October's Garden (2020)

This month has been exhausting but very successful.  The rain has continued to fall at perfect times, the first frost arrived on October 15th as scheduled, it was light and only burned a few outer leaves, then it warmed back up so the vegetables managed one last growth spurt.  An October made to order.  

On October 1st, this was the garden, plowed and ready to plant. 

The pile of grass clippings drying on tarps in the back of the garden will now be used.  Collecting and drying this much has been hard work - I WANT A ROUND BALE OF HAY!  I haven't been able to find any for sale close to me. We don't have a truck and they must be delivered with a tractor.

First, the wire hoops were placed to mark the rows, and then grass clippings were put down in the aisles.  Drawing plans on graph paper has never worked for me.  I need to see it with my eyes and design as I go.

The winter garden seedlings were ready and waiting on the front porch.

The back rows were planted first.  Collard greens are my favorite so I started with them.  They are in the left row closest to the fence.  Red beets are scattered around and tiny endives are along the outside edges. The next row to the right of the collards has different kale varieties with lettuce in between.

The collard greens will grow tall, the beets will cover the ground below and the short endive will fit along the edge under the low curve of the hoop house.  Since the weather is still warm, the beet seeds germinated quickly.  When the beets are taller, it will be necessary to weed, cover the soil with grass clippings and then this row will require no more work except harvesting.

The kale row has lettuce between each plant with grass clippings already on the ground.  The kale is tall and will last into the late spring before bolting in summer.  The lettuce is short and so will be harvested first since it isn't as cold hardy.  

The third row over from the fence originally held potatoes in the spring, followed by a watermelon in the summer, and then the assorted unknown greens' seeds were scattered beside the mature vine.  The watermelon is gone and winter seedlings are in its place on the left.  The unknown greens on the right will be harvested soon and that spot will become a walkway.  The row is way too wide to fit under a hoop house.

Surprise!  Another overlooked potato sprouted.  The first one was transplanted to the back of the garden with the other potatoes so I can see if the hoop house helps them.  

The first row on the front left corner moving away frontwards required strategic juggling because plants were still growing but space was needed.  The fence on the left originally held tomatoes (now gone) with a late-planted spaghetti squash twining underneath.  Swiss Chard seedlings were squeezed up against the squash and the Zipper Pea in the back of the row was allowed to continue growing.  

The first frost on October 15th damaged the Zipper Pea plant a bit so on October 21st it was removed and more Swiss Chard seedlings were put in its place. 

The squash that were hanging high on the fence in the open got frostbite but those under leaves on the ground were fine.  As of the end of the month, they still aren't ripe.  Time is up so they have been picked.

UPDATE: Even though they weren't ripe, we ate them anyway.  The only differences were that the flavor was milder and excess water poured out when cut open.

Two more rows of various seedlings are in the middle of the garden.

A thin row of assorted unknown greens was squeezed into the walkway between the Dixie Speckled Butterpeas and the short fence.  Two other short rows were planted at the last minute in other empty spots.

Now ten days later at the end of the month, they are huge!  

From seedlings in cups on the front porch on October 1st to this size on October 30th.  How can a person not grow at least a tiny winter garden?

Now on to the rest of the end of the month garden tour. 

The Tahitian Butternut Squash needs to go! If the weather stays warm (which it won't, 28 (F) will be the low tomorrow night) this monster would take over the yard and swallow the house. Die squash die!

The crazy Lima bean arch collapsed and looks even crazier. Thank goodness we live in the country and this eyesore is in the backyard.

There are so many beans the weight bent the wires.  I planted fewer beans this year than last and oh, what a little rain at the right time will accomplish.

The sweet potatoes in the deep shade under the arch produced almost 10 pounds of roots, much better than I expected. 

Regular potatoes are in the empty spot behind the sweet potatoes. They are the late-planted second crop that I had given up waiting for them to sprout.  It is an experiment to see if I can grow two crops of white potatoes in my zone, (6b - 7a, lower-middle Tennessee, USA).  The gardening charts say it is possible but I am skeptical.  

UPDATE: These out in the open were damaged by the first hard frost and the vines died after the second.

