Beautiful vegetables as always.
Wow those are nice onions, the ones I ordered from Dixondales are tiny compared to those..

It's going to get pretty cold tonight but still above 40 around here, I hope the frosts stay away for a while.

Hope everything comes out ok for you!

Larry

Silvia, as always everything looks wonderful. I went by the community garden in Oakland and was a little surprised I thought it was bigger but it look good.

We are having great sucess at Ricks garden he is got so much produce that he is trying to sell some so it doesn't go to waste, I cannot believe his garden and how healthy and abundant it is.

I'm not growing anything cuz I'm looking to move and don't want leave anything behind. Looking forward to planting alot of seeds around midle of Dec.

The pickled coli looks so good LOL. Great job!!

I like novelty things like purple cauliflower. I takes me so long to grow them though. It looks like your greenhouse will get some use tonight.

Hi Larry - Thank you. I am also surprised at the weather, the day after Thanksgiving we went for a few days to a beach in Melbourne, and the days were still warm and people swimming,lol. You will do fine covering your tomatoes with the cage that you made. I am doing the experiment this season with the tomatoes that will be going in the greenhouse, they are already fruiting and got too big, next winter I will starter them later. You should get more onion sets, that is one thing that is still cheap, they had the granex white and yellow, I was hoping to find the red ones.-(

Hi Carmen - You have to let me know when you moving and your new address, I don't want to loose you as my gardening buddy.
I agree with you about Rick's garden being so amazing!, it shows the love and care that he put in all his plantings, he told me that you helped him sow some veggies.) And he should sell his surplus produce that way the garden can be profitable, I am happy for him and all the people that are benefiting from the garden.
With all the holidays this season I think the community garden is slowing down a bit, they will have to clean the old and put new crops, tomatoes soon will have to be clean up, I asked them what was their favorite tomatoes to grow again for them and they said that they like them all.
Carmen, keep in touch and thank you for the veggie stories this morning, it was very interesting! more sweet potatoes for us! lol.

Silvia

Hi Amber - I am already using the greenhouse for the tropical fruit trees, like caimito, mango, star fruit, sweet tamarind, red atemoya, pineapple, red guava, 2 plumerias, the basils, that fills one side. The other side will be fill with tomatoes and peppers. I am waiting to be under 40 at night to put them in.
This season the purple cauliflower is doing better than the white one, I am still waiting for the romanesco and one of my favorites is a broccolini that I am growing now, it is a mix of broccoli and gai lan.

Silvia

Absolutely gorgeous Silvia! As for me, well I haven't been on the forum for the past month or two. My gardening experiment went downhill fast.

If you don't remember, I moved here in June and started a container garden this past fall. I started off completely wrong (some pots too small, included red pine mulch with the soil, etc), but thought I bounced back (got bigger pots, mixed new plantings with bark, etc).

Things were looking great at first. Everything was growing beautifully. Sadly, most of my plants have beared little fruits/veggies. The leaves look great and some keep growing, but any harvest has been pitiful. The raddishes were really small, I only got a couple of medium sized peppers from most plants, the cucs up and died very quickly, the beans and tomatoes did nothing...I could go on.

I've still got some onions and carrots going but I'm afraid to check them :) And I have one petite pepper plant that is doing well.

So, I gave up and avoided the forum :(

Well, I've had a rough week with my maters. As some of you have seen, I apparently got gray mold (my best guess) on most of my plants. I read a lot last night, and there seems to be disagreement as to whether they are savable. I pruned off all the bad branches today and sprayed with fungicide. Haven't lost much fruit yet. Maybe I can still save some. Oddly enough, the four plants I have in the ground are fine, just not producing as much fruit as the potted ones were.

I'm getting about a handful of green beans a day, which is fun. I need to harvest some more kale and make chips for the kids. They eat that.

Still nothing from my broccoli or cauliflower. But this was the first day in two weeks that we haven't gotten into the 80's. I'm hoping it's just been too warm for them. All the plants are healthy.

Squash is still struggling. I have a few more babies, so maybe they won't rot.

Lettuce and peas are just getting started.

