Late, Late Fall Garden

Well, here it is November 11, and we still haven't had a freeze, so our gardens are still growing.

According to the University of Missouri Climate Center, our normal median freeze date (when there's a 50% chance that a freeze will have occurred) for this area of Missouri is October 20.  And even the very southernmost area of the state has a median freeze date of November 4.

The national weather service at NOAA forecasts a low of 34°F for tonight and tomorrow night, and then it climbs back up into the low 40s the rest of the week.  

Here's Weather Underground's forecast for next week:

Fantastic weather.  We may still be harvesting on Thanksgiving!

Neither of those two sources has a longer range forecast, but Accuweather is willing to forecast a drastic drop on the Wednesday before and Thanksgiving day to 24° and 31° respectively.  Spoilsports!  At any rate, the fabulous freaky weather will be coming to an end soon, and we are all - well, I know I am - enjoying the heck out of it while it lasts, even if it means we have to water our outdoor potted plants once in a while.

Late last month, I went up to Des Moines for three days to help my daughter-in-law with some landscaping, and as I wouldn't have anyone reliable to water my potted plants, I devised a quick automatic watering system for those I was worried about.  I got the idea from a YouTube video.

It's the same principle that those lovely blown glass bulbs use.  I poked holes in the lids of cheap bottled water containers.   I filled them with water and buried their heads in the pot soil.  I don't know what might have become of the plants if I hadn't done this, but they all looked fine when I returned, so it was worth the little effort it took to do it.

The garden doesn't look any different than it did a month ago. Still serene and green.

I'm still harvesting tomatoes and peppers, and the fall cucumbers ('Marketmore' - my favorite for any time of the year) are producing beautifully.  If I had gotten on the ball and planted them sooner, I'm sure I could have had a season-long harvest after that wet spring failure.  (Don't mention my onions.)

I've been grilling up the peppers over a smokey log fire, and boy are they delicious peeled and stir-fried with some chicken in a little oil and vinegar or cut up in a macaroni salad.  Or just all by themselves.

If I happen to lose a ripe tomato to the ground, somebody in the night finds it just as tasty as I do.  This one, however, has left me puzzled.

Bird pecks maybe?

I'm still harvesting enough to eat and a few to freeze.

The compost pile is providing a great home for some volunteer onions and borage.

The back door cilantro is beautiful, and the tatsoi in the lettuce garden is gorgeous.  Both are delicious, as well, of course.

I decided to have an early trial of planting seeds from the ornamental Black Pearl pepper plant and am very encouraged as it seems it's as easy to collect and germinate seeds as any of the other peppers I've worked with.  I planted seeds from one of the ripe fruits on October 29, but forgot to check on them after the first couple of days.  When I finally did look at them yesterday, they were well up, and I'm guessing they'd germinated within a week of planting.  Their little dark cotyledons are barely distinguishable from the soil without good lighting.

I'm encouraged that I - and several of my friends and family - will have as many of these pretty annuals as we can use next year.

The weather has been sunny and mild but still cool enough that the heat-loving plants are simply holding steady, so I went ahead and brought the rhubarb seedlings, who haven't done a darned thing since they sprouted, inside to be overwintered in the cellar seed chamber I created last summer.  It seems like a hassle, but it actually gives me some year-round "gardening" on dreary winter days.

I've also got some rose cuttings that I'm trying to root.  I've never had much luck before, but I'm still trying.

A friend and neighbor invited me to her place to pick up pecans recently.  I cracked them today with the super nutcracker she loaned me.  How's that for a great neighbor?  Thank you, Monna!

Here's the device (note my safety glasses - believe me, you do not want to operate this thing without them):

It's so easy and quick!  It's an ingenious thing.  With only a slight bit of pulling pressure on the handle, serious cracking pressure is exerted on the nuts along their length, which cracks them open without mangling them.  The special bolts into which you place the uncracked nut are concave so they hold the nut in the precise angle needed to perform this little miracle. 

Here's a picture of my set-up for the operation:

In the end, I have a gallon and a half of beautifully cracked pecans.

Mmmmmm.  Pecan pie for Thanksgiving - my family's favorite.  And mouth-watering Jack Daniels sugared pecans for Christmas.  

Til next time.