My 2019 Gardens/Flowerbeds

[wiperhunter2]

How much does it cost for that prepackaged 8' x 50' material?
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[jjannie]

Today I harvested the ground garden beds back by the pine trees (whose roots have badly inundated those beds, so we're moving away from ground gardening there the future). This garden has had no frost cloths, but the trees must have protected them some cause nothing had frost damage up there yet. But I sure it will have this by this weekend.

That is a funny colored squash. Kind cool looking.

Now NO laughing, but this is a picture of the single SP plant's harvest from that ground bed. Even Jeff was excited to at least see that we able to grow something up there. The bell peppers were supposed to be orange and red ones, only couple made it to full red, no orange, so we'll see if they taste okay green or if they are too green to be tasty.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to harvest the stuff from the bales. There are two SP plants in those bales so it'll be interesting to break apart what's left of the bales as they seem to have grown the best vines and see if they grew any more SPs. The peppers in bales were so over shadowed by those massive cabbages.

More tomorrow. then we'll sort thru all tomatoes to put the greenest ones down first, so the more ripe ones will be at the top. Then we'll try storing them once again. Of course We'll save out few for fried green tomatoes to go with dinner. Yummy.
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[mme1]

I don't remember the cost. I got them on clearance it wasn't much. also Valley Nursery has it in bulk sometimes its the heavy duty and more expensive.
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[wiperhunter2]

Ground gardening by trees or even shrubs is tough, because the roots always seek out a water source. I had the same thing happen when I had my garden out there by my grape vines, I was always having the roots come up into my garden area.
The only thing I can figure on the buttercup was that it cross pollinated with the Zucchini, there is a variety of Zucchini that is yellow.
Glad to see you at least got a few SP to grow in that area, hope the ones in the straw bales do better for you.
We eat green bell peppers all the time, they are just not as sweet as the red or orange ones.
Question about your FDer, do you have one of the newer pump's, that only have 4 screws that hold the cover on? We got that new one last year and we are getting close to needing to take it apart and clean it and was wondering if it is the same or will I need a gasket kit[:/].
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[wiperhunter2]

OK, thanks for the info. Do you grow a garden there in Porterville? If so, I guess it is winding down for the year but what were you growing this year?
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[jjannie]

Yeah tree roots and gardening just don't work out well together that's for sure.

Well I harvested the produce from the bales:

5 Sweet Potatoes - pic below, funny that they grew so long and skinny
128 green beans
8 Armenian cucumbers
5 small crook neck squash
3 cabbages
265 tomatoes - 75% were green, 25% had a blush or red color. The green ones I'm going to try to let ripen down in the basement, worst case we'll end up tossing them, so we'll just see how they do. [:/]

Jeff got the GH foundation all leveled and together we drove rebar through the 4x4 treated posts. After the rains pass, and the ground is hopefully a bit softer, we plan to drive in some mobile home anchor rods to really hold it all down well. (seems like over-engineering in many ways, but that's just how we do things around here - LOL)

Only thing left to harvest are the melons. I also need to move the front porch flower pot back onto the porch and cover it with frost cloth so it should be ok for while longer.

FD - Our pump is the Eliminator, it has 4 screws in its front cover. You shouldn't need a new gasket if your careful with the one you take out.

Well, Id better go move those flowers and do the melon harvest , if I sit here any longer I just may say forget it I'm too whooshed[]
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[wiperhunter2]

It makes me wonder if you did a raised bed in that location if the roots would grow up unto the bed[:/]. Wow, that is quite the harvest on the green beans and tomatoes. Kind of though, this season has come to an end.
Sounds like that is quit the process putting up that foundation for the GH but sounds like it will be very sturdy. It only got down to 53 here overnight but my squash plants leaves are already looking pretty bad.
My FDer pump does not have a name on it but I guess it is the same since it only has the 4 screws.
Guess I better get outside and get to work before it starts raining.
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[jjannie]

We've already had raised beds up there, but the trees are even higher up on the hill so probably not a god plan to ever have put them in that location to begin with.

This morning I made up 2qts of tomato juice, we'll just keep that in fridge, chopped (for chili fixins) and sliced (for stir fries) bell peppers that are all now in freezer to freeze individually before vacuum pack them later tonight.

Cut up 4 cantaloupe, 2 watermelons to also have ready to eat in the fridge. Later I'll cut up the remainder of the melons and freeze them.