Yesterday we harvested everything left from the summer garden.  We got one small tomato, one okra, a very green pumpkin, Long of Naples, yellow, butternut, Tahitian, and spaghetti squashes. Dixie Butterpeas, Zipper Peas, Lima Beans, Purple Hull Peas, and green beans were picked.  Sweet potatoes were dug.  Dill and cilantro were brought in along with the peppers and cucumbers.

Everything is piled in baskets on my kitchen, laundry, and living room floors.  Today we have been cutting, blanching, canning, freezing, dehydrating, and eating.  It requires a game of Tetris to put anything else in the freezer and I am down to my last seven empty canning jars.  Tomorrow night's killing frost will end the summer garden and I am ready.  

Last Month's September Garden (2020)

Last Year's October Garden (2019)

Through the Garden Gate

Nana Has Been Released

Imagine you are sick, helpless, and have a very short time left to live.  Would you prefer to spend your remaining days with strangers or with family and friends? What if an unknown, unelected, unaccountable government employee had the power to lock you in your bedroom for eight months, declare your family to be parasites, and only allow people they deem "essential" close to you.  They arrogantly decree their draconian rules are for your safety and any questions to the contrary are threatened with fines.  This is the hell my mother has endured.

She is living in a wonderful assisted living facility with the kindest people in the world.  It is where she needs to be, yet, what the government has forced upon all of them in the name of "safety" is unimaginable. 

Due to the coronavirus, the facility was forced to lockdown at the beginning of March "for only two weeks" - a lie straight from the pit of hell.  The front door was closed and none of the inmates were allowed to leave for any reason other than a doctor's appointment; however, "essential" persons by the hundreds could enter and exit at will.  In their off time, they could shop, travel, walk through crowds, spend evenings with family members (who had also been in public places), and then as soon as they clocked in, they magically became "essential."  I am family and labeled "nonessential" therefore, I am hazardous.  

The staff works intimately close with everyone because it is necessary to assist during baths, hair washing, and dressing; however, during lockdown, for some strange reason, haircuts were not allowed. No one could get a haircut even though it is hygienically necessary.  Ask any nurse, they will tell you it is important, but no one asked them because bureaucrats are in charge.

The activity room was deemed off-limits because it might be unsanitary so the daily activities were held in hard metal folding chairs in the middle of the busy hallway where the nursing, maintenance, delivery, kitchen, office staff plus "essential" visitors had to step through the middle.

Meals were no longer allowed in the dining room and were moved to the bedrooms.  That meant all of the services and the personnel performing the work had to shift.  Inside my Mother's bedroom, no fewer than 12 "essential" personnel from three different shifts entered daily yet I could never once step inside the front door.  They were:

• Morning and evening nurse - administered medications
• Kitchen staff - delivered and removed three meals.
• Medical staff - temperature was taken twice daily.
• Housekeeping - room cleaned once a week and trash removed twice daily.
• Laundry - picked up and dropped off once a week.
• Maintenance - changed light bulbs and made other repairs.
• Activities Director - checked in twice a day in an attempt to encourage socialization and ward off depression.

Every staff member was compassionate because of what had been imposed by tyrants on the helpless people they cared about.  They could see the pain caused by the loneliness but were unable to stop a government with too much power.

In an attempt to alleviate melancholy, the staff moved this couch to the front window. The occupants were able to chat on the phone while their families stood outside the window.  Mother is almost blind and this was not a comfort to her.

Finally, after eight months in jail, Mom was released last weekend...sort of.  I was allowed to visit if I promised to wear a mask, stay at a safe distance, and not touch her.  

I do believe the Chinese Coronoavirus is real and is deadly.  When it first arrived on our shores in February, extreme caution was warranted.  It was an unknown bioweapon and we were unprepared.  Now, our medical doctors have studied it, know how to treat it and the survival rate in the US is 99%.  It has become a pandemic of fear and those in power have capitalized on it to seize more power.  Will we be locked down again every time there is a dangerous flu season?  Never again should we destroy the healthy by quarantining them in hopes of stopping what might or might not happen. This cure is worse than the disease. A freedom relinquished is a freedom lost.  We have lost so many freedoms here in America it is horrifying.  

All I wanted was to be an "essential" person and be allowed to spend a little time with my mother like hundreds of others.  Why was that so bad?

