Chris, it looks like you will be getting rain from another arm of the rotating system that has dumped over 2.5 inches on us today. It is still raining here, and radar indicates that is likely to continue for awhile. Guess I should have picked even more aggressively this past weekend. This rain can not be doing the tomatoes any good.

How do those of you who grow cauliflower and broccoli deal with pests? We are especially hit with caterpillars of the eastern cabbage white butterfly. Do you use BT, netting, row cover, something else? How effective are your methods? I've had such heavy pest pressure in the fall recently that I didn't even try any cauliflower or broccoli this year. The good reports from some of you make me want to try it again next year. But I don't want harvests crawling with green caterpillars :(

Chris - We caught a couple dozen crappie, a few white bass, and 2 walleye between the 4 of us.

Naturegirl - I have used both tulle insect barrier covers and BTK to control the cabbage worms on broccoli and cauliflower. The tulle works well when the plants are small but after a few weeks the plants are too big to keep covered well. In the spring the cabbage worms really aren't a problem until sometime in mid May and by then my early April transplants are nearly finished maturing. Fall planted (early August) brassicas are a battle from the start and I use both covers and BTK from the time I start to harden off the transplants.

When I have 2 rows of plants in a 4' wide raised bed like below it is very hard to keep them covered after a few weeks. If I am diligent about spraying BT at least once a week and after any rain I can usually keep them relatively worm free. The butterflies still lay their eggs and the worms hatch but then die from BT ingestion pretty quickly.

naturegirl - this is my first year trying the fall broccoli and cauliflower and I severely underestimated the cabbage butterflys destruction. I did apply a couple rounds of BT and it seemed to help but it was too little too late - the plants were extremely defoliated by the time I got around to the first application. I would be embarrassed to show them after seeing Jack's photo. I think I will try a row cover and get the BT sprayed early and often if I go for fall brassicas again next year.

Hope all that rain didn't burst all your tomatoes!

Jack - Glad you had a good time and got to catch some fish! That sounds like a good meal - three of the best eating fish around!

Lone Jack: you are right, there is not much time left. The nice thing about the south is that carrots grow really well all winter. I will typically plant them by 10/15 and harvest in February to March believe it or not. They have to stay in the ground longer to get to the right size, but they are still tender. I usually harvest around our first snow if we have one. The lettuce and spinach are all transplants I started 3 weeks ago, so they are already harvest-able to some extent, and I can keep spinach going all winter until spring. The one thing I did do this year, which I don't think will work, is I purchased some broccoli and cauliflower seedlings from Home Depot and planted them last weekend. I seriously doubt they will be able to mature. I figured if the stores are still selling them, maybe there is a chance? I'll let you all know what happens lol.

Re: brassica and cabbage butterfly damage, I am using this set up - will this work to prevent them? It is off the shelf fabric tulle with very small holes.... would be bummed out to lose all of mine to those little buggers......

Jeff - good luck with the broccoli and cauliflower. I hope you get something eventually. I've planted spring carrots as early as late February and they take so long to germinate and grow that by the time they are finally harvest size it is June and starting to get hot. They don't taste so good then. Now I just wait and plant my main crop in late July and harvest in November and they are really sweet.

Kevin - the fried fish dinner was really good IIRC but that is a BIG IF. Did I mention we drank a lot! LOL I was smart enough to chop up the grilled veggies Saturday morning before we went fishing so I didn't have to do it after consuming beer and whiskey. I managed to get out of cleaning fish by claiming I was out of practice and wouldn't do a good job.

Babushka - I think that will do fine to keep the worms off but it won't hurt to check on the bottoms of the leaves once in a while to make sure they didn't find a way in. And if the leaves are eventually touching the tulle they may be able to lay eggs thru it.

Thanks everyone for the advice on broccoli and cauliflower protection. There are lots of helpful ideas that may give me the confidence to try again next year.

Kevin, I've found fall is the worst time for brassica pests around here. I've done okay in the spring, but have gotten totally grossed out and gave up and composted my plants in the fall. And I've taught outdoor education with lots of insect and other creepy crawler themes so I don't gross out too easily! It looks like you got some heavy rain but it moved on. Our storm has parked over our region and rain continues. We are up to over 4 inches in the last two days. The garden is like a swamp.

