2026 Garden Thread

[begreen]

Gather the green tomatoes and bring them indoors. Many will ripen over time, providing fresh tomatoes for a while.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Sweet potato harvest today. This is a first for us. They say to cure them for a week at 80º but we don't have a spot at that temperature. What happens if they are cured at 72º?

Congratulations on a good crop of sweet potatoes, begreen. Those look nice.

My mom has for years cured her large crops of sweet potatoes on her sunporch, a glassed in room with a concrete floor. It's something like an attached greenhouse. It heats up with sun but cools off at night. She keeps the sweet potatoes there for a couple of weeks and then moves them to her basement, and they tend to last until the next summer. She has never worried about the official curing temperatures or humidity, and hers do fine, though they do probably get some pretty good heat on summer days.

When we lived in Texas I had pretty good heat but lacked humidity for curing sweet potatoes. At that time I had a double wall oven and didn't use the lower oven often, so I used to keep the sweet potatoes in the oven, and I would add a pan of hot water underneath them to keep them warm and moist. That seemed to work.

Here I only have one oven which I don't want to tie up with sweet potatoes, so last year I got hold of some large sandwich trays/party platters, and I placed them on my seed starting mats. I don't recall doing anything to add extra moisture. I think the humidity was trapped by the plastic lids, and so I kept the sweet potatoes in there for ten days or so.

I don't know that you need to have the perfect conditions for curing. I've tried to create them as I can, but I know that my mom does just fine with her method, too. Sweet potatoes do definitely prefer heat, though, so perhaps a seedling heat mat under a bin might help them out. You wouldn't want anything too hot, of course.

 

[begreen]

I don't know that you need to have the perfect conditions for curing. I've tried to create them as I can, but I know that my mom does just fine with her method, too. Sweet potatoes do definitely prefer heat, though, so perhaps a seedling heat mat under a bin might help them out. You wouldn't want anything too hot, of course.

Brilliant suggestion. I'll try that. Thanks!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

We've been having some lovely weather recently, but the last couple of days have gotten to ninety or so again. I had hoped to have a big garden workday tomorrow, but there's a good chance that the whole day will be damp and cool, so I did as much as I could today.

My mother and youngest child helped me harvest sweet potatoes. It was a good crop this year. I have them on the sunporch to cure. I can cover the whole table with plastic to trap humidity, and I have two seedling heatmats ready to turn on when the temps drop next week.


My son also helped me harvest tomatoes and peppers so that it will be done before nights drop into the forties next week. Most of these will stay on my kitchen counter to be eaten or to ripen up.



The piennolo tomatoes got sorted out and taken to our basement to hang in bunches. The first one I made has ripened nicely, though I have from time to time had to remove a spoiling tomato from it. I added the ones pcked today to the second bunch before the picture.



There's a lot of cleanup and cover crop planting as well as a few transplants that I want to do. I don't think we're in danger of frost yet, but the season is winding down.

 

[begreen]

That's a beautiful harvest! Such bounty. You and your mom make a good team!

 

[qwee]

Tomatoes are still holding on. A maybe freeze coming this next weekend. I will wait - trying for Oct. 20th before shutting down the garden. I'm also trying to get a couple of raised bed rows done. I filled one with greens, browns, and dirt/soil so it can compost - maybe make some false walls to overfill the beds to compensate for shrinkage. I dug 8" below the 12" 'cowboy' raised beds and started adding ingredients.

Yesterday, I got some free goat manure to help fill the next raised beds. It should mix well with organic matter and dirt. The rancher and his wife were so nice. They even helped me shovel up free goat manure loads into my truck bed and trailer. Building and filling raised beds is kind of fun. The neighbor's chickens have discovered my garden bed - already some tomato casualties. And another neighbor's dog is running covert operations to eat the AM cat food (if those chickens don't get to it first).

 

[begreen]

You're making great progress. If the frost is expected to be light, followed by warmer days, you may be able to extend the season by tarping the entire tomato plants with a large row cover. That will raise the soil temp and protect from frost. Be sure to open the ends if the temps are still in the 60s during the day so that it doesn't get too hot.

 

[qwee]

What is a large row cover?

 

[begreen]

There are several varieties in several sizes. The commercial name is Reemay fabric. Here's an example.

Amazon.com

In a pinch, just for overnight, a secured, king sized sheet might work. A row cover is super helpful for protecting early spring plantings too. We use hoops made of 3/4" black poly pipe and I also have this nifty system.

https://www.amazon.com/Greenhouse-Rust-Free-Fiberglass-Netting-Support/dp/B0BR3N9MSC/ref=sr_1_8

 

[qwee]

Thanks. Row covers will work well with the raised beds I'm building. I picked a basket of tomatoes - I'm tiring of eating tomatoes. Time to give some more away. At the end of the heating season you can get good deals on wood stoves. I discovered that at the end of growing season you can get good deals on trees and plants, too. I got some for 75% off.