Scooter Visits Nana

A Lost Turtle

I consider my yard to be mine without realizing it is also home to many other creatures who also claim its ownership.   Earlier this year, we moved the compost pile to the back corner of the garden and put railroad ties around it. There is a permanent tunnel under the fence in this spot leading into the woods and no matter how many rocks or buckets of dirt are dumped, the gap reappears.  The railroad ties seem to have stopped the tunnel digging...for now.  

A big, dangerous snapping turtle showed up confused by the mountain now blocking his normal route into the woods.  He looks like the one which climbed our front yard fence but I'm not sure - they all look the same to me. What a face!

I cleaned out a lower part of the fence row to give him a new path for which he expressed no gratitude. He promptly disappeared. He either wandered under the daylilies or became perfectly camouflaged on the rock but he was gone in seconds. 

Wonder where he will appear next?

A Fence Climbing Turtle

September's Garden (2020)

My goal was to show a garden planted and ready for winter; alas, the weather has thwarted my plans - no plowing nor planting due to rain.  The sun finally shone this morning as I began taking pictures, then it started raining before I could finish.  My winter garden is sitting on the front porch awaiting a few dry days. 

October 15th is the average date for the first frost for my area.  That means it could get cold in a few days or it might not freeze until the end of the month.  Whatever happens, it will make a huge difference in the size of the last harvests of the remaining summer vegetables. The garden has many empty areas but this is what it is still producing.

On the short fence surrounding the garden are some late-planted Natsu Fushinari cucumbers.  They have been a smashing success. 

 

They have grown and produced better than any cucumbers I have ever planted. They are resistant to diseases and get larger than the pickling cucumbers I normally grow. The late ones are just now beginning to bear; hopefully, there will be enough for a few meals or maybe a basket full if the frost delays. These are from earlier this month and show the size difference.  

Further down the fence row beside the cucumbers are the Purple Hull Peas.  They continue to crank out peas and are ready to be picked now.  

Remember the three tiny volunteer bean seeds last month that appeared at the beginning of the first row between the beet seedlings?  Well, two of them happened to be Jacob's Cattle which I said: "did not produce enough beans for the amount of space they used and I wouldn't bother growing them again." 

That was a month ago and look at them now, covered in beans!  Why couldn't they have done that before?  These beans have made a liar out of me and I refuse to apologize to a bean! 

Since I am admitting to failures, there are only five sugar beets growing.  After all that work (letting the spring crop bolt, collecting, winnowing, and drying the seeds), none germinated.  These five were from the store-bought low germination seeds.  

This tall odd-looking thing is the Malabar Vining Spinach which continues to wind around a fence post.  The Blue Curled Kale from last winter's hoop house is still alive.  

Three late-planted yellow squashes are just now producing and together, there is enough for an occasional meal.  All were squeezed into various empty spots that opened up between other plants.  

The Dixie Butter Peas are working on a second crop. They may or may not mature before the first frost arrives and are cutting it close.  If these are planted late in the spring, they can't produce a second crop.  To see the peapods, the vines must be raised.

The Tahitian Butternut Squash, true to character, has aggressively taken over the middle of the garden.  It has reached the end of the row, turned the corner, and is heading back up into the Dixie Butter Peas.

If you trim the leaves and look inside, squash are growing everywhere.  Many of the small ones have been harvested and I think the flavor is better than yellow or zucchini squash.

None of the late-planted potatoes sprouted but one that was missed when the others were dug, has popped up.  It indicates it probably won't be possible to have a second crop in this area before bad weather arrives.   

Only two green bean plants are still alive.  It was a dismal year for them and I didn't get all I wanted.  It is impossible to count the times I repeatedly planted seeds acquired from various sources.  They are generating a few beans every couple of days.  

As for the watermelon section of the garden, this is the row with the watermelon vine on one side and assorted unknown greens on the other.  

Two watermelons have already been picked and two are still on the vine, almost ripe...but not quite.  This is a situation where you wish for a late winter because they are my favorite best-tasting variety, Orangeglo.  

 

This year's biggest watermelon award was presented on September 10th by Scooter to the Desert King.

It was perfectly ripe, picked at the right time because the tendril was completely dead.

