Take care Richard, John says it best...Keep doing some.

It rained a bit here last night, probably not enough to sink into the soil but cool days now so it will help. I started moving spinach seedlings into the hoop house between and around the bases of the tomatoes. I plan to lop off the vines as I pick the last fruit and leave roots in until spinach is done in the spring. There is a lot of basil in there that is ready to harvest today. Once the nights get into the 40's it is toast anyway. I'll leave the healthiest plants for a while for fresh cutting because I'm an optimist and the soil is still warm.

Richard and John - We all hope that things go well for both of you. Hang in there.

I just picked what may be my last big tomato harvest. Needed to pick them today as there is a possibility of rain tonight and maybe tomorrow. Picked any fruit with a blush so that they don't split. The rain is questionable, but that's when it happens.

Thanks Margi, John, Len, and Cindy. I’ll know more when the test tesults come back, so I am still holding onto hope.

I planted watermelon seeds a month after the summer crop panting. These are ripening now...really nice sized melons....of course a reduced sized planting.

John - I'm glad that your test results came back good.

Richard - I hope yours do as well. Hang in there!

I haven't been posting much lately either. Really not much to report garden wise. Only a few peppers left to harvest but that's OK because I'm getting tired of them anyway. Weeds are still going strong.

A few of my oldest raised bed frames are pretty much rotted out. I am going to move the frames from my 3 newest beds to replace the 3 oldest rotten beds this winter. That will cut down on space by 120 sq/ft but I'm fine with that. Who needs to grow 20 tomato plants anyway? Did I really just type that? lol

Cindy and Jack - Thank you.

The vacant lot next door to us has sold. It's been brush hogged and they were there today cutting down trees. We saw a fox there a few days ago but I guess that's the end of the wildlife. It's been my opinion that that lot gave some balance which helped me garden. Some room for the bees to balance the other two neighbors who spray for who knows what all. I haven't had insect problems like so many gardeners have. There's lots of squirrels but they eat very few fruits and I think no tomatoes, but lots of pine cones. Fifteen minutes after the tree guys left the deer moved in and started eating the leaves that fell when the trees hit the ground.

They were blowing the chips onto the ground so I figured the owner wanted the chips. When I saw them pushing the chips into the grass I went over and asked about getting chips. They promised to look into that later, But they wound up with huge piles. Nice hardwood chips with lots of leaves and branches since they hauled off the big logs. None for me to cut down on the weeding!

At 2:47 a flash flood watch was posted for here. Then at 4:07 is was changed to a flash flood warning.

I keep putting off posting because I'm busy and then I have too much to say!

Richard, I had been thinking about you, realizing that you hadn't posted in quite a while. I sincerely hope that your tests come back with favorable results. My test numbers are still normal so I've gone a year and a half since chemo and I'm cautiously encouraged.

John, those heart issues are no fun, I'm glad yours are manageable! I'm sorry to hear that the empty lot has been cleared. I have neighbors who garden too, but don't do any spraying, and our whole area is pretty natural.

I was on a ladder picking Italian prune plums and realized that I could take an aerial photo of a corner of my garden.

Part of my tomato row, a new planting of beets with the fencing around them (#@** squirrels!), basil and the end of my pepper row.

This is a lovely time of the year for my garden. The tomatoes have slowed down a little, but I just brought in about 10lbs, I planted a second hill of Costata Romanesco zucchini and it's setting some on and my peppers are great looking.

We are promised rain starting late Friday and on through the weekend, we might get 1.5"+ and we really need it.

Chocolate Beauty pepper

The Emerite pole beans got their second wind, I'm a little overwhelmed by them. My DH says "I'm glad you didn't plant more" LOL.

Lea - Thanks for posting the pictures. It's always fun to see others' gardens. Lovely pepper, and congrats on the beans. I planted some provider beans for a late crop and they didn't do well at all. They weren't planted in my main garden and the spider mites got them good before I could put up a fight. Then I went on vacation. I pulled them out last weekend. We had one meal from them.

