End of the Gardening Season Thoughts

Now that the gardening season is over and I think about how thing grew I have decided the following:
1. The warm weather crops just didn't have a chance of growing big.  The growing season was just too cold this year.
2.  This is the first year I watered everything by hand instead of using the automatic watering system. I don't think I gave anything enough water.
3. Growing tomatoes in pots was not successful, because of the extra calcium potted tomatoes need.  Next year I will put the tomatoes in the ground and something else in the pots. Maybe.
4.  Brussels Sprouts are not worth growing.  They never got big enough to harvest and the bugs were awful on them.
5.  The bugs were thick on the cabbage and broccoli too.  Next year I think I will cover my cabbage and broccoli with netting as soon as it is planted and keep it covered until harvest time.  They do not need to be pollinated to make the crops develop.  One less thing to worry about later.  Thanks Karen for this suggestion.
6.  The copper strips around the squash and pumpkin seems to really work.  I will test it again next year to make sure.

September Garden Pictures Finally Posted

This working for a living is really interfering with my blogging fun.  LOL.  Here are some pictures I have wanted to post for a while.

The beets I harvested the day this picture was taken.  Notice the heart shaped one and the one with two tops.

My poor Big Max Pumpkin will never be big enough to carve.

The garlic is growing very well.  I later covered it with netting because the quail were digging their holes to sit in around it and dug some up.  Last week I found most of the garlic tops eaten to about 1/2 inch above the soil.  What I thought were chipmunks, and have since found out are Antelope squirrels, are eating them.  Now the netting is raised off of the ground so they can't eat any more garlic.

The grapes are getting ready to pick.  Picked the grapes the third week of October.  We made 20 quarts of juice out of approximately 65 pounds of grapes (stems included in weight).

The cool weather gave me the best crop of onions I have ever had. I was so proud of my big onions until:

My mom's onion was placed next to my onions.  We both grew Walla Walla onions.

A close up of mom's onion.  Five inches across.

My bell peppers are on the plant.  Mom's bell peppers are sitting in the pot.  Gardening in the high desert region of Nevada is a lot of work.

 The refrigerator drawer full of potatoes from Mom's garden.

A close up of the biggest one.  All of  my potatoes were tiny and most of the plants died.

New Garden Pictures

This is my Big Max pumpkin.  One of those that get 500 to 1,000 pounds if you live in the Midwest.  Mine is a whopping 4 inches long from stem to flower.  The leaves are bigger than the pumpkin.

The Brussels sprouts are forming along the main stock of the plant.  They are almost the size of a quarter.  This is supposed to be a 90 day crop.  The seedlings were planted outside on 3/22.  I don't think I will plant them next year.  I have other things I like better than this crop that has so far taken over 5 months to grow and still isn't ready to harvest.

This eggplant doesn't get enough sun.  Not expecting anything from it.  There isn't even any flowers starting.  Oh well it is a pretty plant in an otherwise empty pot.

The lettuce I planted about 3 weeks ago is doing really well.

The lettuce plant from the little barbecue is dead, but the seed didn't finish forming.  I half expected that because the lettuce didn't do well it that tiny container.  I think it got to hot and even in the shade it didn't do well.

I will save the seeds from this lettuce plant now.

 I stopped watering my zucchini from overhead and have been careful to not get the flowers wet also.  I have two zucchinis now.

This is the other zucchini growing straight up.  There is a little spaghetti squash on the ground below the zucchini.

Here are two spaghetti squash.  The cement block is 6 inches wide and 16 inches long almost.  They measure like a 2 x 4 piece of wood does.  Anyway you get an idea of their size.  The front ones is very scratched up for some unknown reason.  I hope they finish developing before the frost gets to them.

This Sugar Pie pumpkin is 3 inches long form stem to flower, but it is bigger around than the Big Max pumpkin.

I dug these tiny potatoes out of the rectangular tote of potatoes, because the plant was almost dead even though it didn't grow as big as it should have.  It never got big enough for the plant to flower.  I was surprised to see holes in the potatoes.  There were only 8 potatoes.  Two other smaller ones had these same holes. I put the potatoes on one of the concrete block after I dug each one up.  When I finished and was starting to pick up the potatoes, I saw tiny tiny ants crawling out of the holes.  I have never seen or heard of that before.

Beets at different sizes.  Some were planted a little over  3 weeks ago and some were planted almost 2 weeks ago.

 This is four tomatillo plants.  It looks like a jungle.

 There are tons of little green husks with the tomatillos developing inside them.

All the tomato plants in the pots look terrible.  Usually when plants die from the bottom up it means too much water or too dry between waterings.  I'm not sure which it is.  The plant water tester always reads that they have a ton of water, but when I put my fingers down in the soil it feels dry.

Not putting tomatoes in pots again.  Especially ones without holes in the bottom.  This is my first year of container gardening.  Not very happy with the tomato results.

Wandering onions AKA Egyptian onions and chives are planted under all of my fruit trees.  These smelly plants help keep the bugs away that like to overwinter in the ground and climb up the trees in the spring.

Close-up of the Wandering onions.  The new onion sets form on the top of the onion stalks.  They will dry up, fall off, and start growing again.  Some will get blown to other parts of the yard and start growing if they get enough water.

Here is a close-up of one of the Wandering onion plants.  One new onion has a cluster of new onions growing off of it.  This happens very often.  I have plenty to share if anyone wants some.

Here is what is left of the ones I dug up and dried two years ago.  As you can see I don't use many onions.  They are little and very mild.

