12:53 PM  [29 Oct 2007 | Monday]

Killing Frost Arrives

This morning at 7:30 AM ET the temperature was 21 F. The killing frost has arrived. Almost everything is harvested, just a few stray ornamental cabbages and leeks.

I also planted the winter rye on Sunday. Tons of rain on Saturday.

8:43 AM  [24 Oct 2007 | Wednesday]

2 out of 3 Gardens Tilled

11:43 AM  [21 Oct 2007 | Sunday]

The Warmth Continues

10.21.07

The warm October weather continues. This morning at 9:00 AM it is 55 F. Friday morning 65 F and Thursday 60 F. We've yet to receive another frost since the first frost back on September 17^th, which wasn't a killing frost, Just 30 F but did manage to kill a lot of plants. The pepper plants survived and to our amazement are still churning out sweet red peppers, something that never happens for us up here.

I have harvested the rest of the carrots and potatoes, the most successful potato being the "Purple Majesty". Sadly these are the potatoes with the least amount of flavor, they have some but not like the others, but they are really purple inside which makes them fun to eat. I'm thinking of making potato leek soup with them (once I yank out the leeks). Purple and green soup, don't forget to invite the kids. I'll search for a recipe online. We also have a good crop of "German Butterballs" which taste great. A modest crop of "Red Golds" which we're eating first and are almost gone. The "Burbank Russets" are a bit of a disappointment. I planted a ton of them and didn't get all that much and a lot of them were rather small. That's supposed to be the storing potato that gets us through the winter. Some also have holes bored into them (potato borers? I have to look into that, never had it before). I can't complain though, there's more than enough potatoes in my cellar now for the two of us and guest. I always just expect more, more, more! Hopefully we'll eat them all before they starting growing again.

I'm going up now to get the rest of the beets and then prepare the whole mess for roto-tilling. I have winter rye all set but I've yet to check if the roto-tiller is actually working, always a tense moment cause if it isn't, I'm reduced to pick and shovel, a daunting prospect. The good news is, no snow yet.

9:53 AM  [09 Oct 2007 | Tuesday]

Humid Warm October Weather

10.9.07

The temperatures here in the Catskills for the past three days have had a tropical feel. High 70’s low 80’s F with the sky turning blue and just as quickly clouding over and depositing stray thunderstorms. I’m battling to get the garden put to bed for the winter but this weather keeps fooling me. It just doesn’t feel like fall. But I have to leave the garden for a week and I know when I get back the weather will have turned chilly so I forced myself yesterday to harvest carrots. Carrots are okay in the ground during the cold but they are a real pain in the neck to prepare for the root cellar when it’s cold, same with potatoes. Your fingers get numb in the cold dirt, and you don’t feel like washing the cold wet mud off them. I know you’re supposed to leave the dirt on the potatoes and perhaps even the carrots but I don’t like all that mud going into my septic system so I try to get most of it off before I put them in the root cellar. So far we have beets, carrots, shallots and garlic in the root cellar. I have a good crop of winter squash for the cellar although our reading up on the subject says you should keep those in a drier place.  I may put them in there anyway, I don’t have unlimited space.

Because of the warm weather tomatoes that had been frosted two weeks ago are now producing red tomatoes like crazy and we really can’t keep up with them. Even the basil plants have sprouted new leaves under their frosted dead leaf canopy.

I harvested three kinds of carrots yesterday, Red Dragon, Rainbow and Purple Haze. The rainbow carrots are odd, my wife handed me the seeds and I just planted them so I didn’t know what to expect, except I guess a rainbow of some kind. There are three colors, orange, yellow and white. At first I thought the white ones were some kind of mutant so I was tossing them. Now I realize that was their intention.  They’re from Pinetree Garden, here’s a photo.

I also managed to harvest some Red Gold potatoes as well. Right now I’m going up to get the onions out of the ground before we get another frost and they start rotting.

8:23 AM  [01 Oct 2007 | Monday]

10.1.07

10.1.07

This morning at 7:30 AM it is 50 F. We’ve not had a frost since the first one but that first one really did the trick. All the summer squash is dead along with most of the basil. There are live basil leaves under the taller basil plants so we were able to use basil to make tomato sauce for freezing. We froze roughly ten quarts of tomato sauce. My wife usually does that but while she was out of town I tackled it for the first time. The delicata squash this year was incredibly prolific, which was a big surprise considering how devastated all the squash was by the cucumber beetles. Yesterday while I was out in the garden pulling up the old squash vines in preparation for putting the garden to bed I saw the cucumber beetles in the few squash blossoms that still exist. I suppose that means they’ll be wintering over with us, we probably won’t grow cucumbers next year and see if that helps.  So seeing all those delicatas was a big surprise. We also managed to get some acorn squash, roughly ten, pathetic, but it was a surprise because I really could see them until we got frosted. Our pumpkin patch produced what can kindly be called tiny pumpkins, around six of them. They’re not good for carving but it’ll be something to put on the deck for fall.

Our leaves began to change on September  22 (last day of summer), pretty early. People are saying it’s because the summer was so dry. It may have been dry but I never had to water the garden this summer by hose because there was always enough rain to keep the plants from dying. I think if I’d been up there watering the onions might have gotten bigger.  I’ve only pulled a few out of the ground, so I might be surprised when I pull the rest out. Many of their stems are still green, we’ve pushed them over but they still persist.

I’ve been harvesting the potatoes in a piecemeal fashion, they are terribly overgrown with weeds so it’s a challenge to find the dead stems and then pull out the potatoes. The Burbank Russets and the German butterball seem to be the tastiest. We had some russet golds, that looked great but tasted a little bland, the other night.  We’ll see if they are all like that. The Purple Majesty potatoes are bland as well. They are pretty but I don’t think we’ll go with them next year.  Of course there are tons of them.

Every meal we’re having save for the meat comes out of the garden still. Most plates consist of carrots (huge crop this year) sautéed with mint leaves, beets (huge crop as well), pole beans, potatoes and onions. Our poles beans came on strong when we were out of town in August and are a bit large and chewy so we might be at the end of eating them but they do fill out the plate in a pinch. I’m going to try to get this garden put to sleep before the month is over. I like to get those potatoes out of the ground before it gets too cold; it’s much easier that way.