The Dawg Patch

[GoDawgs]

Yeah, it's a big pond, extending to the right. Part of the new neighbor's property that surrounds us. They're building a house in the pasture on the other side of this property but a good way from our house. They have two more ponds on that side. Thank goodness a developer didn't buy that land! The new folks only brought three cows and two donkeys to roam the pastures. And I now hear a rooster crowing in the morning, which is nice.Love it!

[GoDawgs]

Two of my new "supervisors" at the garden fence. They get carrot chunks if I have any.

[GoDawgs]

We didn't get the 39; 41 was the lowest. But today there's a stiff breeze out of the northeast and it's chilly.

I planted another row of turnips on the 9th just to see how they'd do. Soil temp has been around 51 so I put a small plastic tunnel over the seed row to try to warm it up a bit. This morning the soil is 55. I'll have to watch every day and remove the plastic when they start popping up.



The three Golden Acre cabbages aren't looking well at all. It's been tried before one spring and didn't do well but I tried a few this fall because seasons sometimes make a difference. Not with this one. They need to be removed and tossed. Sometimes things that do really good elsewhere don't do good here. If anyone wants the seed just PM me.

This morning at the Ingles supermarket I cruised past the sweet potatoes and they had organic 'Covington'. I had heard about this one and couldn't remember what it was but it seemed good so I bought a small one for spring slips. Looking it up online at home I found that like the 'Jewel' I've been growing it's nematode resistant and tends to produce uniform sweets. I've made a note to plant half a bed of each next spring. It was developed and released by NC State and is currently the #1 table sweet potato in NC.

Not much else going on. There's a big daikon radish ready anytime I want to pull it and soon there will be one broccoli head and another round of turnips ready.

Pinetree seed catalog came today. Now please excuse me.... I hear a seed catalog calling my name.

[PlainJane]

I put the Pinetree catalog out of sight instantly to avoid temptation.

[GoDawgs]

The Pinetree catalog had a few possible toys for '24 in it but there are more catalogs to come, probably right after Thanksgiving.

I cut another broccoli head two days ago. It was larger than the first one but still undersized. After a chilly week it has turned warm again. Back and forth we go.

Slow time in the garden means playing with plants indoors. Today I started the fourth and last Red Robin micro tomato. Then I repotted Red Robin #2 into its forever pot. #3 isn't ready for repotting yet. This is RR 1 & 2 and a Tangerine Dream pepper I'm growing.



The Tangerine Dream has started flowering so I've been using a QTip to attempt transferring pollen among the blooms. We'll see if that works as I don't think buzzing pepper buds works the same as it does with tomatoes. Anybody have any tips on that pepper pollen transfer?



Here's RR #3 and #4. While I had the potting soil out I decided to repot the oregano as it was getting tight in its pot. Not to waste anything, I gave it a haircut and have the trimmings on a paper plate to dry. To the left are some of the Blue Ribbon beans that fell off some of the plants and above them two Cajun Jewel okra pods. We'll see how they dry.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday was really "fall". The oaks and pecan trees were just turning loose a bunch of leaves. They are covering the garden several inches deep. It's been dry here and before watering the garden I had to find the hose first! Started where the hose is hung up and then pulled the hose out from under the leaves. It's a self-mulching garden.



On a whim I sowed more turnip seed nine days ago. Soil temp has been around 55 so it has taken them longer to pop up. Yesterday I pulled back the plastic from the little tunnel I had over them and noticed the first ones coming up through the leaves.



The plastic will stay there in case frost threatens before the wee turnips are strong enough to deal with it. It's hard to see but the tunnel is made of a mishmash of wire hoops and bent strips of fencing. Ya use that ya got!



And finally, the first daikon radish has been pulled. 2 lb 3 oz so it will go into a bunch of salads. It's time to make another jar of kimchee so some of the daikon will go into that. And I love munching on it raw. Time to eat while they're sweet and not when they're hot!

[GoDawgs]

The Thanksgiving rush is now over (dinner went just fine) and there are the traditional several extra pounds to lose. Watching football games all day hasn't helped but hey, the college season is racing to an end and I'm getting my fill.

I might have to go to the garden "gym" and do some working out. Turning the compost pile would be a good start (upper body workout) followed by adding more leaves to beds that need them and many repetitions of the bend-and-reach from pulling henbit weeds that are sprouting everywhere.

There are four low-30's mornings coming in starting Tuesday morning; 32, 32, 33, and 34. The highs will be in the upper 50's-low 60's. Yes, we have strange winter weather here. Roller coaster. And yes, things that are in the garden now are brassicas and should handle that quite fine but to be on the safe side I deployed some protection yesterday.