I picked up 2 Pluot trees (plumb x apricot) and 2 apple trees (I had a couple in my orchard die). Also bought one grape plant and some hardy kiwis. Kiwis are new to me - I guess they can over grow due to being vigorous (I planted a Goji berry plant and now I have a hedge!). And, I got 8 free wood crate tops that are just the right size (~12' long x 1' tall) for raised beds - 8 is just the right amount. They will need some reinforcing with old lumber but free is good. Now I don't have to use my smaller treated 2x lumber. So much work to do before the snow.

 

[burning VC]

in the nwNC foothills....

starting early July, the intense heat wave started and didn't quit. The temps were average mid to high 90s, and zero rain for months. Even a monthly technical 'precipitation' brought only .01 of an inch at a time.

The tomatoes stopping setting ANY fruit, the beans didn't even bloom.

Cucumbers did ok, tomatoes were marginal and sparse.
Winter squash is still setting in the grass, finishing up ripening though i've already grabbed a few.

And finally the oddest part of this crazy hot summer into autumn....been grabbing these... @DuaeGuttae

House key for scale. This is Golden Honey.

planted as an afterthought, these sprouted late, since normally they don't do well, i threw them into the yard grass....where of course they outperformed anything else this year.

Also a Golden Honey.


the striped are Petite Yellow, and the front one is Stars and Moon, Yellow Flesh.

Just picked the above ^^ Friday before Hurricane Isaiah brought the rain so they didn't burst or get watered down.
Couldn't find pictures of the Golden Jubilee...which is yellow flesh Jubilee.

Still have 2 green striped(8-12lbs), and one Stars and Moon(20lbs) in the field.


A final result of this long and sunny year is that these are still growing and getting picked.




believe this is Honey Rock cantaloupe and i've gotten about a dozen over the last week or two.

Gave away a dozen Petite Yellow and Golden Honey. EVERYONE was happy and surprised getting a watermelon, yellow or orangish inside. Most had never heard of such.



The Stars and Moon variety tripped me out. Firstly, the yellow dots on the melon are 100% on each leaf. If a garden sees yellow spots on a cucurbit leaf, it's almost always bad, like a fungus.
So in the melon patch 1/2 the leaves are spotted. Thanks to the internet i learned about this spotting and didn't burn the patch, the neighbor patch etc.




tldr,
screwed up. now everyone knows these grow 'Spring til Halloween'...should have mowed it back in August...

 

[TreeCo]

Good looking gardens and produce my fellow wood heat enthusiasts!

I don't think I stopped in here all summer but it's getting cooler and I'm back.

Any of you eating sweet potato young leaves in your salads? We do and love them. My salad tonight contained sweet peppers, Florida broadleaf mustard greens, yellow cabbage collard leaves, young sweet potato leaves and some purslane, all fresh picked from the garden.

Here's some garden photos from just a few days ago. Soon the cold weather will be shutting most of the garden down. We'll be overwintering collards to collect seed next spring.

 

[djlew]

Awesome setup @TreeCo , you really have a nice operation going there. Keep it up! I haven't tried all of those different greens for salad. Beet greens were a new favorite discovery this year for salads and a replacement where lettuce makes sense (BLTs, tacos, etc). I'll have to give those a shot if I get the chance.

Pulled another 9 Japanese eggplants off today as well as some blushing tomatoes. I think I still have a handful of eggplants left and a dozen or so tomatoes that are green. We are dipping into dangerous temperature territory this weekend so it might be time to pull the remainder of the veggies and get the Meyer Lemon inside and close down shop for the year minus the root veggies. We'll see as we approach the weekend.

 

[burning VC]

1. Couldn't find pictures of the Golden Jubilee...which is yellow flesh Jubilee.

2. The Stars and Moon variety tripped me out. Firstly, the yellow dots on the melon are 100% on each leaf. If a garden sees yellow spots on a cucurbit leaf, it's almost always bad, like a fungus.
. Thanks to the internet i learned about this spotting and didn't burn the patch, the neighbor patch etc.

Found a shot of the earlier melons...Golden Honey are the bigger ones, a single Yellow Petite,
and the Golden Jubilee is the oblong one.
2. earlier i described the 'yellow dots' on the leaves for the Moon and Stars variety...well...

Again, i've never seen these grow, or heard about them....so the yellow dots reminded me of the various plant fungi, and i almost culled them.

And i found a shot taken inside a Golden Honey that was near perfectly ripe. It strongly had a flavor with immediate rich honey tones, and ridiculously sweet.