I pulled on rain gear and went out to harvest more tomatoes and peppers since the low temps predicted for the next few day keep being adjusted downward. I harvested three large pails. Most of the tomatoes were so green yet that they were hard as could be and have not split....yet. I think they will stay intact and probably will ripen. No guarantees on the taste, though. Some hot peppers were damaged and appeared to have split. I guess it may have been from all the moisture, but I've never seen this happen before. It's no real problem for me since I mainly grow them because they are interesting and pretty :)

Thanks Kevin For The Info re Pepper
Please Post Photos of Your Bonsai Peppers....
I'm Going To Be Doing and I Know it's Not a Veg But a Poinsettia Bonsai.....

On Another Note......
I've Started To Cut Leaves From My Rooted Pointed Cabbage, So Is VERY Pleased As I Didn't Think it Would Work.......

Yeah my Brussels sprouts are getting a lot of pressure from the Imported Cabbageworm and the Cross-striped Cabbageworm right now. This unseasonably warm weather isn't helping. Cabbageworms really have to be the most difficult insect pest to deal with. They just keep coming and coming for months. Constantly laying eggs daily.

That's the only problem I had with the Brussels sprouts. They get too tall to keep a row cover on them. I suppose I could just use longer pieces of PVC to make taller hoops...

Naturegirl, Yikes! I saw that storm system just rotating in place over the Great Lakes region for hours. That extended tail end of the system ended up mostly missing us here. The prediction for us was 3"+ and we ended up getting half an inch.

Hum.....even with the netting on my brussels I saw a small hole in one of the leaves yesterday afternoon. Have looked up on line what the cabbage worm looks like, will do an inspection this evening.

Other bugs can be responsible for some minor damage too. Perhaps something that was already in there. When I'm hardening off any brassica seedlings, I do a thorough check for eggs, before I put them under the row cover. The Imported Cabbageworm blends VERY well. They are entirely green and usually the same color as the foliage. Besides their damage being visible, look for their dark green droppings. That is a tell-tale sign that they are around.

OK will check this evening very closely...... When I was hardening them off, had them covered with tulle as well, but the tulle was laying on top of leaves so could have still laid eggs. :(

I use tulle every year for the loopers and svb and it seems to work. You can always spray some BT and then just ensure they are covered from here on out.

On the topic of cauliflower, how low do you all let the temperature go before covering the plants? As LoneJack mentioned, Kansas City is planning for our first frost/freeze this Friday. :-(

With a hard freeze predicted for Friday night, I spent some time this afternoon doing some more garden cleanup chores. Rolled up and stored most of the soaker hoses, picked some peppers, and sprayed some BT on the broccoli plants. Look close...I think there's hope yet!

Looking good itsmce! Just another couple weeks or so.

Sunflowers - Cauliflower is not quite as cold hardy as broccoli. Do you have heads forming yet? The plants themselves are hardy to the mid 20s or so but the forming heads are particularly vulnerable to frost damage if exposed. My plan is to harvest 3 mature heads of my Snow Crown and possibly one of the Cheddar tonight and then cover the rest with a double layer of AG-19 for a few nights until the weather warms up a bit on Tuesday. Covering could be a challenge with the windy conditions we are supposed to have today and Friday. You can also wrap (called blanching) the outer leaves around the forming head to protect them a bit. It will help the plants in that we have already had some pretty cool nights to somewhat prepare them for a freeze. You don't have to worry about the Brussels Sprouts...they laugh at 29 degrees.

I finished harvesting all of my peppers last night. There were considerably more than I thought or can use so I brought a bunch to work. The total 2017 pepper harvest for my 12 plants was 552 fruit and 94.5 lbs. I think I would have easily gotten to 100 but my Anaheim stopped producing in August and one of my Escamillo plants died for unknown reasons around Labor day.

I also picked the last of my cherry tomatoes so I can close the book on maters for the year at 220.75 lbs. My total overall harvest is up to 975 lbs.

I will be digging up my fall potatoes on Saturday too since the freeze will kill the plants. It will be interesting to see if there is anything down there, They were planted August 4th and started sprouting in late August. I expect there may be some small tubers at best.

Oh, forgot to mention that I have a few garlic sprouting already after 11 days! So exciting! The 2018 garden has officially started growing.