I bought the seeds years ago because they are grown in arid climates and should (so I assumed) do well without a large amount of water.  Wrong. They have always been small and disappointing.  This year, since we have had ample rain, the Desert King finally managed to be impressive.  It weighed (with Dustin's help on the bathroom scales since I refuse to step on them) 36.2 pounds!  It tasted delicious.

There is a second melon on the vine and this is how big it is it today.  The spent vines were removed and the healthy vines have been wrapped around a dill plant to avoid being accidentally trampled.  The tendril is only half brown.  It is a coin toss if it will ripen before frost.

The basil plant was harvested down to a few leaves and has quickly recovered from my rough treatment.  It will be harvested again before cold weather.

Nothing has been previously mentioned about the Conquistador Celery because it tasted horrible. It has been threatened with being ripped from the ground and tossed into the compost pile if the bitterness doesn't disappear after a frost. 

This huge mound of green is one bean plant!  A Zipper Pea seed sprouted in what was a walkway in the early garden and was left to grow.  Since there have been so many disappointments with seed germination this year, I didn't have the heart to pull it up and learned to walk around instead. 

It worked hard all summer long, is still blooming, and will continue until the cold weather.

In the back of the garden, the crazy trellis has become even crazier.  It is listing to one side due to the weight and is cattywampus (my late dad's favorite word for anything crooked).  The unruly Long of Naples squash has decided to sneak back up the sides among the Lima beans after I meticulously untwisted it and moved it to the ground.

Finally, after watching, watering, and fertilizing this unruly squash all summer long, now, right before frost, it decides to produce some squash that probably won't make it in time.  We (used in the royal sense) are not amused.

The sweet potatoes under the arch don't seem to mind the squash vine invading their territory. Their cold day of reckoning is rapidly approaching. 

I made a major mistake this year.  The tomatoes I planted in the early spring were all determinate which means they produce all their tomatoes around the same time to make it easier to can.  Now all but two are finished.  I should have planted more later in the spring so we would get ripe ones right up until frost.  

With the tomatoes gone, it is now possible to better see how the back row was planted intensively. 

Long vining Lima Beans cover over the tall arch but only use up one square foot of soil at the base of the arch.  Okra are below the Lima Beans and wedged back against the short fence about three feet apart so half of their roots can get nourishment from under the pathway.  Bush beans stretch forward toward the sunlight in the area which opens up under the okra leaves.  One vining Tahitian Butternut squash seed was planted at the beginning of the row and it spread through the empty spaces. It repeatedly tried to go up the tomato fence but I kept it pushed back so it would not shade any tomatoes.  

The far back row is about thirty feet long, two feet wide, and has supported a large number of plants.  A large plot of land is not necessary to grow vegetables.  Much can be cultivated in a small area.  This view from the side shows how the weight of the bean vines are bending the arch backward.

Now to the back left corner by the field.  It is hard to see what is growing because the leaves all blend together. 

The pepper plants under the bean arches have been completely stripped of peppers twice and more are ready now.  

The self-planted butternut squash plant growing out of the compost pile is still spreading and producing new squash.  Two of the large ones were picked because I feared something in the field on the other side of the fence might get them first.  I also kept the root watered because it can't grow more roots along the vine since it isn't touching the ground anywhere else.

Since I have not been able to find another round hay bale, Bill has been raking up the grass from the yard and dumping it on tarps to dry.  It will be spread after the ground is plowed and the seedlings are planted.  I really wish I could find another round hay bale to use.  It made a big difference in the fertility of the garden. 

This year there has been plenty of rain at the right time and it has made all the difference in the world.  The garden has produced better than ever before; however, when I look back at last year's September 2019 garden, I still feel the sting of defeat from the drought. The difference in both gardens is shocking. On this day, one year ago, I said:

If I had to guess, I would say we could have had five or ten times the harvest we are getting now if it had rained.  It is hard to know how to prepare for our weather.  Some years it floods, other years it is drought.  If it always flooded, I could raise my beds, but that would be disastrous in a drought.  If it was always dry, I could put the hardy plants together and irrigate.  It is the not knowing that keeps me off balance.

My harvest has been more than ten times bigger than what we got last year. I am grateful, but still off-balance.

Last Month's August Garden (2020)

Last Year's September Garden (2019)

Through the Garden Gate