On the bright side, I saw both a male and female blossom in my new zucchini plants this morning. A little hand pollinating, and hopefully in a few days we'll be eating zucchini again. That's the extent of my newly planted fall garden. I did note that the late planted potatoes are starting to get big. Hopefully there are going to be some potatoes forming soon. They have about a month.

Cindy - I hope you didn't get too much rain. We got about 1/2 inch a couple nights ago. Need more.

Cindy, Richmond got walloped with 3" of rain which resulted in street flooding in downtown, the same storm skirted us with just 3/4" in about 15 minutes. It was welcome here but glad I had just finished tying up the tomato plants and cultivating the cabbages and broccoli so it would soak in good. Might get some more today, but at least the 90's are behind us now, hopefully.

We'll start making pear sauce over the next few days, and I had to pick the biggest pomegranate as it was splitting open, may start the juicing process next week as the others ripen up. Late figs are coming in now although they are smaller in size than the first wave. The rest of the young fall crops look good but they need daily close inspection for hungry late season insect pests.

Margi and vgkg - Not sure how much rain we ended up with because my gauge was tipped over. About ten miles east of here received over four inches. Waiting to hear from my neighbor to see if he got a reading. We didn't have any flooding here, thankfully.

Thanks Lea and Jack. Lea, so happy to hear your numbers are staying low and you have been able to avoid further chemotherapy-I am dreading that myself. Beautiful peppers Lea-I think this was my worst year for peppers in my life-guess I do better with super hot peppers. I had one plant that produced well and that was the Transylvanian peppers-Thanks Len

Hey Richard...glad they grew for you, I also find the Transylvanian peppers to be good producers. Good flavor there and not really all that hot which is fine with me. I tasted a ripe pepper from a buena mulata pepper plant today and had to pour a glass of milk! We had shishito peppers for appetizer again tonight; I have 6 plants and we eat them as fast as I can pick them.

Rain over this weekend is so welcome. Picked evey tomato with any color; they are on a greenhouse window in the laundry room to ripen. I see tomato sauce in my future. Still a lot of green fruit out there.

Len, I really like the Transylvanian peppers flavor too. I eat them like a pickle with sandwiches or tacos.

I have at least 50 hummingbirds at the house this year-they are everywhere. I just had to get rid of a foot long bearded dragon that was trying to catch and eat one of the hummers. It is a bad move for anything to mess with my hummingbirds-once they come to my feeders, I am their full time protector.

Here are a few hummingbird videos:

https://youtu.be/7OnDIr8bF7E

https://youtu.be/oW65bzY1qas

https://youtu.be/lUPZ40uNasA

Wow Richard those are amazing! We are lucky to see 2 at the same time here...I would be sitting on the front porch all day.

Whew, it's a muggy day here today. Just finished using my tiller to grind up 2 compost piles and then combined both piles into 1. That should be a good start to next Spring. Also in the process of removing several dead tomato plants, they're way past their peak and what's left of them is nada. The late tomato plants are doing well and have several nice green tomatoes.

Peppers are also doing well, just 2 plants kept us supplied as well as some family members (just typical sweet banana peppers). The eggplant is kaput, just 1 served us well. All the fall crops are doing well and like me they are looking forward to the cooling trend predicted later this week.

Sun out today and dw decided we should pick the runner beans 😋 I was tired of eating and canning them so was ignoring. Wow if we ever had to survive on our 1/3 acre these would be as important as chickens.

Right next to beans Mary Morris finally made a blossom for us.

I still owe Cindy and Leah a thank you.; so Thank You!

I have a Golden Delicious apple tree that's blooming! So I'm hoping for apples in January or so, maybe delayed harvest because of the weather here then.

I saved my first tomato seeds of the year and possibly the last. I'm expecting to replace many varieties. those two were Kellogg's Breakfast and Santa Maria paste tomato. I sampled both with dinner. the Kellogg's was extremely meaty with few seed cavities, I expected a rich flavor because of the dryness but it was rather bland. The Santa Maria. was normal as it is a paste tomato. It was juicier than the Kellogg's and had a sweet rich flavor like I'd expect from a Pink Brandywine. No mistake here in labeling because of it's bullet shape. Both were the first fruits of the year. Picked September 20.

