Winterizing 1

Rising at 8-00am to a clock which says 9-00am. Yes it's fall back time!
No cat calls to awaken the Happy Gardener on the wonderful

......sunny

...........Autumn morning. Recently temperatures have been varying between pleasant and cool, the evenings especially having been colder. No sign of any frost yet so the herbs

...... are still outside

........on the patio. Some have been harvested and are drying in the kitchen.

Here we have bunches of Basil Spicy Globe and Rosemary and a little Sage.

The forecast says of temperatures possibly dropping below freezing next weekend so we must be alert. Later today we are supposed to get light rain so better get started.

I've been giving the trees a bit of a tidying up, clipping off low hanging branches

....and generally winterizing.
I've also pruned

....the Fuji Apple and

.......the Forsythia.
These and all the new trees have also got a thick layer of mulch laid around the bases.
Despite the cooler temps I'm still pulling

......a few tomatoes every few days.
More winterizing

.............in the way of chopping up some dead trees

....... and sorting out the log pile in preparation for a new delivery.
I should have room

.......for another couple of ricks by the time I'm done.
Next, the garage

......needs a good clearing up so everything gets dragged out.
Alvin checks to make sure

......I've done a proper job.
Around the back I make a start on clearing out Plots 4 and 6. I pull the last carrots

....and dig up a few potatoes from Plot 3

......to go with them. The making of a Beef Stew, perhaps??
All the time I'm digging, someone is watching me.

This fellow was non too please when I politely asked him to "hop it" for a while to allow me to work in HIS plot.
Plot 6 gets it's primary digging over. My two surviving Parsnips

.........are left in place. I'll be mulching these and hopefully pull them in the Spring.
Two Parsnips, WOW. What a crop.
I dig out the Parsley plant, clip off some off the dead or broken stems and put it into a pot. This will be brought indoors and reside on one of the windowsills.

Hopefully it will give us a little greenery through the Winter months.
Autumn colours are here now

......in the hedgerows and

.....our small saplings. Above is one of the two Goldenrain trees I started a while ago.
This will be their first Winter out in the garden, last year they stayed in the nursery plot buried under a thick bed if straw.
Late afternoon skies

........look full of that promise of rain. Then the drizzle starts.

And I stop!

And yet cooler still

Rising at 8-30am.

No early morning call from Alvin this morning.
This is due to a sudden drop in temperatures and he hasn't got his winter coat yet.
To get around this problem he's switched to "day shift" and hunts while the sun is up. The nights are spent curled up keeping my office chair warm.
These wild flowers growing at the back of the house...................

.....don't seem to mind the change.
Neither do the Black Swallowtail caterpillars....................

....which are still happily munching away on my Parsley plants. We have lots of Parsley still growing, far more than we will ever use this season so I don't mind sharing with them. And, they do grow into.................

....these very beautiful butterflies. Well worth having around.

Colder temperatures remind me that it's time to prepare for when it gets really cold. I have a couple of dead trees that want felling and sawing up for the wood pile...................


...........and so that's done.
I've given the trees a bit of a haircut to tidy up any low hanging branches, pruned the Fuji Apple and the Golden Willow and removed a broken branch from one of the small Oaks round the back.
I see that our resident "Squirrel Nutkins"............................

.......will have an ample store for the coming winter.
Enough for today.



Oklahomegrownvegland skies of beauty and wonder..............................

Blissfully cooler

Waking at 5-00am and rising at 6-30am. It's noticeably cooler today here in Oklahomegrownvegland. One could almost say "pleasant".
Even cool cats like Alvin here...............

.... enjoy a bit of a rest from the heat.
It also means that the Happy Gardener can get some outdoor tasks done.
First on the list is to deal with the Persimmon tree which was (I presume) struck by lightning.

We have already lost one of the three and now it's time to fell the second.
I call in the heavy gang..................

...and soon this once magnificent tree is reduced to this..............

It's sad isn't it. But I decided to fell it as I didn't want it falling on it's own and damaging the roots of our only survivor. I add it to the woodpile
I then put in the new Chrysanthemum at the right hand end of one of the front flower beds.....

.....while at the left hand end the existing 'mum......

