Wow, Len! I have never had my tromboncino turn yellow before harvest.

Cindy that fat one was hanging up there with the vine dead for a couple of weeks at least. Just could not get it out of there until I chopped up the tomatillos. I'm pretty sure there are a couple more buried in ornamentals in the lake side garden...will go check tomorrow, we are supposed to get some sunshine.

The mature tromboncinos that I have had were the same color as butternuts. I really liked them, I used them in place of sweet potatoes, or butternut, in a chili.

I got some garlic in the ground; 3 varieties. German Red, Polish Jenn, and Spanish Roja. I also planted some Spanish Roja bulbils as an experiment. I still have a couple varieties to plant. With turning the ground I couldn't go any further today..

A very pleasant week of dry sunny 70's going on here. We picked the cabbages and the rest of the persimmons yesterday, plus cleaned off 3 big bags of sweet potatoes for storage indoors. The carrots and collards have more room to grow now that the sweet potato vines have been removed from choking them out. It's getting closer to shutting down the gardens soon, only carrots, collards, and some turnips left out there now.

I'll be picking the remaining peppers for a big batch of chili this weekend. The tomatoes are pretty much shot, just a hand full of small greenies left. The zinnias and cosmos are still going strong, might get another week of color out of them before the freezing temps return. Fall tree colors are nearing their peak now too, although some trees are still fully green.

End of dahlia season and found a few more trombocino in the process

Picked the 4 purple cabbages today, they looked peaked out and had reached max size. Also raking up leaves for future compost piles and storing pine needles for mulch use next season. One last day of 70F here before the big chill settles in for next week. Carrots, collards, turnips, and some broccoli is all that is still growing now. Will pick the last of the turnips next week.

Still have about 40 pears in the garage fridge and 150 persimmons on standby for jamming and fresh eating. About 100 sweet potatoes are inside now, finally got them all dug up and cleaned for storage. With things slowing down it's getting close to seed inventory time...

All I got growing is carrots, beets, kale, bok choy, butterhead lettuce and cover crop tillage radishes....and of course strawberries

Am mulching leaves and spreading them on prepped for spring beds.

We have Been drowning in the atmospheric river. Look at my poor beach and dock, Lake is highest I've ever seen. Having a dry day today so transplanting some more Masche And Dug some up to give to a friend.  That stuff is the gift that keeps on giving.ᾒ3

Bye-Bye flowers :-( .......Temp dropped down to 30F this morning so all of the cosmos, zinnias, inpatients, and vincas are now toast. But the collards should taste sweeter with tonight's dinner. Picked the last handful of still green tomatoes yesterday, they should ripen up inside ok but sadly will taste like store bought, better than nothing, but barely.

I had to say the final goodbye to my garden after Friday's night low of 30. The guessers had predicted 26, but I don't think it got nearly that low. Yesterday as I pulled out the last 4 pepper plants I discovered that there were actually several that seemed to be OK so I collected them. There are still some monster beets in the garden. I pulled one, diced it up, and it was added to a beef vegetable soup that I made yesterday.

I have yet to get the garlic planted. That needs to happen soon. Remarkably, today's high is supposed to be 70. If life would just stop for a few days, maybe I could get some of these things done.

In today's mail I received a fairly large catalog from Seedway. It appears to be a wholesale catalog as the quantities for purchase are rather large.

Did any of the rest of you receive this catalog?

Cindy - I received a Fedco seed catalog.today.

John, does Fedco catalog show Glacier Rose shallot available this year?

Seeds

Seed catalog time already?!?!? I haven't yet put my garden to bed for the winter and I need to start planning for next year already.

And to think...some people think that gardening is a summer thing. Ha!

We had zucchini with dinner last night. Thanks to an exceptionally late first-freeze here, I was able to pick some zucchini quite late in the season. It took hand pollinating to get them since the bees didn't seem to be doing the trick. These had been in the fridge for quite some time, but still good. I always wrap zucchini in plastic. I think it keeps them fresh for longer.

That's amazing that you still have zucchini from your garden, Margi.

It was a beautiful day here. Just shy of 70 degrees. I was able to get two varieties of garlic planted as well as some leeks. Tomorrow everything changes. Doubt I will be outside much with the winds that are expected.

