That cute hat is going to come in handy pretty soon, Rita!

My hat choice is always a ball cap, but I've recently found modified ones with knit panels that cover my ears for winter.

I am always cold come late fall and winter. Always wear a knitted winter hat. This one just looked so cute, I had to buy it.

Tomatoes. I am just astounded to pick so many tomatoes on October 16th. And if I paid more attention and got more of them before rains make them crack, I would have had even more. But this time of year, this is plenty!


And the Juliet Grape tomatoes just never stop. I picked these two bags. There were more on the plants, I just got tired of picking.

Lookin' good, Rita.

It definitely feels like fall out there today, so I'm working on bringing in all the peppers.

I think I have all but two of my leftover perennials placed for the winter, so I'll likely be able to start putting the veggie garden to bed this week. Do you mulch your plots over the winter as well? I prefer doing so, but I don't always get around to it.

Mostly, the tomato beds have straw from the summer mulching and I just leave it like that till spring. I mean I pull up the tomato plants but I leave that straw mulch. Otherwise I don't do much to the veggie beds. I should have planted cover crops earlier in the areas that are bare but as usual, I didn't get to doing it.

Hmmm....that's a thought. Why do I never remember that either? Arlene mentioned fall planting Brussels sprouts too...maybe they'd be done by the time the tomatoes needed to be set out. I might try a few and see what happens. I know that I want to do some fall-planted spinach again. They did great this year.

There always seems to be something I don't get to doing! Often, I forget until it is too late. Like planting the cover crops. Could have done it in early mid September but now I think of it in mid October. Well, it is too late to plant now!

My fall peas are still going. I go out and munch on pods that I pick and just eat right off the plants.

Amazing tomatoes still producing! Hooray!

DS pulled honey from two hives on Monday. It's really delicious, but has more goldenrod so it's a bit stronger than the spring honey. We had just finished our last bottle of honey too! He still has to pull from the hive at my house.

Chelle, my brussells sprouts will be finished, hopefully by end of the year. I do remember one year picking veggies on Dec. 31 but pretty sure BS were finished by then.

We just picked our first fall broccoli yesterday. It was delicious! And sweet potatoes are half dug up. They used the spring tooth plow because the ground was pretty tight. Even so, there are lots of potatoes. It rained today so I'll try digging by hand tomorrow.

How cow, lots of potatoes. And nice broccoli and that model is a cutie!

I think I'll pull my peppers tomorrow too. Lots of fall clean up chores still waiting to get done. I still need to mulch the flower area that I finally got weeded before too many weeds grow back! There just isn't enough hours in a day to get everything done, and now it gets dark so early.

Lots of flowers on my French Gold beans in the greenhouse! Can't wait to try them!

That's a lot of potatoes, Arlene! Nice!

Oh Arlene, you will love those French Gold Beans.

I am still getting beans from my Yellow bush beans that I had planted.

I know what you mean about not enough hours to get everything done. I am planting my spring bulbs that I ordered and it is a lot to do. Bulbs in two batches. Part One I planted bulbs that arrived in early September. Part Two I am planting my bulbs that arrived now in October. I do NOT want to be planting in November like I was doing last year.

I just finished getting all my gourmet garlic planted. I planted Turban, Artichoke, and Creole and a total of eight varieties. I planted approximately 350 cloves in my raised garden, each variety enclosed in a 48"x48"x6" box. The boxes created a raised garden on top of a raised garden and will not only have more depth but also better drainage. Hopefully I will have a better growing season than last year (extended cold and wet in the spring). I planted a Turban variety about 7 days ago and it is already up and is 8-10" tall. Other varieties are just beginning to break ground. I don't know why that particular variety grew so quickly.

Ken

Here are some pics taken this morning of the raised garden, now full of garlic.

Excellent job!

You know, I have never grown garlic and I love fresh garlic cloves that I bough at the store. Maybe I should try growing some myself.

Very nice, Ken!

Rita, you should try growing some garlic, it's easy!

I dug up another row of sweet potatoes today. Two more rows to go! I also got 4 heads of broccoli.

I don't know anything about growing garlic.

If you have only bought garlic at grocery stores, you probably have never truly tasted garlic. Garlic is rated on a scale of 1-5 in two categories, taste (garliciness) and pungency (heat). 95% of store-bought garlic comes out of CA, most it from Gilroy, what the town calls itself "The Garlic Capitol of the World". That garlic is rated 2 and 1 in those categories. Gourmet garlic, the only thing I grow, is rated 3's, 4's, and 5's. I only grow a couple of varieties that are rated 3's because some people like a milder garlic. Other differences are size and ability to store well. Much of my garlic are close to if not larger than 1/4 lb. each and most of my garlic will easily store 9 months and some well over 1 year!

Don't confuse gourmet garlic, because of its large size, with "Elephant garlic". Elephant garlic is not even a garlic and thus isn't even rated. It is of the onion and leek family. Elephant garlic is called "the garlic for those who don't like garlic". LOL

Also, many varieties are beautifully colored, with colors ranging from mauve to lilac to pastel purple. They look good just sitting in a bowl or hung in the kitchen as decorative items. Of course, they don't stay long as eye-candy. They are too good used in cooking or even eaten raw, such as in salads.

I am in for the day. Spent the day planting bulbs again. Spent the day planting bulbs yesterday also.

This morning started out really cold. I had to wear my winter coat as I was freezing! But at least I was fashionable while planting as I had my new pom pom winter hat on. Good thing I was up on my fashions as some people from the neighborhood did stop to talk to me when they saw me out in the gardens planting.

I still have about half my tomato plants in, some of them I had to pull out so I could work and plant bulbs. One neighbor from the neighborhood asked me what I was gonna do with the green tomatoes on the pulled plants. I was gonna toss them so that neighbor was aghast at that idea and picked and took home all the green (and some just blushing) tomatoes I was throwing out. Too funny.

I had to pull those tomatoes I was trenching around the tomato gardens and planting crocus. So now those tomato beds are surrounded by crocus.



Tomato bed. You can see the area with no grass that is very near the brick edges. I dug all around and each side has 100 crocus planted.




Bean garden, I was so pleased with my tomato garden surrounded by crocus idea that I did the bean garden too. This was only 100 large flowered crocus spread all around. The Tomato garden has Tommies and tommies are small crocus. The bulbs for the tommies where about half the size as the bulbs for the large flowered ones.

Now look at this grassy slope. Not that there is much to see but I was planting hundreds of species crocus there on the slope. One of the tomato beds is in the backround.

Neat! Flowers for enjoyment first, and veggies to eat later.

I'm scrambling here in our last hours before the expected overnight freeze...gathering in the last of the warm-season veggies (and a few flower bouquets as well ).

If I have time left before the school bus rolls in, I'll take some pictures.