Wow, John…first tomatoes now. i hope you have a few more coming along. Crazy that you’re seeing apple blooms now!

Here’s a pic of a hummingbird i saw on a recent vacation to Breckenridge, CO. I shot a video in slow motion thinking we’d be able to see the wings flapping, but no…still just a blur!

Len and Margi, I have to fill up the feeders 3 or 4 times a day and

I am so tired of fighting Houzz just to type-it has been months now

At least 2 of the feeders a day are bone dry even with filling them up so many times. I think this might be the most hummingbirds I have ever had. I got a few more videos today, will try to post them later

Good morning. It really, really poured overnight here along with thunder and lightening. Additionally, we have a flood warning until 2:45 pm this afternoon. It's still raining now but not like it did overnight.

Just checked my rain gauges. One had 2.6" and the other had 2.5".

The temp has dropped too, which was predicted. And the winds are much cooler. Glad for that as it was was feeling like Florida the past few days.

A similar situation here Cindy with 2.2" of rain by the time it stopped this morning. That should satisfy the fall garden crops, just glad we got a really good deep soaking since the long range forecast is for a dry week ahead with sunny 70's every day, Perfect! This soaking should fatten up the 2nd generation of sweet potatoes and along with the cooler temps keep the cole crops happy. Will be picking the last of the pears soon and also the pomegranates today before they split open from this rain.

More Hummingbird videos-I can only download them to YouTube to get them to play right:

https://youtu.be/4EVcw6eNuYI

https://youtu.be/oeNamSXqaAQ

https://youtu.be/FYBqJALuLRw

https://youtu.be/-YtCpQ15NYI

RIchard, your hummingbirds are amazing. They look frantic in some of the videos. We usually see one bird at at time. Once in awhile a second one shows up and they chase each other. We are surprised they are still visiting our feeders. Most years they leave by the first or second week of September.

Richard that second video seems like you were right in the midst of the hummingbirds and they just went about their quest for food....wow!

Yesterday I finished setting out my tray of spinach for winter. I started with about 200 and maybe 150 are healthy seedlings. Most went into hoop house around the remaining tomatoes and basil. As the latter finish I plan to fill gaps with lettuce and other greens for winter salads.

DW and I had a meeting over dinner last night about the gardens before we head to the seed swap next week. We agreed no more parsnips as the chef seems reticent to include them and the molder in the refrigerator for weeks on their way to the compost. I have lots of fresh seeds harvested this year if anyone is interested.

We will take a year off with tomatillos as the pantry has plenty of related salsa and no other use presents itself. As noted earlier there will be far fewer cherry tomatoes and more sauce tomatoes next year. Only one kind of bush bean, provider, plus Half Runner and one New pole bean We will trade off remaining seeds from other experiments). As always we will grow all the lettuce and other greens we can eat. To avoid so much preservation work I'm supposed to cut back on production, but more likely I'll just quietly give away more fresh vegetables LOL.

This morning's treasure

Naturegirl, you are exactly right, today I only had about 6 or 7 hummingbirds. It is crazy how one day there are 100 and the next day just a few. They usually leave when a new weather system is about to move in, although a few sometimes stick around. One year the remnants of a hurricane blew through here and there was a hummingbird riding a feeder like a surfboard-the feeder was almost perpendicular to the ground with the chain stretched out completely to the side. She stayed around here until the storm blew through riding the winds like a 1/4 pound champion surfer.

Len, sometimes when there are enough of them they’ll let you get closer to them and a few even flew inside the house, but almost immediately reversed course back outside. One time one got hurt in a fight and I had to revive it-after I smoothed its feathers and the spot on its head where it got pecked he flew off out of my hand. I saw him a few more time after that at the feeders before he disappeared, so I think he was okay.

I have some better videos from this year, but they are longer or have improper coding to play on a computer. If I ever figure them out I will post the best ones. It is weird because I can send the videos via a text message to anyone in my contacts list, although I sometimes have to trim them to under a minute if they are not in my network or on an iphone.

I still have about 12-15 hummingbirds after all. At least that means only filling up the feeders once or twice a day.

