought in. Tomorrow's low will be similar so the porch plants will just stay in here until tomorrow afternoon.

Yesterday I decided to hang a light over a table in another room. There were already two unused plant hangers on the wall so the only real thing to do was to cut chains to fit. Right now some of the porch plants are sitting on the table but the real purpose for the light will be for the new micro tomatoes I'll be growing. I will switch out the fixture from the old T-12 used to see how the hanging would work to one of my T-8's that have both 3500k and 6500k tubes in it.



Four days ago I opened pods of three okra plants. They had been labeled as to which plants they had come from and I started soaking them, each in their own shot glass of water. Plant #2 was the one I judged to be the best; Plant #1 was the smallest of the three; Plant #3 was a bit shorter than #1, a bit more branched and almost as productive as #1. The next day each set of seeds was drained, 10 of each folded up in a wet paper towel, placed into a plastic bag and put on top of the freezer for warmth. This morning (the third day after soaking) I checked progress. Only one seed from Plant #1 had germinated but 7 seeds each of #2 and #3 had popped open.



They were all re-wrapped and put back on top of the freezer. I'll check again in three days. I was going to toss out all but one set of seeds but now I just might save both #2 and #3 separately, grow both and see what the F2 generation looks like.

Meanwhile, this is what the current micro toms look like. They were started Oct 30. The Lille Lise on the left is blooming. New seed is on the way in from Bunny Hop. Oh boy!

The weather has turned again. Yesterday afternoon was absolutely gorgeous, hitting 67 with a warm sun on the shoulders. It was so comfortable sitting on the bench in the garden that I could have taken a little snooze. Not to be! Stuff to do.

I had brought the Mantis with me to give it some running time and decided to play with one of the double corn rows I had marked off. The Mantis did a good job of tilling it up while it got some exercise. Come spring, breaking it up even deeper with the broadfork should be a lot easier.

Before heading back up to the house I checked the cauliflowers and decided to go ahead and cut the first one. It's not a giant but it did weigh about a pound and a quarter. I'm excited that I might have finally gotten the hang of growing this and think it's finally the combination of variety and planting time that's made the difference. I've tried cauliflower in the fall before and not had success but this 'Amazing' variety has really been the trick.



Here's there rest of today's pickings; three turnips, a kohlrabi, the cauliflower and the first Minowasi daikon radish at 9" long.



The broccoli is done but there are still a lot of carrots out there and more cabbage, kale and collards as time goes by.

Yesterday I inventoried my seed box and now know what I need to buy. The good news is that I don't have to buy much which is a good thing.

The micro tomatoes have outgrown the lights on the plant stand. I switched out the light fixture over the new table setup from an old T-12 to one of my newer T-8's.



There are two kinds of tubes in the fixture. One is 3000k and the other one is 6500k "bright daylight", supposedly to give a wider range of light spectrum or so the theory goes. It's something I read about and have been using the past two years. The plants seem to grow a bit faster than under the old same-same tubes but the plants do tend to lean a little towards the brighter tube so I turn them around every day.

Lots of blooms coming on! The first photo is Red Robin and the second is Lille Lise:





Playing pollinator, I've picked a flower and rubbed it on the others, dabbed flowers on the same plant with a stripped down q-tip and also buzzed blooms and fat buds with the cheap electric toothbrush. Hopefully there will be some fruit setting. The plants spent their first day outside yesterday getting a little real sun as the temp was 69 all afternoon but I brought them back in for the night.

Ok, jeeezz...you're gonna force me to get off my duff and try some "micros" this winter! Maybe Birdie Rouge, or Chibikko from BunnyHop Seeds?

Baby micros! This morning as I was inspecting the plants for possible problems I found four small tomatoes on the Lille Lise. The largest is about ½” wide and they were hidden under the bottom foliage.



I’ve been pollinating three ways; with the electric toothbrush, picking a flower and dabbing other flowers with it and using a pared down Q-tip as shown here. Of course, I’m using a separate Q-tip for each variety.



This morning I also checked the germination tests I'm running on some seed I collected this past summer. Those would be Rosella, KBX and Stump of the World tomatoes. After seven days the first two were 90% and the SOTW was 100% germinated. Still no sign of life in the old Keystone Resistant pepper seed someone gave me two years ago.

Two steps forward, one step back. The "fernleaf dill" I started in a little pot isn't dill. It's parsley! I mislabeled the little envelope containing the collected seed. DUH! That's the first time that's happened. The two seeds are similar, the fernleaf dill seed being smaller than that of larger dills but still a bit different from parsley. Let's just say close enough for mischief when one isn't paying attention to what one is doing.

Giggle I had fresh ripe tomatoes from my little micros Tuesday....

It got down to 28 this morning so last night I brought inside the two Jochalos micro tomatoes that have been out on the front porch. Ont of them had four more nice cherries ready. A little winter treat! The largest one is 1 1/8" wide and the smallest (next to it) is 7/8" wide. More are getting ready.



The first Charleston Wakefield cabbage was ready and Pickles will turn it into kimchi today. This one was 1 lb 6 oz, a nice size for two people. I was just told that there's another cauliflower ready. Yep, that staggered planting is working. No avalanches of any one thing.

It got down to 26 yesterday morning. and the pastures looked like it had snowed. I forgot about the basil plant on the front porch and it's toast. It was starting to bloom and look like it was about at the end of the line anyway. I don't use a lot of basil but I'll start another one anyway.

Speaking of starting stuff, a "welcome to the world" to the latest micro tomatoes who were born yesterday and the day before!



And two days ago I cut cauliflower head #2 so it wouldn't freeze out there. It's smaller than the first one, 6" across and weighs one and a third pounds but will still be good. We'll be having it steamed today with lunch. The next one out there is about the size of my fist.