I have big gardening plans for this weekend. Pull out the peppers, cherry tomatoes, zucchini. Cut down all of the asparagus ferns. Collect and chop up fall leaves and blanket the vacant beds. Put compost and chopped leaves on the asparagus beds. Start a new compost pile. Buy the lumber for my 3 new beds and start to build them if time permits. I'm going to try to get up early and blanch and freeze some broccoli and cauliflower before sunrise on Saturday.

itsmce, the broccoli looks great! Hope it sizes up nice for you.

Jack, that's a ton of peppers!! I can't believe you counted them all lol. You sure do have quite the operation over there.

Jealous of the new beds you're adding! My sunny growing space is being threatened by encroaching trees :-/ Gonna have to start doing some cutting soon. I also just started a new compost pile. I took 10 straw bales from my friend months ago that have been decomposing outside. It's been good for layering in between grass clippings, vegetable and fruit scraps. This is my third and will be my final compost location. From now on it will just be a rotation of the 3 in different phases.

Hope you get a decent harvest from the potatoes! I'm interested to find out.

Can't believe your garlic is already up! We are starting to level out with the temps finally. Probably won't be throwing down the garlic mulch for another couple weeks though.

Wow @LoneJack, that's quite a harvest! I definitely need to install the scale outside this year. The heat here has not let up quite yet, been 100+ degrees for three days now. I was contemplating adding a "greenhouse" to the hot side of the house for growing ginger , turmeric, and maybe some high heat tropicals but..... i don't think i'm gonna need it.

My iris have all started to root despite the heat, and I planted my winter peas, favas, and a lot of garlic. Getting ready to harvest the rest of my sweet potatoes pretty soon. there's a wateremlon coming on the vine, and several corn left to harvest, and then a lot of tomatoes that are still going strong.

The big news is the down payment on the chicken coop was made, and that's coming in soon. Hoping to have the small flock going by springtime. Happy fall harvests to everyone!

Reporting my final counts from my first year summer garden:

Over 260 pounds of tomatoes (did not make the house sitter weigh while I was gone :)). Performance by type:

Paul Robeson 34 pds from 1 plant

Dr Wyches Yellow: 30 pds from 1 plant

Purple Cherokee 24 pds 1 plant

Amish Paste - approx 23 pd per plant

San Marzano -23 pds per plant (late bloomer, caught up in the end!)

I have canned the majority of the plum tomatoes and some of the heirlooms. The heirlooms have been delicious in that cream of tomato soup recipe posted above.

Rosa Bianca Eggplant: 32 pds from 6 plants

Sweet red and yellow peppers: 12.5 pounds from 10 plants. Count would be higher if not for the rat.... GGGRRR but he is in heaven now. :)

Wow LoneJack, that's an incredible harvest! Especially all of those peppers from 12 plants! What varieties did you plant again?

I'm out of town tonight but will try to throw some frost cloth over the cauliflower tomorrow when I get home. I don't remember seeing any heads forming yet so I may have planted them too late and it may be a lost cause. Other than that, I'll be doing a lot of what everyone else is doing this weekend. Starting a new compost pile with all of our fall leaves and my many pepper plants that'll likely be dead by Saturday morning!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Although the F-word isn't due here until tomorrow night, I opted to do the last minute, essential, outdoor chores late afternoon today. The wind was blowing at least 30 mph but it was about 70 degrees. Tomorrow afternoon the wind is expected to still be blowing like it was today but the high for the day is only about 47. I picked a couple gallons worth of green peppers, a couple dozen small jalapeños, and a couple big handfuls of grape tomatoes. I gave the broccoli plants a nice long drink before I disconnected the water.

Yesterday I put all my previously picked tomatoes that were ripe enough through the strainer gizmo attachment of my Kitchen Aid mixer. Totaled about 6 quarts of fresh sauce. I cooked it down and canned 5 pints tonight. And with that, my 2017 canning season is in the books.

Itsmce - Good job canning the last of your harvest! I am all canned out for the year but I'm going to have to find the energy to blanch and freeze some more broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots yet. Processing horseradish is on my to-do list in a couple weeks as well.

Babushka - You ended up with a big tomato harvest! I think I remember you saying that you were putting in some more beds for next season. Do you plan to just grow more of everything or try some new things?