How does that old saying go? You might be a redneck if...the police have the road blocked off at 6:50 in the morning because there are cows walking down one of the main streets in town. I went to pick up a few groceries at the store and there was glass all over the road, with 3 police cars directing traffic while 3 cows meander down the five lane road. There was a little red car that was crashed into a curb and a cow on the side of the road just sitting there-not sure if she hit the cow or not. By the time I got back, they had all the cows out of the road and the one sitting down hadn’t moved an inch and neither had the woman-hope she is okay and just got a fright from the herd

What a great story to wake up to Richard. I hope the lady and the cow have a better rest of the day.

We are scheduled to have a high of 78 today and then 64 tomorrow. Both plants and humans will be shocked..

Richard - I've come very close to hitting cows on the state highway a few times. Scares the bejeesus out of ya when you top a hill and there is a 1000+ lb. animal standing in the road!

Jack, I have hit a few deer including a huge buck that ran up out of a culvert and hit the front quarterpanel of my old truck at 65 mph and almost totaled it, and could only imagine hitting a cow

This is the only watermelon that grew for me this season. Harvested yesterday.

Congratulations Cindy! I think I'll continue to not grow watermelons; at least till they call USDA zone 7b or maybe 7a.

I ate my 3rd cuke from the garden this evening. The only one that was edible. Too much rain and too late to plant caused the shortage

vgkg, or anyone else - What's your favorite spinach variety?

No real favorite spinach here, usually I'll just plant Bloomsdale seed. Once I dig up the remaining sweet potatoes (just before 1st frost) I'll use that vacated plot to plant the spinach seed around Mid November. It'll overwinter fine here and give us a jump on an early Spring harvest.

Cindy I'm growing Olympia, Cascadia, and Giant, using up all of the old seeds. I like the ones that thrive best.

Thanks Len and vgkg.

We were supposed to have t-storms yesterday but they all went south of here. We don't really need the rain so that was fine. However, there was a thunderclap that made the news last night because it was so loud.

And this was it:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/09/28/boom-northern-virginia-dc-lightning/

Waiting for uber to airport on our way to Knoxville. Dahlias will probably be done by the time we get back home.

September 30, 2021

Remember the apple tree that was blooming a few days ago. Here's a picture which I shoulda otta posted then.

If you remember i also had photos of a quince that bloomed last Christmas and then again in the spring. The quince was on the vacant lot next door and got no attention. for years, other than I threw a spade full of manure at it, I think, earlier that spring. I think stress might cause this but the quince had been neglected and perked up after the manure treatment.

This apple got a lot of manure last season and no attention this year. It also had loads of apples which I should of thinned but had no energy for any gardening this year other than sitting and watching the weeds grow. Any way; I may have Golden Delicious apples come ripe next winter.

John D, one of our pear trees is confused too, is it Autumn or Spring?

Cindy, your storms up north fizzed out before giving us a needed rain. Turned on the garden sprinklers this morning for a deep soaking as any rain here is still days away. Glad it's cooler in the 70's now as that will help hold down evaporation, plus the fall crops are happy with 50's nights. A perfect weather stretch going on locally.

We juiced our little crop of 10 pomegranates, it amounted to a little over a pint so we used an ice tray to freeze it into cubes. I put one in my lemonade and it's Great (saw that combo drink offered on PF Chang's drink menu).

vgkg - I like your picture; it doesn't need an explanation. It's right there; pears and flowers at the same time.

vgkg - Is this your drink?

RISING DRAGON
Casa Noble Blanco Tequila, pomegranate, lime, agave,
black lava salt, rosemary aromatics

Sounds good Cindy but mine is just lemon aid and 1 frozen pomegranate ice cube added, it tastes better as the cube melts. It was on PF Chang's menu as a soft drink. But your formula sounds delicious too! It's been a loooong time since I had tequila.

Another beautiful day here in the mid 70's, main garden chore will be thinning out the carrots and beets....maybe mow some grass.

I started the October thread but now sure how to link it to this one??

Here we go: https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6182660/october-veggie-tales#n=0