Two new tunnels were added to the Make It Up As You Go Along Collection. To keep the young leaves on the baby daikon radishes from getting burned I made a small tunnel from two hoops and an old mattress cover. It pays to save odd stuff like that! The garlic on the sides of that bed will be fine by themselves.



There are two carrot rows going, one of which is pretty young and so I decided to cover the young'uns to keep the frost off. That young row is in a bed by itself and not wanting to cover the whole bed with a tunnel I came up with another make-shift. Stakes were pounded in at each end and baling twine run between them. Then a length of light row cover was folded in half, draped over the twine and held there by clothespins. Boards on one side and bricks on the other completed the job.



I do believe it will be compost pile turning day.

[PlainJane]

We are getting those cooler temps too, but probably high 30s to low 40s. I’ll need to harvest beans, eggplant and peppers but everything else should be ok.

[GoDawgs]

The weather forecast has changed. Tuesday-Friday lows are now 33, 25, 29, 37. Today I need to cover the garlic, scallions and maybe the brassica bed I was going to leave uncovered. The last time I left the garlic and scallions uncovered with a low in the 20's they took a bad hit and got set back. Lesson learned. And the cabbages in the brassica bed are doing really well and I'll not take a chance with them. I'm thinking a couple more baling twine/row cover tents over the alliums after piling on lots of leaves.

Yesterday was slow here. It never got above 46 and was rainy and so an indoor day. Not a lot of rain, just a steady drizzle. Needless to say the compost pile didn't get turned. Oh well, another day. It's not going anywhere.

[GoDawgs]

Yesterday I did cover two of the three rows of garlic since one of those is a new variety I bought and planted just this year. The two rows are in that bed with the daikon tunnel and I decided to use the baling twine/row cover tent method again. Before covering them I piled leaves up on both sides of the plants in each row for added help before covering them. I ran out of 2x2's to hold the sides down so used t-posts. It works.



The leaf pile has spread after Pickles' last hoovering up of leaves. She has a hard time lifting full bags for dumping them on top of each other so they get dumped next to each other.



I'm the Pile Manager and usually shovel them up into a higher pile so that it takes up less room but was busy with something else the day the last leaves were added. I got some of that done on one side yesterday after the photo was taken. Upper body workout and more needed today.

The Tangerine Dream pepper I'm growing indoors has set it's first pepper. I guess it's been there a little while but it just blends in with the foliage so I've missed it. It's at the end of the finger in the photo. The plant is loaded with flowers!



And finally, Lester has been "dining in" lately. Last week it was an adult squirrel dispatched and consumed for the most part on Pickles' bathroom floor. Then it was a frog torso on the door mat (Lester likes frog legs) and yesterday it was a mourning dove. He's so quiet when he sneaks things in that it's usually only the remains that are found but this time he got caught in the act. At least he eats them where clean up is easy!

[rxkeith]

i could use a cat here, with all the mice that are running around.
can't go that route here on account of cat allergic wife, and son.
also, our german shepherd might look at the cat as being fresh meat.


keith

[GoDawgs]

I got that leaf pile "managed" yesterday into one big pile. After looking at it I decided that yes, there are enough leaves to last until this time next year. Any other leaves on the ground can stay there to melt down into grass fertilizer, Pickles will be glad to remove the leaf bagger from the mower.



I ended up covering more than originally planned "just in case". Then we didn't get hit with the low temps they were predicting. The 25 turned out to be 29 and the 28 for this morning was actually 31. Temps will be rising again. That means I had to take the covers off the garden and hang them up to dry before storing. They were hanging everywhere!



Hanging on the trellis, three bin composter and over the garden bench.



And some long ones were attached to the grape vines with clothes pines. Ya make it up as you go along!



The last two long plastic covers got hung on the clothes lines up by the house. I'm glad that's done! Now I just have to remember to take them all down and put them away this afternoon. It wouldn't do to forget and let them get dewy by sitting out all night! Been there, done that.

I still need to move all the herbs from the kitchen and office back out to the front porch and that should finish clean up.

There are four cauliflower plants to set out this afternoon. Should have been done a while ago! They've been languishing out on the front porch, victims of the "outta sight, outta mind" thing. Pretty plants too. They deserve better and so they shall have it!

[GoDawgs]

I had rolled the dice on those four cauliflower plants I set out this afternoon. You see, at some point when I was fiddling with seeds this spring I accidentally dumped the Stonehead cabbage seeds I was counting back into the Early Snowball cauliflower packet. DUH! There were a lot more cauliflower seeds than cabbage in that pack when it came time to start those 4 cauliflowers. I knew the results might be mixed but hoped the odds would favor all cauliflower. Nope! It sure looks like there are two caulis and two cabbages I set out! Oh well, both will get used.