Sunflowers - This year I grew Carmen and Escamillo horn shaped peppers, For bells I grew Ace (red), Flavorburst (yellow), and Gourmet (orange). Lastly I had 2 El Jefe Jalapenos and one Anaheim. For next year I an replacing Anaheim with Poblanos and the Gourmet orange will be replaced with Orange Blaze which are a couple weeks earlier to ripen. I may grow a couple Big Bertha red bells as well. Ace is a productive bell pepper but the fruit are not very big.

It didn't get as cold as predicted this morning at my house but I think that just means the cold front isn't plunging south quite as fast as forecast. It could be worse...my brother in Minneapolis is getting a pretty good snow with blizzard conditions right now.

@lonejack - yes hope to try some new stuff next year. and also just have more space for some favorites! my garden is teeny tiny - want more space!

Itsmce - Thats some nice thick sauce (and I am jealous of those remaining fresh tomatoes you have on the counter!) The only canning I have left to do is making another dozen or so habanero / ghost chili jelly... I have about 2 dozen habs chopped and frozen and then around 4 dozen ghost chilis to deal with. I may just chop those to and put them all in the freezer and wait till some cold night in winter to can the jelly.

I picked the last of the eggplant, some broccoli sideshoots, and what is likely the last of the peppers - we got a decent frost last night and I only had the gumption to cover up the couple plants I plan to bonchi (which I am planning on doing this evening). The rest are probably toast or will be after we get some more cold nights this weekend.

I am at 796 lbs total harvest. Of which 493 lbs tomatoes. 72 lbs of peppers. Need to find a different strain of jalepenos and maybe try some other types of sweet peppers next year - I wasn't very impressed with the ones I grew this year.

Yikes...I just heard that 26 is predicted as the low tonight. At that temp, I am guessing that my baby broccolis may be in danger. I guess I will fight the cold wind this afternoon and try to cover the plants. The low this morning was 34, about what was predicted.

@Lonejack - Earlier you said you process and freeze your horseradish. I have processed horseradish in the past but wanted to know if there is anything special you do when you freeze it, or do you just process it as normal and then put it in a freezer safe container?

Itsmce - That's a cold slap in the face! At least the cold snap won't last too long and we will be back up in the 50s and 60s pretty quick. If you can manage to get your plants covered in the wind it would probably be a good idea. I didn't get my cauliflower covered last night like I had planned. I did harvest 3 more heads and the remaining 6 plants are in a pretty small area with hoops already in place so it shouldn't take me long. I may just use a sheet because it is easier to deal with in the wind than Agribon.

I'm going to go ahead and pick all of the broccoli side shoots of any size and the broccolini tonight so I have it ready to freeze on Saturday along with the cauliflower.

Kevin - Impressive yield and nice looking harvest!! What variety of Jalapeno did you grow this year? If you're looking for a larger and hotter Jalapeno then Mucho Nacho would be a good choice I think. I haven't tried it yet myself but plan to when I run out of El Jefe seeds. Mucho Nacho are supposed to be up to 4" long with a Scoville rating of 4500-8000 which is at the high end for Jalapenos.

Jack - thanks! I am unsure of the variety, I'll have to see if I still have the seed packet... I believe it was a generic Burpee or something I picked up at HD / Lowes. I'll have to look into getting some Mucho Nacho - that is exactly what I am looking for - bigger and hotter! The fruits I got on the plant this year had some good bite but they were almost all really small... the lack of production could have been due to some overcrowding too... next year I will be trying to grow more potted peppers and leave the raised beds for other things.

Yikes, itsmce, 26 is low! I'm in Arizona at the moment for work and it's 76 and sunny :-) it's going to be hard to get off the plane tonight to 40 degree (or lower) temps in Kansas City. And I'll have to remember to take some sheets out when I get home and cover as much of the cauliflower as I can.

Your welcome Kevin. Here is another large Jalapeno called Biker Billy that is very popular. I believe it is a Burpee exclusive.

It dropped down to 30 in my garden on Saturday morning and 27 on Sunday morning with very heavy frosts and it's supposed to do the same tonight.