All in all, it's going OK for my first season trying. But I'm pretty bummed about the tomatoes. They went from so beautiful to so sad so quickly. :(

Becca

Hi Scarlet - Thank you and I am very sorry that your veggies did not turn well, we all learn after we failed and try not to make more mistakes again. I grow some some veggies in pots, always the tomatoes but they have to have room to grow unless they are the dwarf size and can be grown in a smaller pot and of course the red mulch is a big no. I don't put any mulch in the containers because I like to test the soil for watering and also with the humidity here it can create problems, You have to look for veggies that can be grown in containers, I had success with Renee garden seeds for containers. You can do well with peppers, herbs, lettuce, dwarf kale, some zucchini and cucumber varieties will need a bigger containers. Growing in the ground or raised bed is easier but sometimes not possible due to space or in case with the tomatoes and the nematodes.
Don't give up and try to find better containers. I have some inexpensive plastic tubs and growing celery, parsley and cilantro, sometimes I do lettuce in them or start seedlings, all my containers have multiple uses. Hope to see you on the forum more often and asking questions, that is why we are her for, don't give up!

Hi Becca - I hope that you solve the problem with the tomatoes, that is the main reason that I plant more than I need, something happened or they get diseased, I have other ones. With the weather and the bugs here it is not the easiest thing to do to grow healthy plants unless we are very careful and spray if we have to.
Good to know that you are getting beans and greens, the other veggies will follow, broccoli and cauliflower take a long time. Try to get some transplants of a different tomato variety and put them in a different place if you can, to see if you have better luck, I plant heirlooms and hybrids for the same reason, something has to do well. Eventually you will get to know what does better in your conditions.

Silvia

Silvia,Your cauliflower looks superb.I have harveted,eaten & frozen a bunch of Brocolli,but my cauliflower still looks feeble.When do You plant yours out into the beds,as now I think mine will get hit with freezes right about the time the heads are forming.I'm thinking I might have to plant them as early as late August,but that just doesn't seem right.Congrats on a great harvest & have You ever made/tried pickalili(spelling?)but it is a pickled/spicey cauliflower...very good.Once again beautiful pictures/dishes.Best,Darcy.

Hi Darcy - I keep telling myself to keep records of varieties planted and dates.:) The photobucket is a good record that I can go back and look when I planted. I started broccoli first, soon after that cauliflower, greens and lettuce. They were of a good size in 8 oz cups when I put them in the garden. The first to be harvested where some white early variety and now I am harvesting a lot of the purple and the heads are bigger than last year when I planted them later. They made it fine with the frost but the purple had smaller heads.
I love all pickles of any kind of vegetable, I top all my salads with them, I am going to make today a cauliflower/rice pilaf with piccalilli spices, good idea.:)
Going back about the planting of cauliflower, the bed had black jungle butterbeans in September, by the end of the month had the transplants. I am still waiting for the Romanesco and Veronica to form heads.

September black jungle butterbeans

January last year's Romanesco, they did well with the frosts

{{gwi:12601}}

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: piccalilli

Silvia,I'm pretty good at keeping written records of the veggie planting dates & in what bed just to make rotating the veggies easier.My downfall is,I hardly ever record the variety of seed I'm growing,which would be handy for comparing pest/disease & yields.Hopefully next Season I'll get my brain in gear & start writing the variety down.Hope Your piccalilli rice pilaf turned out well...I'm sure it did.Best,Darcy.

Darcy, the cauliflower rice pilaf turned out very well and today cauliflower was on the menu again made different style.
For lunch we had a soup made with winter squash, white beans and cauliflower leaves used instead of kale and at night we had cauliflower gratin and everyone liked it! it retained the pretty purple color through the baking, oh, the joy of growing your own veggies,:)
I hope that you have your health back and your hip healed already, are you using your greenhouse? I put shade cloth on mine, I have to take a picture again when I will put the tomatoes in.

Silvia

Thanks for the kind words Silvia.I am getting around pretty good-doing a bunch of physical therapy,but still not allowed to bend or do other certain movements for a couple more weeks(there is a risk of dislocation until the muscles heal).It makes weeding & planting/thinning seeds a real chore,as I just slide along on my knees. I changed the oil in the Wife's car last week.She walked into the garage,shook her head & went back into the house...I'm sure I looked crazy sliding along the floor :)
I am using the greenhouse,as We had a couple of real light frosts last week.I have moved my potted citrus in there & have transplanted a few tomatoes,peppers & basil.I have also got young seedlings of cukes & squash in the other greenhouse bed.I noticed last week,when We hit 37degs,that I have between 10-12degs of heat gain in the greenhouse without using a space heater.I think the gravel path & 5gallon bucket heat sinks really help.Of course this week,We are back into the high 70's :) If it is a success,then I may well add onother beside it for next Winter,but I will have to see how it holds up when We get down into the 15-20deg nights.