We only got down to 50, but we got just under .25 inch of rain. Another .25 is forecasted for us to get Sunday. Needless to say the tanks are pretty full, some are filled. No doubt we've been able top turn off hte sprinklers and soaker hoses for the season. Hopefully the rains will help soften the soil some so those tie down things go in a little easier on Monday. It is over -kill on securing the foundation but better to over-kill than to be sorry if a microburst wind were to hit it.

It is to see it all coming to an end, but like that we have seasons, and changes of weather. You get to take break from one thing only to put your energy into something else.

I'm making large batch of chili today for dinner and the extra amount I'll prep for freeze drying. I have silicone baking dish that makes little loafs that use to make single serve sizes of things when I pre-freeze them. It gives us easy to package up amounts that are uniform in size so we can tell how many servings are in bag.
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[wiperhunter2]

Got down to 37 overnight here, looks like we got frost on our buttercup plants, most of them are toast but everything else looks fine. How is Jeff's doing with his knee?
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[jjannie]

we had 27 last night, but the SP box looks no worse with its tent over it. The greenhouse is being built around where the SP box currently is sitting. so we may get extend its season once we get GH all up.

Following PT this morning, we've been working to assemble the greenhouse. Trying to make sense of some of the pictures and words in the instructions can be a bit difficult and working at ground level is hard on both of us but we're working through it. I'll have to count up the number of parts to assemble this just so you'll know the work it takes to assemble it. With any luck we think we're done with the ground level work, now we can moan about getting up and down ladders as we move on - LOL.

The newer knee is working pretty well. No pain meds all day yesterday, but about 2AM he had to take Motrin as it started aching and he couldn't fall back asleep. I am sure we're giving it all work out with the green house project, but we want to get it done before the snow accumulates.

I got just about everything I picked earlier either vacuum packed and frozen, cooked, or prepped for FDing. Still to know the season is winding down. []

After 6 years, Annie finally got sprayed by the largest skunk we've see around here yet. Of course it happened just as she went out for her last trip before bedtime, and boy did it get her good. Luckily. we keep special wash stuff on hand for this cause and after hour of treating her with it, then parts of us that touched her we all were finally able to sleep. Took 1/2 way into the next day for the odor that came in with her to dissipate.
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[wiperhunter2]

37 again last night but there was more frost damage on the buttercup, about 95% gone. A little frost on my yellow squash but everything else looks ok. Growth rate for everything else is down to a crawl, sure hope it warms up some. Seems unusual to get frost this early down here.
Hope your albe to get your GH up in time this year. Is there a YouTube video for putting up a HF GH?
Good to hear Jeff is doing good.
That is too bad about Annie getting sprayed and I'm surprised you were able to get the smell off that quick.
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[jjannie]

There are several YouTube video for assembling it and also showing the mods folks are doing. Most say it took over 40 hours to do it (that's not including any mods they did they did afterwards. Ours is being assembled the same as this guys video in the link below, however ours will just have a ground floor not astro-turf like he has. He rattles on, but you'll get the concept of what we are doing. We plan to plant in raised up beds all along the longer sides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7lDwoewlqs

We will add the reinforcing pipes this guy below used in his mod.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYhQa6GyvCg

Hope to be done by end end of the week. But we may have to run today to watch the granddaughters if our son isn't done testifying at court on one of his cases.

We got down to 29 once again. Haven't looked at the SPs yet (we've been preassembling in the garage while we wait for the temp to warm up a little) so hopefully they're still okay.

For Annie - We use an enzyme neutralizer for skunk odor first, then bathe her after it. It works pretty well actually. Poor girl didn't know why we were being so aloof to her, she still wasn't sure what had happened, just that she didn't like it.

Well, I need to get back out there to get as much done as we can today. Only had this short break before we go outside to work.
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[jjannie]

Wednesday night we started getting into the low to mid 20s at night. Definitely colder than we usually are at this time. The fall colors are really looking nice as we drive around, aren't they?

Thought today we'd finish the GH install by putting in the polycarbonate panels, but with the blustery winds today we've decided to stall off doing that until tomorrow. Better safe than sorry for sure, why fight it for a day sooner?

We didn't get any precipitation out of these heavy clouds, did you?