My fall potato plants turned to mush pretty quickly and I dug them Saturday afternoon after the frost melted off. I was pleasantly surprised with the yield. No potatoes of unusual size Chris but I did get 13 lbs total. I think a lot of them were volunteers from potatoes I missed in June because I was finding French Fingerlings where I had planted German Butterball and Yukon Gold. They were planted August 8 so they only had 80 days. They could have used another couple weeks to gain more size. The potatoes put my harvest total up to 993 lbs. now. Only 7 more to my goal!

My garden really looks naked now. I cut back all of the Asparagus beds and pulled out the peppers, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini. All of the gus beds and vacant beds got about an inch of compost and I put a few inches of chopped leaves on the gus beds. I didn't get a new compost pile started or get the lumber for my new beds like I had planned.

Nice tater harvest Jack!

I finally got the pepper plants dug up that I want to try to bonchi. Ghost chili, orange hab, and thai chili are the three I picked. The thai plant is so small I ended up just keeping the entire plant in tact - not trimming anything but a few dead leaves. The other two plants (stumps) are about 8 to 10 inches in height. I put them in small regular pots for the time being... if they start going well I may move them into more traditional 'bonsai' pots - I am not sure if that style pot is just for looks or if having the shallow depth of the container is any benefit to the plants water/nutrient wise.

Cool Kevin! That Thai chili plant looks really healthy. I hope your experiment works out. Was there any sign of aphids on them? I've never noticed aphids bothering my pepper plants before myself (probably shouldn't have said that!).

I am going to leave my cauliflower covered for a couple more days. I think at least one of the Snow Crown heads and one Cheddar are ready to cut so I may go ahead and do that tonight and then cover them back up.

Hopefully I don't jinx myself either but no I didn't notice any aphids... Something had been chewing on some of the leaves at some point so I'll have to keep an eye out. I may douse them with some DE for S&G.

Nice late harvest, Kevin! You're really getting your money's worth out of those plants! I'm interested to see how your "bonchi" plants turn out. Maybe watch Karate Kid a few times to pickup some tips from Mr. Miyagi :-) I too want to try a new jalapeño variety. I've been growing Early Jalapeño the past couple years.

Jack, nice harvest! Do you mean POUS's? I don't think they exist :-) Hey, you'll take free potatoes, right? What do you have left to push you up to the big 1000?

itsmce, crazy how low your temps are getting! We haven't dropped below 30° yet.

We got hit with some heavy rain and winds all day yesterday into last night. A grand total of 3.56", according to my little weather station. We are supposed to drop down to 32° tomorrow night, so I'll probably harvest the rest of my carrots the following morning. Great year for carrots, with Dragon performing very well. I will be keeping that variety and be getting rid of White Satin. Any carrot suggestions?

Chris - I think POUSs only exist in Idaho. I don't think I've ever grown one much over a pound myself. Nice looking Kale and Spinach! How long ago did you plant them? I'm still searching for a favorite carrot too. This year I am growing Bolero and Purple Haze but I still have a few weeks left until I harvest yet.

Other than carrots, I still have 6 heads of cauliflower, ~20 leeks, about 30' of radishes, and horseradish left to harvest. I may get up to around 1020 lbs.

My friend that owns the lake cabin that we went to last weekend has a decent sized garden that he pretty much neglected this year because they spent nearly every weekend at the lake. He asked me if I wanted to plant and tend it next year. I think I might take him up on it and use it for stuff that doesn't require a lot of attention like potatoes, onions, bush beans, leeks, sweet potatoes, and maybe try some sweet corn. That would free up some space in my garden to try new things. He only lives about 5 minutes away so not a big hassle to go over there once or twice a week to water and weed.

LoneJack - I know what you mean about a bare-looking garden. Yesterday I took advantage of beautiful weather (nearly 70 degrees and calm) and I tore out the last tomato, the peppers, and the zucchini which had all been frozen out Friday night. The last of the soaker hoses have been coiled and stored. The weed-barrier fabric that I use under tomatoes and peppers has been rolled up and stored too. I actually think I'll get another year out of this stuff. I wish I knew exactly what it is since this has been the best I've ever used. This was the 2nd year for it. My garden is now barren except for the broccoli and carrots at one end. Do you suppose now that we've had a hard freeze (27 or 28 I think in my yard) I can quit worrying about worms on my precious broccoli?

Speaking of carrots...I've been waiting for a freeze before harvesting since I've learned here that they get sweeter after a freeze. The question now is, how long do I wait to harvest? Is one or two freezing nights enough to sweeten them up?