Yep Cindy it was a great day here too into the mid 70's. So I went ahead and planted the spinach seed for an early harvest next March. As you said the next many days will be chilly willie here too so moving the planting date up a week shouldn't make much difference. Tried to rake up some leaves but the wind was howling here too, the trees are about 70% naked now.

Len - Glacier Rose Shallot seed is in the catalog and on the web site. They're not taking web orders till the catalog comes out??? In December??

I don't know what to do as far as ordering seed and grafting scions for next spring.

Jack,

Go COWBOYS Beat those chiefs

Picked some carrots yesterday and will pick collards for dinner tonite. A coolish/drizzly morning going on here, once it clears up later I may go on my first neighborhood leaf bag collection run. Need about 40 bags of leaves for building next season's compost piles. I'm picky about the bags I collect, the yards need to have only good quality leafy trees (no pines, magnolias, gumball trees), and the bags need to be high quality thick mill so that I can reuse them later on.....call me cheap, I do ;-)

Sorry Richard! I don't think either team played very well but it didn't end like the old westerns where the cowboys always came out on top.

I still have one bed of horseradish to dig up and process and plan to dig it on Friday and process it Saturday morning. It's about a 5 hour process from start to finish for one 3'x3' bed and yields 2.5-3 quarts. We might use 2 pints all year so there is always plenty to give away.

Yeah Jack, that was pretty pathetic. Mahomes and KC definitely out played the Cowboys in almost every facet of the game. I don’t know how a team can look like world beaters one week and unable to beat a peewee league team the next. Once Ceedee Lamb got injured I knew it was over. They will never win without their top 2 receivers, but they might have tried running the ball-what a concept

It is a few weeks late, but I now have my garlic in the ground. It was sunny but cold today. I knew I had already waited longer than I should. The ground was not frozen yet, and there was no snow cover today, So those were pluses. My DH, with a little help from me, is "remodeling" the garden. We hope to have better success keeping critters out next year. Also, the fencing we had to climb over to get into the garden now has a gate. Climbing might have been good exercise in the past, but getting hung up and injured as we age would be stupid. There is plenty of other exercise while gardening. I'm already liking the gate A LOT.

I did score 10 nice big bags of leaves yesterday, mostly maple and oak. Most folks have yet to rake them up so there should be a bounty of leaf bags out there after Thxgiving weekend. Today will be cold (40'sF) and windy (w/25 mph gusts) but at least it's sunny. Our coldest nite so far this season will be tonite at 25F. Got to install my chickens water heater today and winterize the well pump enclosure. Have already removed and drained the 4 garden hose reels, there's nothing left out there to water now other than the carrots and collards and the soil moisture level is good.

vgkg: nice work getting the leaves. I agree, they do wonders for the soil. We collected a lot from the curbs nearby before the pickup last Friday. So far it looks like we chose "good" varieties. We did take some magnolia leaves from a neighbor and mulched walkways with them. I think the few magnolias that grow in our cold climate may have thinner leaves than the ones by you. We also have our neighbors "trained" to bring theirs to us instead of the trash/recycle pick up. We even added a new neighbor to the mix this year. This afternoon I chopped some of the leaves with the lawnmower and spread them in the updated garden area.

We have used our Ryobi electric lawnmower for well over a year now. Thanks for the recommendations from LoneJack and Jamie. We are soooo happy to have it. Much quieter and no gas to smell, buy, store, fill, etc. A teen bought our old gas powered mower at a garage sale. He hooked it to the back of his small motorcycle and towed it a few blocks to his home :)

We had a low of 18 (!) last night that was several degrees colder than I was expecting. It left the Thanksgiving porch plants looking sad. The garden has a few small leeks and some small kale leaves, maybe some parsley and chives, too. Most is so small it is hardly worth harvesting. I have maybe a week to get them in before Mother Nature will make my decision for me.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all

Thank you, Richard. Happy Thanksgiving to all!!

Back at ya Richard and everyone! A nice day here in Va to celebrate.

Happy Thanksgiving all! I'm so thankful for the friends in this group, who "get it" about gardens and share with each other.

A few small recent things I am thankful for:

A sunset on the beach in San Diego last Sunday

Very last tomatoes harvested from garage hanging vines when we got home Tuesday. One of these has an appointment with our turkey sandwiches tomorrow!