This is one of two parsley plants that are in with the asparagus.  All of the asparagus died and was replanted 2 years ago.  Two parsley plants managed to find their way back.  I am letting them go to seed and spread throughout the asparagus again, hopefully.

More on Fighting the Critters

Here are the strawberries covered with netting.  One gallon pots partly filled with soil are at the outside edged and in the center of the strawberries to hold the netting up high enough to keep the birds out.  Rocks are along the edges to hold the netting down.

Here is an overall picture of the garden.  Most everything is covered with something to keep the birds out.

This is the beets and lettuce.  The front half is the lettuce that was planted almost 2 weeks ago.

This is the spinach planted the same time as the lettuce that the birds ate.  There were only two screens at that time and they got in between them.  Replanted the spinach about a week ago.

The quail are digging holes around this pumpkin plant that is never going to get big enough to produce a pumpkin.  The plant was partly out of the ground so now there is a broken pallet and rocks around it.

The left side of the tomatoes and tomatillas have rocks between them.  The birds were making holes and the water wasn't staying in the wells around the plants.

 Here is the right side of the same bed as above.

 This bed has the pallets on it to keep the cat out of it.  Soon my garlic will be planted here.

 Mixed lettuce and Mesclun covered with screen.  The pallet is covering the unplanted edge of this bed and helping to hold the screen off of the plants.  Bird protection again.

Here are the Brussels sprouts and the broccoli that is bagged to save its seeds.  Pallets to keep the birds out.  The screen is over the garlic that some critter pulled a few out of the ground and ate a bite out of the tops of the bulbs.

Pallets covering the compost buckets to keep the cat from using it as a bathroom.  There is a tomato plant growing in one of the compost buckets.  A volunteer.

I have been looking for this copper for several year.  It was something my dad had leftover from his construction days.  I have heard that squash bugs don't like to walk over copper.  I tried putting pennies around my squash plants in the past, but it didn't seem to do any good.  This is about 3 inches wide and seems do be doing the trick.  I found one squash bug on the outside edge of one of the plants since the copper has been in place.  I did check for bugs daily and used a pair of pliers to pick them off and squeeze them with.  I also scraped off all eggs I found.  Now I check every 3 or 4 days and have only found that one.

Another squash plant with copper under it.  This is supposed to be a year with an abundance of squash bugs.  At least that is what I heard from the manager of one of the local nurseries.

Am I seeing things?  A critter that can stay!  Something must be wrong.  I guess this Praying Mantis doesn't know this garden has been the home for unwanted guests this year.  He stays in with the beets.  This is the second time I have watered and chased him up onto the screen.  Welcome Praying Mantis!

BACK TO THE UNWANTED GUESTS:

I have been spraying all the soil with white vinegar every two or three days.  It has been keeping the cat away fairly well.  It takes 2 quarts to get enough of the vinegar smell to do the job.  I have to spray it heavier in the more sandy areas.  This cat is determined to use my yard and keeps trying new places to use as a litter box.  I am determined to keep it away.  I WILL WIN!

The cat finally has no place to go to the bathroom under the trees.  We have bought five loads of  crushed rock and hauled about 5 or 6 load of river rock from Cindy's yard.  I can't thank Cindy enough for all of the rock.  We can only haul 1/2 yard of rock each trip.  Almost done.  Still need one more load of crushed rock and one or two more loads of river rock.

 Another view of the rock under the trees.  On the left edge is where I have just started a border of rock.

An up close view.

I have some decorative white wire fencing that my husband tied some green plastic fencing material to.  Several years ago I used this to go around the asparagus bed for protection.  The ground is packed down fairly well, but I found where the cat had tried to go to the bathroom in the the middle of the path so I put the fencing down and separated the two things where the walkway is wide.

A close-up of the picture above.

An open area between the riverbed and the shed is now covered with chicken wire. This was the cat's first choice of places to use as a litter box.  This is where the kids like to dig and play also.  Wish I would have thought of the chicken wired months ago instead of days ago.  I have noticed the bird tracks go along the edge of the wire now.  Guess they don't like it either.

This is the cat's second favorite place to use as a litter box.  It doesn't seem to like the steep slants.  Thank goodness for something.  Still spraying the vinegar in the places not covered with wire. 

On the hill I am slowly spreading out the pine needles that fall off of our pine trees.  Someday the entire hill will have a thick layer of needles.  It keeps the cat away, but not the birds.

 Another close-up view of pine needles.

 Another area with pine needles.  Can you see the hole dug by the quail?

A close-up of the hole the quail dug to sit in.

 HERE BIRDY BIRDY BIRDY.  Just got a quail trap made Monday.  Not sure how long it will take for the quail to be willing to go in it.  I sure hope Curt wants more quail on his property!

The next project is covering the Elderberry bushes.  The birds have eaten all of them for the past 12 years.  Now it is my turn to have some.  My husband has an idea for making a cover.  The berries are on the outside edges of the plant, so just putting a net over the bushes doesn't keep the birds out.  We are going to build some kind of structure to go around the bushes and hold the netting away from the plants.

Tiny green berries are starting to form.  The birds will start eating them very soon.  They don't wait for them to turn purple.  They eat them all green.

This Sedum has very few leaves.  I don't know if the quail, dove, or both are eating this.  The Sedum in the background is dead.  I think it didn't have a chance, because it was a new transplant that was constantly having holes dug around it and the water never stayed next to the plant.

This Hens and Chicks keeps hanging on even though the birds constantly eat it.

 I hope this Hens and Chicks lives.  I finally put rock around it to keep the birds from making holes that kept the water running away from the plant.  Going to get some wire and cover the Hens and Chicks and Sedum.  Oh yeah, another project.  I'm sure I need even more!