I have a few tomatoes/peppers hanging on...slowly working their way toward ripe (if they make it at all) at a pace that does very little. I pruned off the smaller peppers/tomatoes that didn't have a chance a week+ ago.

We're out of the warm days, but I'm letting them hang on until the lows drop regularly into the very low 40s or below.

I miss summer already.

I should be happy. How often does Wisconsin get a better summer than California? :)

I had a great garden this year, we are now having an unparalleled Indian Summer, and I just recently found dozens of beautiful marigolds at the compost site that I can save seed from. I can get an early start next year cos I won't have to wait for tilling. But yeah, it's still a little sad that the summer is over.

Earlier today I planted two blueberry seedlings in our yard, so I am already thinking about next years crop. This years crop was down, about 1/3 of our best harvest-there weren't enough bees up and about when the shrubs were blooming, due to unusual spring weather. The garden did OK, but we had a lot of rain and overcast weather in July and August. The weather improved in September. We recently harvested brussels sprouts, and they did well. My next problem is finding a way to keep the rabbits from chewing my blueberry seedlings down to the nubs...

Well we just had the worst summer that I can remember, we didn't have a great spring either. Now we're being told we can look forwards to a wet, very cold and lots of snow winter. Yeah I'd say it's just a tad depressing. In past years we've had some very mild winters with no snow at all.
Keeping my fingers crossed for a better year in 2011.

Although not new to vegetable gardening I haven't done too much of it in the past few years. I've been lurking here on this forum for the past few months sorta getting myself back in the veggie mode.

May I introduce myself...I've been a gardener all my life (73 years young), my grandparents were great gardeners, produced most of the food they ate. It seemed to have skipped a generation but the love of gardening rubbed off on me. When our kids flew the coop I turned more to the decorative side of gardening but for some time now I've become interested in heirloom varieties of vegetables, beans in particular as Happy well knows:), keeping my own seed, and the concept of the 100 mile diet. Although we only have a city sized lot I have a lot crammed in it. Next spring I will be converting a 20 ft long perennial border back to veggies, I know not very big in most of your eyes but I should be able to grow a few things. I have a small raspberry bed where I grow the canes woven horizontally along wire, we get loads of raspberries this way, enough for us (freezer raspberry jam and raspberry vinegar) and enough to feed my daughter's family.

Have a raised bed cut into a small slope, the front of the bed is waist high, the back ground level, it does warm up very quickly in the spring, it has a fibreglass roof so quite often grow tomatoes in this bed, I have netting strung on the back where I grow my main crop of beans.

I have to tuck things in here and there but manage to grow a lot of herbs, garlic this year, frog's leg shallots are in for next year.
Tomatoes (not successfully), lettuce, cucumbers, beans, garlic, herbs, shallots, peppers (not successfully) and carrots were all I grew in the veggie line last year. I have a small rhubarb patch which produces heavily every year, but the peach tree outlived it's productivity and is now gone so no more home canned peaches :(.
Once again I've been long winded but I'm looking forward to exchanging ideas with you all in the coming year.

Cheers....Annette

This is pretty much my favorite time, through to the doldrums beginning in late january.

Annette please post a photo of your woven Raspberry canes, would love to see how you did that!

You bet I do in zone 3. It's still OK up to mid-November (fall crops in low tunnels), and then winter blues take over. A month of holiday in a warm land still leaves 2 months of solid winter to slog through. Not even seed-starting to do until March. My wife and I are going to move to a warmer clime next year. This city is safe, not too expensive, quiet, but not meant for gardeners!!!
We have our sights on a certain Zone 5 city. It's all relative :)

Yeah, the winter funk is starting to creep in as the last of my marigolds have frozen(sigh). I used to live in the PNW and thought it was depressing to have gray and rainy winters. Now, in NW WI for almost 8 years, I still can't get used to 5 months of snow on the ground and below 0 temps(even though it is sunnier here). At least the PNW winters were not as long, and you could start preparing the garden around February most years.

Happy, I picked up this tip on growing raspberries years ago after watching a Wisely segment on Victory Garden at least (I think that's where I saw it) and have been growing our raspberries this way ever since. The slightly raised bed is 12ft. by 3 ft. and the wire is strung about 3 ft high (waist height). It has T posts on each end with a spreader bar down the middle so I can pull the wire tight. After cutting the old canes out and after the new canes have matured enough that they will bend without snapping I twist them around the wire pulling each cane as I get to it. If I come to a cane a little on the short side I usually tie it in with a bit of jute. These pictures were taken late winter several years ago, please excuse the weeds etc. I hadn't gotten to that yet. I wish I had a picture to show you when they were in flower or in fruit...note to self, get off my butt and take one next year.

{{gwi:117733}}

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....and this picture was taken a few minutes ago, this is what it looks like shortly after I've twisted the canes around the wire.

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Annette

Oooops, sorry wasn't thinking I should have started a new thread.
Annette

Sorry for the threadjack but thanks Annette, great idea. My neighbor has berry canes leaning all over, I should show him this idea.

Depressed? Yeah, but it's not from the garden. Property taxes are due in 2 weeks, and they have gone up substantially.

Temps in the 70s this past week, I got the end-of-season harvest and tilling done Saturday, and now there's an inch of snow on the ground! Practically pitch-black at 7:00 this morning, and freezing out! I guess those rumors of winter coming were true.