Winter garden presents challenges

This falls garden has presented a number of challenges. The infestation of whiteflies and other insects I had in the front yard garden has carried over onto many of the fall garden plants. I have pulled out all of the infested plants throwing away many eggplants and squash plants. Faithfully using fish emulsion on the suggestion of green and growing and the sustainable harvest people I have managed to have plants that are once more thriving except for the beets. They are being particularly hard hit by something that's eating holes in their leaves but I don't want to risk putting too much nitrogen on them and causing them to not make adequate sized beets. I have also found a number of very large cut worms in the soil which were doing significant damage to my bean plants and others. I have dug them out and smash them in hopes of reducing their population. At least we have had several flight freezes in late December and early January.

We were able to get the greenhouse repositioned and covered with its plastic in plenty of time for the cold weather. In fact as soon as we had it ready the weather was not cold for several weeks again. The plants seem to be thriving in there with the extra humidity and heat. I have about six different kinds of pepper plants in the greenhouse and all of them have numerous peppers on them. This morning I noticed almost 20 small tomatoes on the four tomato plants and one more eggplant. I have a shelf mounted on the side to nurture small plants before I transplant them to the garden.

I use the tops of several 2 L bottles to make cloches for my broccoli and brussels sprouts transplants and these  seem to have caused them to grow better. Experimenting with the tops and the middles of the 2 L bottles leads me to believe that the tops that are closed with just a small hole work better then a 4 inch tall surround from the middle of the bottle. Now I wonder if using the bottom that is totally closed over the plants will also work well. However I will use whatever I can use so that the plants are protected from all the wind we have had.

The garlic and the onion sets that I planted are  growing well this year. I did get to mulch them with about an inch of leaves just before the freezes to keep the moisture into the ground. I think that only two or three of all the garlic bulbs I planted failed to germinate. We've been stealing a bit of the tops and they taste wonderful. I can hardly wait till this summer when we harvest them to have much superior garlic to what we've had in the past.

Herbs: grow them, love them, preserve them, cook with them

We always used herbs--a few but not very many and we were not using many fresh ones. That was before I tried growing them in the garden. We fell in love with purple basil and when I learned to make a good pesto--sweet basil. I got cutting from friends and started more kinds of herbs. Now we were on the lookout for recipes to use sage, cilantro, thyme, and more. I have found that putting them in medium sized pots seems to keep them in control and a bit smaller than those in the ground. It has also let me rearrange them and share them more easily. Found a great website about their growing habits and so in not reinventing the wheel: http://culinaryherbguide.com/herbgardens.html

I learned how to make the plants multiply by doing cutting and rooting in water but was loosing many cuttings to rot. The last cuttings I rooted in wet sand and they all took. Now I  am trying a batch in seed starter with sand and they also seem to be doing very well. I volunteered at Johnson Farm this summer and one of the days we did mint cuttings and planted them that way. The advantage is they grow faster and true to the parent plant. It worked well on the sage, begonias, lemon basil and mints.

I have tried out several ways of putting herbs up so that we have them fresh when we want to use them. I use my Foodsaver and make  small vacuum bags then fill them with damp herbs, seal and freeze. I have also made up pesto packs with just a bit of oil so they need to have oil added to serve them. We also made parsley - garlic butter and thai basil butter. The mint kept really well in the refrigerator so it has not made it to the freezer. Now to find recipes using rosemary and more using fresh cilantro. drying and freezing herbs
We grew chamomile in the school garden last year but I have never grown it. Great for attracting bees so I need to add one and the tea is not bad either.

Heather shared a printout at our last garden guild meeting on growing herbs from A&M http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/fallgarden/herbs.html and brought several different herbs for members to touch and smell. We discussed and demonstrated how to take cuttings and start new plants for ourselves. Great short video on this at Propagating Herbs video on youtube.

Gardener's TO-Do list for October

From Organic Living

Our zone-by-zone list will keep you busy this month.

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• 

Zone 8

• Plant more lettuce, Chinese cabbage, spinach, carrots, beets, peas, radishes, onions, turnips, garlic, shallots, and cress.
• Set out strawberry plants.
• Sow a cover crop of winter rye (Secale cereale), purple vetch (Vicia benghalensis), Austrian winter peas (Pisum arvense), or ‘Elbon' rye (Secale cereale ‘Elbon') in vacant beds.
• Use rye clippings to add nitrogen to compost, speeding the breakdown of fall leaves.
• In flowerbeds, plant anemones, oxalis, and ranunculus for spring bloom.
• Also, seed annual candytuft (Iberis umbellata) in bare spots of flowerbeds for spring bloom.
• Broadcast wildflower seeds to establish a meadow.
• Plant trees and shrubs: Warm fall temps will help them get established before winter.

For more zones or to look at other articles: organicgardening.com

Fall gardening into full swing with brassicas and root crops

I couldn't wait for fall so I could replace the under-performing plants that lived through the heat with the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and beets/carrots that we seem to be able to grow in great profusion. I started all of the plants except cabbage from seed and am spending time fine tuning the soil with my little test kit and transplanting the little seedlings into the garden. I am also looking closely at companion plantings. The cool mornings are enticing me from many other tasks but the rewards are going to be many.

I found an interesting lettuce tower on Pinterest and got it made up with a few sprigs of red sails lettuce. should be fun if nothing else. I am trying fall green beans and peas to see if they do better. Seems that last fall the green beans did pretty well. I have a new really short season variety to try. 

The herbs are going strong compelling me to find recipes to utilize all of them. Sage stuffed pork roast was terrific, the Thai basil and garlic parsley butters are great on bread, potatoes, rice --the list goes on and on. I have  dozens of packets pesto in the freezer waiting to be  spread on pasta, bread, crackers and more. The lemon basil has appeared on chicken and on a zucchini torte.  George is using a lot more mint in his tea too. I haven't tried out rosemary dishes but will go there next. Garlic cloves are on their way from the grower so next year we should have really tasty garlic to use too. 

I participated in a few plant swaps in the last few weeks and have added a number of perennials to the beds and bringing in new color and textures. I got half a dozen coleus plants of various leaf types and rooted most of them to double or triple the plantings. Looks pretty good out there even with all the heat.