[GoDawgs]

Lots of frost this morning but the forecasted 28 ended up being 30. The only things I covered were the baby turnip seedlings and the recently planted cauliflower and cabbage plants.

I collected Cajun Delight okra seed at the end of summer and ended up with 300 of them! Time for a germination test. All ten seeds popped up and in just three days! I sure wish they'd pop up that fast when planted outdoors. It must have been the two day soak in a shot glass of water



I am soooo tempted to pot one of these up!

For the past few days I've been working on starting dates for spring.I look at the past few springs to see when stuff was started and how it worked out. Should I start earlier or later? Well, one can go through all those connivings and still Mother Nature has the final say. I think she enjoys stirring the pot now and then. Regardless, the first plants (brassicas) will be seeded indoors the first or second week of January with transplanting out about four weeks later and we're off to the races.

Jung seed catalog arrived yesterday. More stuff to look at. I noted that larger quantities of seed in some of their packs make their higher price a better deal in some cases.

Garden starting dates are still being tweaked and probably will be right up until "Go!" Meanwhile I need to get started on digging up that new bed. The Garden Stretcher at work. I'm thinking about letting that one go fallow this spring and grow/dig in several crops of cover like buckwheat.

[GoDawgs]

I usually plant two rows of scallions about four weeks apart in both spring and fall and so I did this fall. But I sowed a third batch of '21 Warrior scallion seeds in a tray for a germination test just to see if the old seed in the freezer was still good. Yep, good to go. Then I didn't have the heart to toss them out and they've been sitting around! Yesterday I finally got around to planting them, enough for 10'.



I stuck them in a separate area where I usually put the watermelons but the scallions will be gone by May. Oh well, now they'll be a test to see if scallions planted this late will survive. The papers scattered around are half disintegrated pieces of the cardboard I used last summer to cover the watermelon bed under the leaf mulch.

The first Stonehead cabbage got pulled this morning, the one on the far left. It weighed 2 lb 2 oz, which is fine for two people. It's about a 60 day variety from transplant. We like the smaller size and shorter growing time for fall plantings. Those 100 day types take a lot longer to grow during the shorter days. Stoneheads are like their name, good and solid.





Here's a new-to-me cabbage I'm trying this fall. It's Kalibos and it's supposed to be an upright and very pretty red one, which is why I grew it:

https://www.superseeds.com/collections/ ... s-heirloom

But so far it's as green as can be. Maybe it will start turning red later.




I guess I'll have to wait and see.

[PlainJane]

That will be an epic amount of scallions lol.
I sure hope Kalibos is red at maturity as it’s the only cabbage I planted.

[GoDawgs]

My aim is to have scallions year round. Last year I planted some in May to see how they'd handle the summer heat and they did fine.

@PlainJane if you think about it, could you please let me know if and when your Kalibos starts turning red? My seed came from Pinetree but I see that Baker Creek also sells it. Where did you get yours?

The Garden Stretcher is at work again. There's a 10' wide gap between two beds that has been used as a cut-through for the mower and wagon but it's about to be converted to another 4x18 raised bed. I can't remember why the gap was there in the first place! nature abhors a vacuum so it will be filled. The bed outline has been marked. That's the easy part!



We got 1.4" of needed rain yesterday. It was an all day affair so no gushing runoff. It was also the last day in a string of mild days with temps low 70's. The front came through last night and we'll be back to a week of mid 50's. Tomorrow morning will be the first of four days with lows of 28 so I need to cover a few things out there. Warm, cold, warm, cold. Here we go again.

[GoDawgs]

The forecasted low of 26 or 27 (depending on the tv station) turned out to be 30. Still, I covered a few things as these lows will be repeated for two or three more days. The alliums, turnips and carrots were left to fend for themselves. There aren't many turnips left and if the foliage burns, the almost-ready turnips will be ok to finish in the ground. The carrots were fine uncovered during the last spell like this.

It was frosty though! The neighboring pasture looked like it had snow on it.



I need to cruise through the garden just to check on stuff.

Another germination test is done. Ten collected Beit Alpha cuke seeds were stuck in the soil after I pulled out the okra seedlings from the last test. They all popped up this morning, 100% germination in three days. That's about right for cuke seed sown indoors.



If there's nothing to play with outdoors, might as well play indoors! Baking biscotti this afternoon for Christmas.

[PlainJane]

@GoDawgs my Kalibos seed is from Baker Creek.

IMG_4231.jpeg

[GoDawgs]

And I got mine from Pinetree so we'll see how they compare.