Potato harvest

Last weekend, we harvested the rest of the potatoes. It was fun digging through the soil, a bit like finding Easter eggs on Sunday morning. My youngest daughter and her friend enjoyed helping.

With the Holidays quickly approaching and more left to do to prepare for Winter, I have decided to do a final harvest from the garden this weekend and then pick up again in the Spring. I will be reporting on my indoor kitchen gardening experiments in the meantime.

Late Autumn update

I have not figured out how to back-date posts so I will post something I wrote on October 27 and then continue with this week's update. October 27: This past week, all of the trees that were green finally put on their autumn colors. There are many trees that are bare now, but the garden is still growing and producing beautiful greens. I was especially impressed by the lettuce when I took off the plastic cover Monday morning. We are having a bit of a "warm" spell. I don't know if it qualifies as an Indian Summer, but the sunshine and relative warmth are appreciated. November 11: I harvested some kale, lettuce, parsley, carrots and beets Monday morning. We had beautiful weather in the 60's Saturday and Sunday thanks to hurricane Ida pushing the warm Gulf air up our way. It often happens that when there is a hurricane churning in the Gulf, our weather is as perfect as one can imagine. When I looked at the weather forecast for the week, it looked like it would stay above freezing, so I left the plastic covers off the garden frames. To my surprise, we had a heavy frost last night. I am hoping that the lettuce will survive. Because my last planting of lettuce did not come up, there is a lot of open space in the garden frames, but there is enough left to experiment with extending the season.

Frosty mornings

We have had several frosty mornings in the past week (this morning's temp was 25), but the daytime temperatures have been in the 40's and 50's. This week, daytime temperatures are forecasted in the 50's and 60's. I have covered four of the five frames with plastic in the hope that it will give the remaining vegetables a warm boost during the day and keep them from freezing at night. I have drawn up plans for a greenhouse made with electrical conduit, PVC pipe, a 2x6 ridge and plastic, which will provide a double layer of protection. My inspiration for the greenhouse is Eliot Coleman's "Four Season Harvest".

In other news this weekend, I trapped and relocated a pesky red squirrel who failed to get the message that I didn't want him chewing holes in my garage and I finished a fence around our arbor vitae to protect them from the deer. For the past few years, I have been wrapping the arbor vitae with burlap, usually at the last minute, in the dark, in the midst of a driving snow. This year, I drove metal stakes and hung a 5' high fence on a nice sunny day, a definite improvement.

I have seen it mentioned often that deer like to eat arbor vitae. In my experience, they will only eat it when everything else is covered with snow. In other words, they don't prefer it but will eat it when nothing else is available.

I am imagining all of my plants thriving under the protective warmth of the plastic, hopefully they are not getting too hot. I will provide an update later this week.

Mid-Autumn update

The leaves have mostly turned and the forecast is beginning to mention snow. This past weekend, I harvested a lot of greens, carrots, and beets, pulled out the plants that are not going to produce any more (cucumber, basil, green pepper, bolted cabbage), and harvested some very small potatoes. My youngest daughter calls them "American Girl" potatoes, just the right size to satisfy her AG dolls.

Last night, I covered three frames with heavy duty plastic. I hope to cover one more tonight, then turn my attention to covering the arbor vitae before the deer find it is the only edible green thing in view.

I have been working on a "lessons learned" document and hope to post that sometime soon.