If it ever stops raining and if I ever get my orchids back inside I will get my mulching mower out and start bagging those mulched leaves (all oak). They all go into my raised garden. I'll turn it in with the garden soil. When I have enough of the mulched leaves for the garden, the rest will go onto my compost pile. I will then use whole oak leaves to cover my White Butterfly Ginger, Oak Leaf Hydrangea, and newly germinated garlic. I want to do this before we get into the 20's. I don't know whether either needs that leaf cover, but it seems to work for me.

I still haven't gotten my garlic planted and now, with all the rain, it looks like it will be mid-week before it will be dry enough to do that.

Sounds kind of discouraging Ken. I am pretty well finished other than bringing my dahlias out of the crawl space and fixing them for a better winter nap. They will rot the way I have them now. I know better but heard of a way that wasn't so work intensive. Should have known nothing easy works.

We have had very strange weather, Mary. Way more rain than normal (this is our "dry season") and temperatures bouncing all over the place.

We haven't planted our garlic yet either Ken. And we're supposed to get rain for another week yet. I have onions to plant as well.

Right now trying to get leaves around here would be pretty messy because it has been raining for over a week already. They would still be good but no one is raking now. Maybe we can get some later. My son's driveway at the farm is long and lined with maples so we can use the mower and pick them up, if it ever dries out.

Yesterday my hubby rototilled a wide strip in the garden for the garlic after I had spread some organic fertilizer, peat moss and gypsum. I planted the cloves that had been soaking in a weak kelp solution for a couple of hours. Overnight would have been better but I hope it was enough to jump start some root growth. I have a homemade tool that marks holes every 6 inches. I walk along the row, make the holes, then get down on my knees to plant. The weather was cold and windy. Not pleasant but I worked fast and got them all in the ground before my hands turned blue. Now I need a couple of bales of straw for mulching them, and they will be happy for all winter if the gophers don't decide to live and dine there. The row is prepared all the way to the far end of the garden and I only used about 1/3, so my planting bed for onions, carrots, beets, chard, etc, is there without having to rototill before I can use it! That'll be in March at the earliest.

I have a lot of small clumps left and will be sending/giving some to friends and relatives, sharing some at the co-op, and making a lot of garlic powder. Might just peel and chop some for soups, freeze it on a cooky sheet, and then put it in jars. Too much of a good thing!

Sounds good. And always good to be prepared already for spring.

You did a great job, Mary. I agree with Rita, totally. The more we can get done in fall, the more time to shop for plants in spring...and less stress.

I never thought about chopping the excess and freezing it in packets. What a good idea. ABG has a lot left over from their sale and we can help ourselves. Now I know what I can do with it. Thanks

I opened up the squash that contained the seeds that I crossed. Gold acorn X Sweet Meat. Boy were there lots of seeds. I didn't save them all, there were too many. Then I baked the squash and had a part of it for lunch. The rest I'm going to use to make pumpkin bars for a party this weekend. Well, I guess they'll be "Squash Bars"

Nothing doing in the garden today as it is raining. I still have plenty of mulching with Fall Leaves to do before I am done. I much all my flower beds and will be doing all the veggie beds also this year.

We replaced the broken vent panel in the GH, plus another roof panel that was pretty well shot; had to cut a piece of the twinwall to size for that one, and that stuff doesn't cut as easily as one would imagine (or at least not as easy as I would have imagined...) . Changing out the vent panel went a lot better than I was thinking it might -- I have a Rion GH that we put up in 2004 and the framework is made of some sort of plastic resin that seems to be showing it's age due to the effects of the sun exposure. I don't believe I would ever think of getting another GH that doesn't have a metal frame, although I'm sure any kind of GH that I would consider buying (i.e. in my price range) will come with its own set of problems.

Then I did more tidying up in the GH and yard, while DH worked on the setup for the water barrels, which kind of "settled" this past year, causing a problem because we had 4 barrels connected together and they were sloping in the wrong direction, such that the water couldn't flow to the 3rd and 4th barrels. A couple of days ago I cleaned up the shady corner garden and cut back the sedums (I usually leave the stalks over the winter but I need to dig these plants up in the spring so I wanted them ready to go). \

Still have LOTS on the to-do list, but every year it's the same story... I just keep doing things until the inevitable snowstorm says stop! I think last year at this time we had already had a couple of pretty significant snowfalls, so we've been in what I think of as "bonus days" for a while already -- and it looks like we have at the very least another week, with just a couple of days of showers thrown in there. This is the way autumn should be! (Dare I hope for a Thanksgiving without snow on the ground??)

Yes, but the deer hunters won't like it!

Tom -- I don't care!

Even way back (in my "former life" - or former marriage, to be more specific), when I used to hunt, I was perfectly happy with no snow!

On Saturday I planted the garlic. We bought straw bales on Monday and now they are mulched. The roots will do a lot of growing as long as the ground doesn't freeze. The mulch will help keep the ground from freezing and thawing cycles which can also heave the garlic out of the ground. My varieties are Chinese Pink, Persian Star, and Turkish Giant. Quite international, don't you think? I also have elephant garlic which is not really a garlic, but a segmented leek. With the mulching of the garlic, I am through in the garden until spring.

I wish I could say the same, Mary. I am up to my eyeballs taking plumeria cuttings and moving plumeria plants inside. Perhaps I can plant my garlic Sunday, though we are supposed to get down to 30F Sunday morning. I am so behind.

I planted some garlic today, and mulched it good. Might be too late, but we'll see. Supposed to be a mild winter.

I doubt it's too late Tom. I am like Ken, haven't gotten mine planted either. Too wet here. I did mark the rows today and hopefully by Sunday I will have ours planted. We usually plant three 50' rows, three feet wide but this year it will be two half rows. I have to do it in half rows because the rows are washing out on the west end so I will only plant on the east end.

No garlic on this end!

Close up with a glove to show the width


I finally got a few beets! I also planted some seeds today. Who knows what will happen under a row cover here. But I am hoping for very early spring beets. I also planted turnips and chard with the same hopes. I will try anything! I pulled a few small parsnips too. They need thinning but the ones I pulled will be good roasted. And David dug the volunteer Irish potatoes and got a few. Very few. But we're expecting frost Friday and they wouldn't make it after that anyway.

Everything outside is done and the perennials are mulched in. But I moved my Bhut Jolokia pepper inside before the first frost, and it's still ripening fruit! I'm hoping to overwinter it and move it to my new place in the spring

Tom, NOAA is predicting a mild winter in the upper midwest: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/s... I'm really hoping they're right!

Tom, I don't think you're too late with the garlic either... I planted mine in early October this year, but that's unusual for me; I really think as long as it goes in before the ground freezes it will do fine.

Whether we get a "mild" winter or not -- I'm really happy for the extended autumn we've been having! We covered the greenhouse with a big sheet of plastic today (we do that every winter, to try to help protect it from the elements), dug out the beets and carrots, and cut down the asparagus stalks. Supposed to have 2 days of rain coming up, then the weekend is supposed to be nice again... hope I can pretty well wrap up the outside projects, it's time to move on to some other things (like giving the house a good cleaning for the holidays!)