Post Season: First Snow

On Christmas Eve, we were out and about without coats.  By yesterday morning (Christmas Day)....BRRRR!  We woke up today to a couple of inches of show on the ground, and it's still falling. 

There's always breakfast at Nanny's house on Christmas morning:  home-made biscuits, country ham and sausage, sawmill gravy, eggs, potatoes, pies, and cakes.  Between the feasting and the present-opening, I took a quick stroll out to the garden to see how the "fall garden" was faring.

You might recall that I planted sugar snap peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, radishes, beets, and greens in October.  It appears that I planted them a little too late.  We've been eating greens and radishes for a few weeks now.  A couple of the broccoli plants have tennis ball heads on them, but they've been nipped by the few frosts that we've had and don't look very appetizing.  The brussels sprouts have formed promising-looking leaf cups in the center, but no stalks yet.  It will be interesting to see how they react to seriously cold weather.  I'm going to leave them in the ground and see if they'll kick into gear in the spring. 

I was hopeful that we would be eating snap peas this fall.  They grew and bloomed nicely, but I haven't seen a single pea pod.  Judging from the hoof prints up and down the row and the truncated vines, the deer apparently have seen them and have relieved me of the chore of picking and eating them. 

It looks like my outdoor gardening is officially over for 2012.  But, just think, it's only about 6 more weeks until it's time to break ground for the early spring crops, like potatoes and cabbages and broccoli.  I have seeds left over from the fall plants; it'll soon be time to start them indoors for the spring garden. 

Meanwhile, there's a quilt in the quilt frame that's demanding my attention, one in pieces on my work counter, and one more still in the fabric store sack that I haven't even cut out, yet.  I'd best get busy if they're to be finished by spring. 

Holiday decorating

This past weekend, The Husband and I went shopping for a birthday present for our grandson.  As we passed through the Christmas decorations section, he spotted a bin of plastic, lighted candy canes, the 2-ft. tall kind that people put along their driveways and sidewalks, and had to have some for our yard.

His vision was to line both sides of our driveway and front walk with them.

He intended to buy 8 of them, and to set them about 5 feet apart.

I said, "Eight is not going to do it.  If we're going to do both sides of the driveway and the front walk, we need at least 20."  We commenced picking through the bin, making sure that the ones we chose still had their plastic stakes attached, making sure that we had an equal number of red-striped canes and green-striped canes....

Since the birthday party wasn't until later in the afternoon, we came back home after our shopping trip and unloaded our purchases.  The Husband immediately started removing the plastic wrapping from the candy canes (a chore so onerous that it deserves its own blog entry).  Upon unwrapping the first cane, he discovered that its electrical cord was only about a foot long. 

Our 100 feet of lighting suddenly shrank to 20 feet.  Our options were to scale down our project, or buy 20 extension cords.

Ok, so maybe we'll do JUST the front walk, and just one side of it.

Since this was The Husband's idea, he assumed the task of setting up the canes.  Green/white, red/white, green/white, red/white...all perfectly upright in a perfectly straight row.  We lacked about 3 canes having enough to line one side of the front walk all the way to the porch.  I said I'd get more on Monday. 

While I was cleaning up the discarded plastic wrappings, The Husband dragged our other outdoor decorations from the attic:  5 light-and-ornament-laced pine garlands, and 5 pine wreaths with flattened red velvet bows.  Over the years, we've gotten the outdoor decorating business down pat.  We lay the garlands along the brick ledges on the front of our house and hang one across the porch.  The wreaths get suction-cupped to the front windows and front door, et voila!, decorating's done.  While I hung the wreaths, he rounded up the necessary extension cords.  We had just enough time to test the garland lights before it would be time to leave for the birthday party.  When the Husband plugged in the final strand, the entire first strand went out.  He checked the fuse; sure enough, it had blown.  He checked the other lights to see if any of them had a spare fuse in the compartment.  Nope.  He pocketed the blown fuse, and said we'd go in search of a replacement after the party. 

Neither the local hardware store nor the local dollar store had a replacement fuse, nor did they have a matching strand of lights that we could've used for spare parts.  We came home, vowing to continue our search in the coming week, and plugged in the all the lights - garlands and candy canes - to admire our handiwork in the darkness. 

It was then that we discovered that two of the red/white candy canes contained red lights, not white ones like all the rest.

This is the kind of occurrence that drives The Husband crazy.  He likes everything just so. We'd been careful, or so we'd thought, in choosing the canes, never noticing that some of them were stuffed with red lights.  Removing the two red-lit canes would've eliminated the offense, but it would also have upset the green/white-red/white order.  What's a person to do?  I said that I'd get 5 canes, instead of 3, when I went back to the store.  Meanwhile, we'd just have to live with the two anamolies.

Yesterday afternoon when I went to the grocery store, I ventured a little farther in search of a fuse for the garland lights, thinking I might also run across more of the same candy canes we'd bought from the other store.  I struck out at the local stores.  My 5-year-old grandson had accompanied me on this trip, and since he was whining that he was hungry and needed to pee, I gave up the search and came home. 

Not long after I got home, The Husband announced that the fuse problem was solved, as he had found a spare in the only strand of lights that he had not checked the previous day.  I went out to admire his work, and stood way back to take in the overall effect.

Four of the five wreaths had either slid all the way down the windows or had fallen to the ground....

(...likely to be continued....)

It's Fall, Y'all

We've had a few faintly frosty nights lately.  Yesterday, I went down to the garden to see what havoc they caused. 

The purple hull peas are goners.  It's a shame that I did not get the seeds in the ground a couple of weeks earlier; most of the pods did not have time to fully fill out. 

The pepper plants are wilty, but the peppers still hanging on them are fine, since we haven't had freezing temperatures yet.  Ditto for the tomatoes. 