....is covered in bursting buds.
More blooms are showing on one of the burn piles.....

I piled a few fallen branches here after the last ice storm and have left it to it's own devices. Now I have a small island of growth which has become a bit of a garden feature. There are a few new trees established and some pretty white flowers, which are a type of creeper, have climbed the tree.......

.......and adorned it with it's small white blooms. I have no idea what they are but they are very attractive and will hopefully become permanent residents.
Here's another permanent resident..................

......one of the many Crawdads which inhabit our property. Maybe I should say "Crawmum" in this case as it's a female and she's loaded with eggs under her tail.
She lets me know in no uncertain terms...............

...that she doesn't want to be bothering with me as she's busy looking for a nest site. I spot her making a new burrow shortly after I take this snap.
Around the back, I pull some Egyptian Onions, place them on a screen.......

.... and put then undercover on the patio. They need to dry out and thunderstorms are forecast for the next few days. I also gather quite a lot of the Bulbils too........

...... and will be offering some of these around to anyone who would like to try growing some.
I say "try" but they seem to require little or no care and grow through the winter. The whole plant is edible, the tops supplying shallot type greens for adding to soups and stews when all other garden greens have long since vanished.

At long last The Happy Gardeners Rotating Composter ©™ is completed and in service.

I reckon that it has cost me around $60 to make and when you price one to buy online you will see how much of a saving that is. It makes turning the ongoing compost an easy task. No spade or fork work required. It's also vermin proof and looks a lot tidier than the wooden bins that I used previously. My main concern is that it may require some sort of covering for if temperatures drop REALLY low. I don't want the compost freezing solid as a brick.

Enough!!

Tonight's dinner is ........

Home Made Caesar Salad and a glass of chilled Chablis

Assessing this years efforts.

It hasn't been a great year for me in the garden but certainly not a complete failure.
I think that next year I'm going to work on getting the soil improved rather than growing as much as possible.
Temperatures have been unpleasantly hot these last couple of months making outdoor work a chore rather than a joy. I'm hoping things will start to cool off as September arrives.
But first things first..........................

Breakfast and............................

....breakfast reading.

Here's a short assessment of this years results:

Tomatoes and Yolo Bell Peppers.

Moderate crop but low plant growth resulting in less leaf coverage and sun scald. Probably need to get the nitrogen levels up. The hybrid cherry tomato plants were a success and pretty prolific. I wasn't impressed with the one Determinate plant I bought although it may have done better with more favourable soil and less harsh weather so I'll probably try one again.

Onions.
Low crop (excluding the Egyptians which grew like crazy anywhere)

Garlic.

Great crop, every one I planted made a good bulb. It's been cured and we are now starting to use it. I'll be putting more in the ground come early winter.

Mesclun.
This was the find of the season. I grew just the correct amount for us both and by cutting and letting it grow back got a continuous crop for quite a few weeks. But as soon as the temps hit the roof it all bolted. I'll definitely be doing some more of this next year.

Kohlrabi.

Good, all plants survived

Potatoes.
2 crops one low and one still in the ground but looks promising.

Carrots.
Poor crop, although I planted them in a bad location and the Kohlrabi plants cut them off from the sun so probably my fault.

Parsnips.
Poor crop. Out of the 4 rows I planted I have around 4 or 5 plants still growing. I'll be leaving those in the ground until the spring.

Swiss Chard.

Grew well but was completely devoured by the Blister beetles.

Bugs have been a problem again, mainly Blister Beetles, Grasshoppers and Caterpillars. Diatomacious Earth and BTK has kept the latter two in check to a certain degree but nothing gets rid of the former except hand picking. NOT a fun pastime when it's 115F+ on the heat scale.

I lost the whole top of one tomato plant........................

.....to this huge fellow.
And I found this.........

.........walking around where I work
It's a Rhinoceros Bug and apparently it's the strongest creature on the planet relative to it's size. It can lift 850 times it's own weight. I gave him to my mate and he let him go in his small orchard.

Oklahomegrownvegland evening skies............................

........of beauty and wonder.
Tonight's dinner..................................

......Asiago and spinach sausages, tomatoes with parmesan cheese, garden greens salad and basmati rice with green peppers