I turned my new little garlic bed again yesterday and then spread a layer of compost over the top. I figure it's ready to plant now. I just need to have a nice day and the motivation to do it.

Jack, that's awesome. Glad to see you are going to reach your goal. Extra growing space! So will you still add the extra beds you were gonna build? My good friend also has a small garden about 5 min from me as well. I was thinking about doing potatoes and maybe winter squash, so I can free up my own garden a bit. I'll have to go check the books and records to get the planting dates. I think I could've waited longer on the spinach, but only because of the unseasonably warm weather we received this Fall. I think they were getting close to bolting on me. Hopefully they don't bolt too quickly come Spring, when they typically flourish.

itsmce, I think one frost is probably fine, but I've heard a couple frosts too. Do a taste test! I have noticed a difference in sweetness. They have a nice, sweet aftertaste that lingers. It applies to some brassicas too. I've heard kale and brussels sprouts have a better taste after frost. If my brussels sprouts somehow get up to size, I'll be able to test that theory. The kale I have.

We returned from a cool camping trip to find that frost had taken out much of the garden...had a low of 28 degrees. I'm glad that I put on the knee boots and picked green peppers and tomatoes in the rain before we left. Several of the picked tomatoes were already turning red when we returned home. We should have house ripened tomatoes for several weeks, I think.

Yesterday I pulled out some of the frozen plants and tried to tidy up a bit. There are lots of leeks left. Some kale is still going but the aphids keep returning. I hope the frost finally kills them for good...the aphids, not the plants :) Bunching onions are still going strong. I'll leave some to overwinter and harvest the rest before long. A short row of carrots put on a lot of size in the past 3 weeks. They may make a decent amount yet. I'll see when they are pulled in a few weeks. My new veggie for the year, salsify, is still in the ground. It does not look very big. I'll harvest soon but don't expect to get much. There are a few lettuce and spinach plants, but the late planting did not grow very well. We won't have many salads from them.

Lone Jack, it looks like you will make your 1000 lb. goal. I've been following it and showing your harvest photos to my husband. Now he is asking if you made it yet and rooting for you. Your last few reports remind us of last night's world series game....will he make it? will he fall short? yes, they will win....no they won't... yes... no...Oh my, did we really stay up that late!

Chris, great looking kale and lettuce, nice greenhouse, too. It looks like you did get a big rain...but we beat you by an inch or more early in the week :) We had to wade through a 6 inch deep puddle to hook up our camping trailer at the storage lot. Some ducks had moved in and were swimming around on the far end of the big puddle! Fortunately, most of the camping time was dry.

Itsmce, I bet it is nice to have everything all cleaned up and put away, especially when you can do the cleaning in nice weather. I'm hoping for some warmer and drier weather soon. There is still a lot to finish in my garden clean up.

Thanks, naturegirl! Yikes! Good thing you got the veggies out when you did. You should try to overwinter the spinach! The lettuce won't survive, but if you get the spinach to overwinter, you'll get terrific yields in the Spring.

Yes I remember! That's the one that mostly missed us. These rain storms are out of control. Further east of our area received 5"+ of rain, so I'm glad we got the lower end. That's funny about the ducks lol Hope you enjoyed the trip!

Itsmce - I don't think you have to worry about the cabbage worms going forward. I haven't seen any of the moths for a couple weeks up here and I would imagine the hard freeze would have killed any that had already hatched out. As Chris mentioned, the carrots should continue to sweeten up as well as size up the longer they are exposed to cool temps. I'm going to wait until at least Thanksgiving week to harvest mine and may leave some of them until December as long as it doesn't get cold enough for the ground to freeze solid. I've still got a lot of garden cleanup to do. I still have 26 broccoli plants that are slowly putting out more side shoots. I'll probably leave them be until I get around to starting my new compost piles and then chop them up to mix with the fall leaves.

Chris - Yes, I'm still planning to build the 3 new beds. I need somewhere to put the soil from the beds that I am ripping out. Besides, I have a $100 Home Depot gift card burning a hole in my wallet I need to use. That's great that your friend is going to let you use his garden next year. More food!