Beautiful display on camelia sasanqua outside our front door, the best ever.

Yikes! December is knocking on the garden gate! Only Carrots & Collards remain to be picked and will be picked as long as the temp doesn't drop too much below 20F. Here they are below, it's more roomy for them now that the sweet potatoes are gone. I planted spinach seed where the SPs were and that should pop up soon. The long mid-day shadow of the house is slowing creeping over front garden now. Almost 4 more weeks to go before the daylight hours start getting longer again.

This years saffron harvest:

And now for THE game.

Cindy, how many saffron crocus do you have? What are you going to cook with it?

I got the second bed of horseradish processed yesterday. I got about 4.5 lbs. of usable roots which turned into ~10 cups of peeled and cubed root and 6 1/4 pints of processed HR. I freeze it in half pint and 4 oz. jelly jars. I cried my eyes out for most of the 2 hours it took to grind and process it in small batches.

naturegirl - I will probably use the saffron in paella. That probably will not happen until next summer. This saffron will go in the freezer until then.

Jack - I have a small area of horseradish but have never done anything with it. Someday.

naturegirl - I may have around 40 bulbs. My sister tried to grow it in Michigan, (near Flint), and unfortunately, it did not survive the winter there.

Lovely looking saffron Cindy...valuable stuff!

I spent time over this holiday putting the dahlias to bed for the winter. Here they are drying out from first wash in the garage. I forgot to take a picture of the finished box of tubers...about a hundred all tolled. I'm planning to double the number of varieties next summer.

We lost my dahlia mentor, a great guy same age as me, a few weeks ago with no warning. So I'm going up next weekend to help the family get some of his important ones up and saved. I don't think we will dig up the whole bed because most of them will survive our typical winter just mulched. However Dick created and cultivated many one of a kind sports, named for grandchildren of course, that we want to make sure are there for the future.

Len - Thanks for the reminder about Dalia digging. I have yet to do that. That's mighty nice of you to help out your mentor's family in getting the special dahlia protected.

This week's weather is going to be more October-like than the beginning of December. Hopefully I'll have a few short days at the office so I can spend some time outside at home.

Yesterday I FINALLY got my garlic planted. I still have the big job of getting my amaryllis stashed for winter sleep. They've been out of the ground for about 3 weeks or so. Need to trim the browning leaves and get them packed for the basement nap.

Margi I made a memo about my storage this year. I think you can find it here if this new transfer system works. I hope it does because Houzz does not allow uploading lots of things I want to share, just photos.

Worked like a charm, Len. I've already skimmed it and printed for more detailed learnin'. Thanks

Scored a few more good bags of neighborhood leaves this morning, not a whole lot out there so folks must have been too stuffed to rake leaves over the weekend? Cold and breezy here today, time to make my indoor project list.

If anyone else needs a way to upload files here this works! https://wetransfer.com/ Free and easy. Gives you a link to document good for 7 days.

Cindy, thanks for the saffron info. I have not heard of anyone nearby growing it. Maybe your sister's experience is why. It always sounds interesting to try when someone writes about it. Knowing how I don't always time things right, I could see me missing the harvest window even if it did grow for me. Might be best if I pass on this crop. Enjoy your dishes with it next summer.

naturegirl - It has more to do with the low temperatures in the winter. And it's perennial so once it's in the ground, I only have to harvest the stamens. It's a fall blooming crocus, when the spring garden is winding down. If you don't harvest it one year, you might get it the next.

However, IIRC, you live in Michigan? You might be too cold as it did not survive for my sister who lives near Flint. (but not in Flint) But a green house would work.

Yes, winter lows are likely a limiting factor here, at least many years. You are right. I am in Michigan...Grand Rapids area, probably similar to temperature extremes in Flint. We woke up to 4 inches of snow today. It will likely be melted later this week. I don't see a greenhouse in my future. Hmmm, Christmas list time, just kidding.

naturegirl - I grew up in Michigan, on the edge of the county of Saginaw. I loved living there and wish we had never moved.

But I also love it here in Virginia as an adult. Both states are very pretty, but it's warmer here!

It is December people :)

rabbit, rabbit, rabbit

Len - Want to start the new thread?

Here it is:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/vegetable-gardening