Sounds like same weather pattern we are having in Tx. But my toms have barley began to bloom. Tomatoes have always been a challenge for me. I stager planting dates, chose varieties recommended for my area and plant 3-4 varieties. Spring plants stop producing before July so I prune plants back and replenish nutrients. I use cuttings from pruning to start plants. First killing frost averages 2nd week of Nov. All plants held over from spring and those from cuttings look healthy but only a few blossoms. Soil tests have never shown unusual deficiencies.

Yep , we've just been getting our first frost advisories.

Okie HU

My first time not having a good tomato year. Normally we get a good bit by this point, but did not even get one this year for some reason. Between the Spring bugs, Summer heat and lastly hurricane weather, the plants did not produce. I have a few fall tomato plants in the garden as our last hope for this year's tomatoes so we can only wait and see if we get any before the cold weather moves in. We got two pink banana squash curing and four small ones growing on the vine. The last of the cabbage was transplanted this week. Having a little cooler days now for us over here.

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I have everything harvested now. The spring potatoes were mostly kind of huge, The late potatoes were huge too, but not as productive...the heat in September probably hurt them some! However, the late potatoes don't want to sprout during the winter. The sweet ptatoes were productive. I raised 4 kinds...yellow, orange, and red . I like the yellow best. The butternut squashes put out a lot of squashes...Quantom variety. I picked the limas and green beans one last ti,me and put the tomato cages away and chopped the vines up ready for the riding mower to finish chopping them and later I like to added finely chopped leaves and then till them in and the bed is ready for spring. Watermelons were good this year...the prize one was a second set Charlene at 38 pounds.

I was beginning to think that we were trying to deny that it is October 🤣🎃

I'm still getting some tomatoes, some plants are dead but others are quite happy. Our nights are now colder and today didn't even get to 60, first time since June.

My Aspabroc is nicely productive again. I planted it in the spring, it produced, and then I went off to the North country for four weeks and didn't set up water for it-sayonara. I came home and found it still alive. I watered it, took off the gone to bloom parts, fertilized, more water, and it took off.

Sharon, your seeds are in the mail, should be there on Monday. That Tromboncino (Zucchino Rampicante) squash just keeps marching on. So far only the very oldest leaves have mildew, unlike other squash plants by this time of year. It roots at every leaf node and from that can put out another vine. I think that you could grow it on a strong trellis or fence because it would not be able to put down all of the additional rooting points.

Lea, how many squash have you gotten from the Tromboncino so far? Thanks for sending the seeds! I will plant in the spring.

Wayne, I have never tried to grow potatoes yet. Sounds like you got a nice harvest!

Lea, it finally cooled off here a little-no more 90s at least-it was 58 degrees this morning-still high 80s in the afternoon-but I will take it

Serranos (have a few bell, Thai, and jalapeno peppers left too)

Squash (White, crookneck, straight neck, yellow scallop) and cucumbers (muncher).

Tomatoes are mostly Tycoon, with a Celebrity and a Heat Master

RD, are those tomato plants from spring planting or from plants started this Summer?

Very Nice RD, I have 2-3 green tomatoes hanging on and that will be it for this year. But the fall crops are doing very well, some pics from this morning...

Collards & Carrots....

Broccoli & Cabbage...

Broccoli close up...

Cabbage Head coming along...

Sweet Potatoes to be dug...in progress...

All I have left are collards, kale, brussels sprouts and some carrots that got shaded out by the enormous squash vines so they are about as big as my finger.

I wish I could grow sweet potatoes here. I've tried growing the in the garden, in bags so I could move them into the pole barn in case of early frost (and also planted early), in the hoop houses. I get roots about a foot long and maybe an inch in diameter, they never reach any size. I plant starts about the middle of May, in fluffy soil, enriched with well composted cow manure. I get lovely leaves and vines, but never anything else. (sigh) The vines planted in the bags got pretty dry, the ones in the garden were watered when the rest of the garden was. The results are always the same. I plant in mid-May with starts and harvest by the end of September, so that should be plenty of time, if you believe the companies that give "days to harvest" times. I've tried Beauregard, Nancy Hall and Georgia Jet, and again, same results across the spectrum. My growing season may be a bit short for Nancy Hall, but should be plenty of time for Georgia Jet.

Annie

I thought I had all things harvested, but forgot about brussels sprouts, carrots, beets, a cauliflower, lettuce, kale, and a couple broccoli...heh

Richard, those temperatures sound good to me. Lucky you to have tomatoes again!

Sharon, I'm glad that the seeds arrived and on time. You asked how many zucchini type squash I've gotten from the plant, it's hard to know though. I've given away 5 or 6, I used a "smallish" one tonight for dinner, it was a pound and a half. They don't cook away to mush, but stay firm even with 40 minutes in the oven. A number of the really small ones were damaged by squirrels 🤬 and started rotting. I'm waiting to pick the 5 that are now winter squash.

Almost there:

A milk crate for scale:

This one is still green, my size 9 fro scale:

Don’t know if there is something wrong with my wifi, but my last couple of posts didn't work.