Everything else - greens, radishes, broccoli, and brussels sprouts - stood up well to the frost.  The greens are pickin' size, finally.  Radishes are ready to eat.  The beets are still small, but doing well.  The broccoli and brussels sprouts look as though they're considering doing some work.  The sugar snap peas have bloomed, but I'm not finding any pods yet.  I wonder if the bees have been too cold and sluggish to do any pollenating.

I have decided that I like fall gardening better than summer gardening.

Fall Garden Check-Up

Yesterday afternoon, as soon as we returned from a camping trip (which you can read about at www.susanshappytrails.blogspot.com as soon as I get around to posting), I went to the garden to see how things were growing.

The broccoli and brussels sprouts are looking great!  The radishes have marble-sized roots.  Greens are coming along nicely. 

We have three volunteer plants that I thought were squash.  Never mind that I did not plant any squash where these things sprouted; they had the look of squash plants, and when they bloomed, they looked like squash blooms.  They are starting to fruit now, and I have no idea what they are.  They are shaped like yellow squash, but they are mint green. 

Last Monday, I planted more seeds - bok choy, cabbage, rainbow chard, and lettuce.  It may have been pure insanity to plant these things this late.  I've never even seen rainbow chard, but it looked pretty on the package, so I thought, "Why not?"  It has rained here since I planted this last batch of seeds, and I could not walk between the rows without sinking in the mud.  The whole garden has tiny little green things coming up everywhere, most of which are weeds, and from a distance I could not tell if the new seeds have sprouted.  But I put some of the lettuce seeds in a planter box on the patio, and they have sprouted, so hopefully there's lettuce in the garden, too.

The purple hull peas I planted several weeks ago are starting to mature.  Nanny said that she picked and shelled "a cup full" of peas, and that they may not be purple hull peas because their "eyes" are pink.  Pink eyes or not, we are hoping that the first frost holds off long enough to allow the rest of the crop to mature.

Cool-Weather Plants

Saturday I planted the broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started indoors a while  back.  They've been living on my front porch for a few weeks, where they've been getting serious afternoon sun.  I hope they like their new digs.

Today I planted turnips, mustard greens, kale, spinach, and collards.  The spinach seeds were left-overs from some previous year; time will tell if they're still viable.  I also planted radishes and beets.

It may be too late in the year for everything but the greens, but there's no harm in trying, right? 

Oh, and NEWSFLASH!  We have carrots!  Not just little matchstick-sized things, either, but full-fledged carrots.  It's a gardening first for me.

Blue Moons

The mailman left fall garden seeds in my mailbox this week - sugar snap peas, cabbage, beets, radishes, and carrots.  I decided this afternoon that I'd better get busy preparing the soil for planting. 

Right now, my garden is about halfway toward being a mess (or, for the glass-half-full folks, it's 1/2 clean).  The front 1/4 was recently plowed and disked and is ready for tilling.  At the far edge of this strip stands a double row of the scrawniest rattlesnake bean plants you ever saw, plants that have only made one pickin' of beans all summer.  I decided to let them stand, having had, in past years, sickly plants suddenly spring to life with the September rains and bear until frost.  My intention is to plant the sugar snap peas right beside them, so that the peas can use the existing string supports.  On the other side of the bean trellis are several rows of beans, peppers, and tomatoes.  It is all over-grown; the tomatoes have fallen over, cages and all.  Beyond these rows are three immaculately clean rows of purple hull peas that are just starting to grow, a grassy row of scraggly tomatoes, and three more clean rows of purple hull peas. 

The task I set for myself this afternoon was to (1) apply lime and fertilizer to the front 1/4 of the garden and till it into the soil, and (2) plant the sugar snap peas.  All I actually accomplished was applying the lime and fertilizer, and tilling the soil one row wide on either side of the bean trellis where the snap peas will go.  As I was tilling, it occurred to me that we're about to have a blue moon.  I think I shall wait until Friday to plant the blue-green, moon-shaped seeds.  ;)

The broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started from seeds a couple of weeks ago are ready to go in the garden.  They're going in the front 1/4, once I prepare the soil.  I planted the cabbage seeds indoors yesterday.  I don't know whether they'll grow in time to make heads before winter. 

I still haven't decided what to do about the carrots and beets.  I've not had much luck with root vegetables.  This clay soil is just too hard.  Fellow gardeners have suggested that I mix some sand into the soil, but online sources say that it takes a lot of sand - a truck load for a big garden - to help clay soil.  But I've had another idea.  I saw a 10-ft.-long livestrock feeding trough in a farm supply ad.  I could fill it with half soil and half sand and plant the seeds there, and it could happen in my very own yard (instead of across the road in Nanny's yard), where I can keep a watch on the plants.  I'll let you know if it works!

Fall Gardening

The summer garden is getting tired, and I am tired of fooling with it.  Yesterday, I decided that it was time to get rid of some of the most troublesome and least-producing areas.  I pulled up some tomatoes that weren't earning their keep.  The Husband cranked up the tractor and plowed and disked the front third of the garden, which was mostly sunflowers, scraggly tomatoes, and weeds.  So far, I've managed not to kill the broccoli and brussels sprouts that I started 3 weeks ago.  They have been transplanted into plastic drinking cups (just try and find peat pots or pellets around here this time of year) and are now living on my front porch.  In a couple of weeks, when this heat lets up, I'll move them to the garden.

Today, I made two more batches of pepper jelly.  I gave away at least half of the first batch.  It's kind of fun to make new pepper jelly converts.  Those who have never had it will crinkle up their noses and say, "Pepper jelly?"  But once I give them a jar and they try it, they're hooked.  Today's second batch also has onions in it (I was a tad short on peppers).  I haven't tasted it yet, but it smelled delicious while it was cooking.