when are you sowing your garden this year?

[buffalobo]

OK, well good news. It looked like I might have some potatoes after all. So I have an unfinished basement, it's insulated and a walkout though so it's not as cold as it would be if it had bare cement walls. What's the best way to store these suckers for as long as possible?

http://www.gardeners.com/how-to/stor...uash/5021.html

Lots of good articles on storage. Read several for ideas.

[Dave]

Had potato leek soup last night with stuff from the garden. The bacon I used was the last I had stashed from a purchase from our local board pig farmer.

[HoneyBadger]

End of the season for me... We harvested about 20 roma tomatoes, a handful of carrots that were all less than 3" long, and a handful of peas and beans. Pepper plants randomly started producing peppers like crazy two weeks ago and last week the frost killed everything. The tomato plants still have 100+ green tomatoes on them.

This is altitude and weather are a nightmare for gardening. I'll try lots of things differently next year.

[Brian]

I'm planning on planting some garlic this week, probably in a variety of places as I hear it helps keep some critters away from the other plants.

Also, I decided that my garden soil is too much "soil" (dirt) and needs more compost, maybe some sand and some other stuff to help it drain a bit better. I have a couple round compost bins (the kind that supposedly spin around to mix them up) and I'm thinking I might just dump the contents of the compost bin out on top of the garden and just do a little light mixing in with the dirt. Unfortunately, I'm assuming this activity conflicts with my garlic planting hopes, at least in the big raised bed.

The raspberry bed is completely empty with maybe two bare sticks poking out of the dirt. Guess that one is a complete start-over next spring.

What else should I be thinking about doing here in the fall?

[Brian]

Had potato leek soup last night with stuff from the garden. The bacon I used was the last I had stashed from a purchase from our local board pig farmer.

How well do the leeks do here? I love potato leek soup.

[Dave]

How well do the leeks do here? I love potato leek soup.

Did mine in a wine barrel planter next to my jalepenos. I need to figure out what we did in that one because everything in there did great. One pepper plant gave us 52 chiles even with hail knocking a few out. As soon as we picked some there were new ones forming near the same spots a few days later. First time growing them for us, and we kept some seeds to plant again.. Our leeks did great and we pulled the three we planted when they got 1" diameter. The potatoes were small, but they were in buckets anyway. I'm pulling some herbs this week to dry out via the Blowhard 5000 method. Thyme and rosemary mostly.

This was out first year doing anything more than a couple of plants, and while a few things disappointed we had good success overall. I am not sure if we will plant next year since we are looking at moving after her youngest graduates in May.

[rbeau30]

I was pretty impressed with my 5 gallon bucket potatoes. They never got to the point of flowering, but I still got I would say an 8 to 1 ratio. I planted red potatoes, next year I think I'll expand to 8 buckets, and maybe even cut the bottoms out of some buckets and stack them so I get a bigger yield.

Tomatoes did extremely well. Well over 100lbs of tomatoes over what i sat in the garden and ate (I can eat me some tomatoes!). I got some (8) - 15 gallon tree planters from the garden center for 3 dollars each, and planted my extra seedling tomatoes in them so that extended the tomato harvest a bit. Zukes were awesome but could have been better if it weren't for a white powdery coating on the leaves that seemed to kill the plants off. Same thing with the cukes.

I need to plan out the tomatoes better next year, they got welll over 8 feet tall and fell over the trellis and over all the other plants. I am adding a third 4 x 8 raised bed this fall, so I can get some garlic into the ground before the ground gets too frozen. I also am going to fashion a hoop system to cover the newly planted seedlings in the spring. I also am going to do more vertical gardening, I have some trellis ideas for green beans and squash, so they take up less room. I also will have space for 3 more fruit trees. another pear (cross pollination with the existing one). The wife wants a peach tree, but I am not sure how that will work. Also going to need to prune the heck out of the fruit trees in the spring.

[hollohas]

... if it weren't for a white powdery coating on the leaves that seemed to kill the plants off. Same thing with the cukes.

.

Powdery Mildew. I had a big problem with it this year too. The extra rain doesn't help.

[rbeau30]

Powdery Mildew. I had a big problem with it this year too. The extra rain doesn't help.

I figured it was the wet season we had. I think I am going to research some stuff over the winter to help with diseases.

[HoneyBadger]

Powdery Mildew. I had a big problem with it this year too. The extra rain doesn't help.

I think that killed off my beans and peas after the rabbits had their way with them. I was going to ask about it, but I'm so darn frustrated with this year's efforts, I'm just ready to start fresh next spring.