Klem the tomato plants are in the fall garden-planted in August. It was too hot here this year for anything but pepper plants to make it through the heat of the summer (and October lol).

Thanks, Vgkg, that looks like quite the sweet potato garden you've got going there. Very nice broccoli-I struggle to get a few heads (crowns) every year. This year the insects got all of them.

Annie, I have sweet potatoes popping up everywhere in the yard, but I am down to my last container of them-I get maybe 10-25 big ones a year-most are about 1/2 the size of a normal sweet potato. The ones in the containers tend to get much bigger than the ones in the soil (yard).

Here's the persimmon tree today, it has about 50 fruits as compared to last year when we picked about 150, but they are larger this time around.

Annie, that is odd about your sweet potatoes, I plant mine like you do in mid May then harvest by Sept. If the vines are vigorous and healthy but no potatoes are present then there may be too much nitrogen in the soil? Best guess.

Below are pics of before and after we dug up the main SP plot today...

after...

In the rear domant plot I planted 2 left over SP slips just to see how they would do. I covered the entire dormant plot with 6" of pine needles to keep the weeds down. I plan to dig up the 2 plants soon and also see if any SPs formed under the pine needles from the spreading vines. Just these 2 slips are now covering an approx 25'x25' area.

Here's some SPs we cleaned up yesterday...

There's mine , most of them are Covington.

Okie HU

It sounds like you’ve got a bustling garden this fall! Time does seem to fly by, especially when you have so many tasks to tackle. I’m glad to hear your tomatoes are still producing as the temperatures dip—there’s nothing quite like fresh tomatoes from the garden!

It’s exciting that your broccoli and cabbages are heading up nicely; they can be such rewarding crops in cooler weather. I also love that you’re planning to pick your first turnips soon; they’re delicious roasted or in soups. And I hear you on the sweet potatoes—digging them up can be a big job, but they’re always worth the effort. Harvesting before a frost is a smart move, especially since sweet potatoes can be quite sensitive to cold.

I hope you get that warm-up in the latter half of October! It can help keep your fall crops thriving. Keeping up with watering from your deep well sounds like a good plan, especially if rain isn’t in the forecast.

And wow, 80 pears in the fridge is impressive! It must have been a great season for them. I love persimmons too—watching them turn that deep orange is such a treat. It sounds like you have a lot of delicious things coming together in your garden. Enjoy the harvest ahead, and happy gardening!

Welcome Nirmal

Yes welcome Nirmal and thanks! Yep digging up SPs without damaging them is back breaking work, but they last all winter long in storage so it's a good investment. I started growing "Red Garnet" about 8 years ago when I bought a few organic ones at a Whole Foods store and have saved the annual slips ever since then. Very sweet & productive and they do not crack/split open like my Ga Jets used to do.

Of those 80 pears we have in storage the neighbors also picked their share from our 3 productive trees (2 Bartletts and 1 Keifer). It was another very heavy year for pears and all toll probably amounted to around 500. We also canned several quarts of pear sauce. Today I may start blanching and freezing the broccoli as their head clusters reach maximum size.

Vgkg, that might be it. I don't put any commercial fertilizer on my garden, just well composted cow manure. Everything seems to like it except okra and sweet potatoes, maybe they want a little more fertilizer than that. Or maybe they don't like my cool nights or that the soil doesn't reach above 50F until about the first of June. Maybe RD has the right idea, and I should plant them in a container, that would warm the soil more quickly. I have an old watering trough around somewhere, I think.

Okie, I agree. My grandkids smile when I start talking about the miracle that is a garden. I tell them that there is creation in that one tiny little tomato or pepper seed, it produces a plant that produces a dozen or more fruit and all those fruit have seeds and I can plant them and get hundreds of fruit, all from a single little seed.

They smile and nod and promptly eat the tomato or pepper, and offer to let me have the seeds, LOL.

It IS a miracle, though...

Annie

Our fall garden is humming along, will be picking the first carrots and cabbage this weekend. No rain here for 3 weeks (so thankful for the deep well) and I just checked the long range forecast which predicts no frost and no rain over the upcoimg 30 day period. No frost before Thanksgiving is incredible, my 3rd generation of Cosmos and Zinnias are now in bloom and they may be safe for the next 30 days, unless they die of thirst first. This is not normal. The heavy rains expected in the mid section of the country will dry up before getting here in the east.

annie, If sweet potatoes are struggling, plant them under black plastic. Here in central Indiana, it is plenty warm for large tubers without plastic. Larry the horse died so I don't get horsemanure anymore but had a good 15 year run though. I do use fertilizer and finely chop up a fair amount of leaves and scatter them on the gardens in fall and till them in ready for early spring plantings.

Thanks, Wayne, that's worth a try. I don't use plastic or landscaping fabric or anything like that in my garden right now, just last year's hay for mulch, but I can see how the black plastic would warm the soil and maybe make those sweet potatoes happier.

Sorry about Larry, though.

Annie

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