Naturegirl - Yep I am going to make my goal. The potatoes didn't put me over the top but they sure helped get me close. I didn't know my garden had fans rooting for it...thanks!!! I don't know what I should set my goal at next year especially if I use my friends garden too. Maybe 1250 lbs. would be reasonable. Did your bunching onions multiply this fall? I overwintered them one year and then separated them the following spring and they did well but I think I prefer just planting new seedlings in the spring. It sounds like you really got dumped on this week and now it looks like snow is coming down over most of Michigan. There is some snow in western KS heading our way as I type but it is supposed to turn into a cold rain before it gets here tonight. Perfect for the little Trick-or-Treaters :-(.

Jack, have you experienced any Verticillium Wilt? The reason I ask is that I was reading this book about crop rotation and came across a section that praised broccoli residue. There have been studies that have shown that vegetables in the Brassica family, especially broccoli, release a chemical when they decompose called isothiocyanate. It is a biofumigant that can greatly reduce or suppress soil-borne diseases, especially Verticillium Wilt. Anyhoo, you could put those broccoli plants to good use once you're done with them...if need be. It says that the chemical can be toxic to some plants too, so not to plant anything in that location for a month after incorporation. Seeing as it's the end of the growing season, that won't be a problem. Sorry, I totally geeked out for a minute there lol.

I have probably close to 10 bunching onions left in the ground myself. Do you just leave them there over the winter or do they need protection?

Gonna be chilly here tonight, in the low 30's, but back up to 70° on Friday.

Chris - I'm really not sure if I have had any Verticillium Wilt in my gardens or not. I think I may have had some trees infected with it. It is hard for me to distinguish one fungal disease from another. It is interesting to learn how certain plants can help rid soil of soil born diseases and pests. I do try to rotate by brassicas around as much as possible to avoid club root, etc. So far so good.

I need the broccoli leaves for a nitrogen source for all of the dead leaves. I guess I could just add Urea instead. I've never been big on digging a lot of uncomposed vegetation directly into my beds.

I don't think I did anything to my bunching onions over the winter but then I didn't really care if they survived or not. Mine multiplied the previous fall after going dormant for a month or 2 in the heat of summer.

I suppose it would only be truly valuable to do if you had a noticeable issue. I've been trying to do a better job of disease identification, but some are very difficult.

Did you do your last grass mowing of the year? I cut mine on Saturday and I think I'll be cutting it one more time before it's done. I've been using the carrot tops and BS leaves for nitrogen as well.

I'll probably just leave my bunching onions in the ground too and see what happens.

Jack, did you say you freeze your leeks? I have a whole bunch of leeks left and I was wondering if I should be freezing them. Do you just cut them down to the edible parts, blanch them and freeze?

I'll be watching for leek suggestions, too. I harvested some today. They are in the garage until I have time to deal with them.

Yes, we have had quite the weather in the last week. LOTS of rain, strong wind, and even some snow. None of it caused serious trouble around our community. This is what happened in the last 5 minutes before we pulled out of our campsite last week. I'm sure glad we have a trailer now...guess we would not have gone out in October if it was still the tent only option.

Today I cleaned out my community garden plot. Lots of leeks and some salsify came home with me. The photo shows a few different leek varieties. The ones on the right (kinda bluish) are supposed to be quite winter hearty. I have some of them in my home garden that I may overwinter.

I've never grown salsify before. It seems scrawny and I think it looks like weeds :) Has anyone grown these to a larger size? We'll see what it tastes like soon. It doesn't look appetizing to me. Right now I'm inclined not to grow it again.

After pulling out frost killed beans, tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers the plot was empty. It feels very good to have that garden wrapped up for the year.

Chris - yes I froze leeks for the first time this summer. I went ahead and julienned them, and then vacuum sealed them in about 1.5 C amounts. I use them most in Chinese stir fry dishes which call for julienned leeks. I don't think I would freeze them whole because they would probably be more difficult to cut up after thawing if they are anything like onions. I might try dehydrating a few of my fall leeks to see how well they reconstitute for use in stir fry or Leek and Potato soup.

Naturegirl - I've never grown Salsify and I don't believe I have ever eaten any in a dish. What do you plan to use it for? It looks like the roots might be a bit of a pain to peel. I know from experience some of the smaller horseradish roots can be too. I've ended up peeling my fingers more than once :-(

Time to move on to the November thread!!