Here's a few pics:

Picture one is from Tuesday, day 2

The rest are from yesterday, day 4. We lifted up the framing of the SP box. Jeff is really dieng to find out if these SPs grew any larger, but I'll be checking them tomorrow so I'll report on that test's outcome then. The frost cloth couldn't save these plants once the temps got as low as they did, but it did buy us another week or so, so we'll see.
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[wiperhunter2]

Yea, it was pretty windy down here too, ok for going for a walk early but by the time I decided to go outside to work on my project, it wasn't so nice. Went ahead and went out anyway but it turned out to be a waste of time, so I should have just stayed indoors and cleaned the FDer pump.[crazy]
I took some pics of the mountains above East canyon on Weds, this cold snap has the colors really coming out in the trees.
We weather has been warmer overnight here, nothing below 40 degrees for several days now. No rain today, got a few sprinkles on Weds.
I like the GH, looks like you two have been busy, good luck with the panels tomorrow and I hope the SPs did good for you.
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[jjannie]

We were 27 again last night, forecast was for 31. Tonight's forecasted low is again 31, so we'll just have to wait and see.


We have been wheeling the peas/pods in and out of the garages once again. There are pods formed, but no peas just yet.

On the greenhouse, yeah waiting a day was good call. However putting the panels and windows in has been a little more time consuming than we thought it would be, but we finished up installing the roof's panels today. Tomorrow, after PT, we plan to install the auto openers on those roof windows, it sure was already working inside the greenhouse today, our high was 54, but by the time we had all the roof panels on and doors closed it quickly got up to 80 before the temps started to drop for the day.

We've been working to drain out all our rain water storage in preparation for winter, the pond has been the recipient of most of it. We had a small trough in back that Jeff was using for some floating plants, well, it has been freezing over each night, but it melts during the day - it too will get emptied into the pond.

Well we did dig up the SP box that was in greenhouse, and it was pretty discouraging - I didn't even take a picture[]. I did get a small one from my own slips (they were white-er ones), and couple little Beauregard ones, and some that look liked like carrots. The other thing we learned in this process is the roots from the nearest trees had sent small roots over and up into the box. So... since we're relocating the box now, we will definitely be putting landscape fabric down before we refill it with soil. So it'll be ready to give it all try again. I'm also going use all my own slips next time, getting them well rooted and possibly even planted into pots ahead of putting them outside in the box. We'll also try putting some in the greenhouse - BTW, the whole greenhouse floor will get layer of fabric before we put the raised beds and walking paths in it. A whole new set of experiments to see if we can even make growing them feasible.
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[wiperhunter2]

They are saying our overnight temp down here on Weds thru Fri nights are suppose to be below 30 degrees, so most of my garden will be done for if that happens.
Wow, that's pretty amazing the temps in your GH got up that warm with the panels in place.
Sorry to hear you SP did not do any better this year, maybe next year with your own starts, they will do better. Do you think the landscape fabric will stop the roots from growing into your raised box next year?
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[jjannie]

I sure hope so! Hoping the roots may grow long the underside but not invade up into the raised beds/planter box.

Yes we have some nights forecasted to be in the upper teens!

Yeah it got really warm in the GH, but the low got just as low so we're actually looking into free or low cost heating options we'll experiment with this fall to see if they'll work for us.
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[jjannie]

We still need to adjust the roof windows of the greenhouse so they'll seat better in the opening, then we can install the auto openers. Today, since we could work inside it away from the chilly winds, we worked to provide it even more reinforcement using electrical conduit mounting it running in each direction and on each side and end, and where they intersect, and wiring the cross sections together.

Next week when this cold front eases up once again, we'll lay the landscape fabric down, put the raised beds and walk paths in place.

Still no decision on what we'll heat it with but we're still looking at several options.

Had some snow flakes in wind at times, but never enough to accumulate, thankfully. We're just not done with all these outside projects yet!

How's your rocking project coming along? Think you'll get it finished before winter really sets in?
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[jjannie]

Well, last night was our coldest so far with a low of 14 here others in the valley recorded 12. This was first time we've seen icicles on the waterfall, but the pond hasn't iced over yet.

Once it warms up a bit today, I'll venture out to the greenhouse to remove the SP box's dirt so we can really level out the floor. Then, once Jeff is done with the ladder inside we can lay the fabric down in preparation for the raised beds to go onto it (once they are built). LOL We've got 10 days to get this project completed before we make our trip up to see family for a week in N. Idaho. Once we get back home we're sure things will likely be too frozen to work with outside.
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[wiperhunter2]

Only got down to 25 here but that was our coldest night this Fall. They are saying these temps are 20 degrees below our normal temps, so I'm looking forward it it warming up some in the coming days. Hope you have a good trip up North.
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