Grabbed the last melons and cantaloupes before an early(of late) chill in the high 30s
came to pass this past weekend.
Only thing left is butternut squash growing, though it's also dying in the early growth.

Time to amend the soil, tend the tools, and rest.
February germinations be here soon...

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@burning VC , thanks for all those pictures of your watermelons. You sure did have a great year with those despite your drought. Amazing!

We do love the Golden Honey watermelon in our family. I think it's very aptly named. It's the only variety I grew this year because I wanted to save seeds. I had just one plant grow, but we got five or six good melons from it, so I have a bunch of seeds drying down. I hope they'll be viable for me in the future.

I've seen Moon and Stars in catalogs and online, but I don't recall seeing mention of the speckled foliage before. It's very pretty, but I can see how one would think "disease" when not knowing about it. We have a hard time with cucurbits in our area because of so many pests, but I was thankfully that our watermelon vines went longer than our cucumbers without succumbing.

@TreeCo , your gardens are looking amazing. We do eat sweet potato leaves, but I can't say that we've done it as a feature of salads. Mostly we add them to soups like a lentil soup where one might normally use spinach. I have sauteed them before with garlic as we would do kale. This year two of the varieties that I grew I grew more for leaves than for roots, though I did end up with some good sized roots from them as well.

We've had two nights down to 33 degrees, but I think we've escaped frost. I picked a lot of peppers and luffa sponges on Saturday just in case, and I also cooked down a bunch of tomatoes.

The storage variety that I had in my basement was showing too many signs of decay. I have been removing some from time, but on Friday night's inspection I noticed too many going past for me to want to take chances on trying to keep them longer. I didn't get my dream of having fresh tomatoes hanging in the basement well past frost here, but I did get a nice bunch of tomatoes to cook down into sauce. The sauce itself got rave reviews from a good friend who is an excellent cook, so that was an encouragement after the discouragement of my storage experiment not going as I had hoped.

 

[qwee]

Maybe that storage tomato could be planted late and put in darker places in garden - like north of indeterminate tomato plants. The idea would be to keep the tomatoes green at harvest time. Red and blushing tomatoes are too far ripe for storage? I have some Burpee long keeper seed so next year I may experiment, too. Two more days and my green tomatoes are coming off (freezing nights coming towards end of the week).

 

[djlew]

Well, first frost is official and annual veg is officially toast. I did harvest as much as I could beforehand so did not actually lose any fruit. Beds are clear except for root veg, trenches dug for in bed composting, and other than that it's been real folks.

In ground peaches lost their leaves, winesap apple needed some care after a bout of fungus so I pruned and disposed. Raspberry is still sort of hanging on. Everything else is potted and starting to change color (blueberries, another peach, pomegranate).

Meyer lemon has been inside for a week or so now, and the full sized lemons are starting to ripen! Any idea on how long between "first blush" of color and full ripening? I know lemons take forever.

Sad that the season is coming to an end, but looking forward to next season because I really think that will be the year things really get going for me... sleep, creep, leap! Time for leaping!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@qwee, I'll have to think about doing a later in the season planting for the tomatoes, but I'm still skeptical about their being able to store so well in our more humid climate. However, I did have the early ones keep from July till October, which is three months. If my earlies were harvested only in September, that might give me till December, and it would be a treat to have fresh tomatoes then.

@djlew , we've had some very light frosts here but nothing killing. The garden isn't really producing, though, and I need to get it cleaned up to get cover crops in. I tried to look back to see if I have pictures of my mom's Meyer lemon harvests just to give you a date on them, but I know they tend to be around Christmas time. I remember one year when she actually used the tree as her Christmas tree with the yellow lemons as part of the decoration. She says that she likes to wait till the lemons are deep yellow, and I'd even say that they are golden or orangey-yellow, and they soften and turn more fragrant. They are delicious.

 

[djlew]

@qwee, I'll have to think about doing a later in the season planting for the tomatoes, but I'm still skeptical about their being able to store so well in our more humid climate. However, I did have the early ones keep from July till October, which is three months. If my earlies were harvested only in September, that might give me till December, and it would be a treat to have fresh tomatoes then.

@djlew , we've had some very light frosts here but nothing killing. The garden isn't really producing, though, and I need to get it cleaned up to get cover crops in. I tried to look back to see if I have pictures of my mom's Meyer lemon harvests just to give you a date on them, but I know they tend to be around Christmas time. I remember one year when she actually used the tree as her Christmas tree with the yellow lemons as part of the decoration. She says that she likes to wait till the lemons are deep yellow, and I'd even say that they are golden or orangey-yellow, and they soften and turn more fragrant. They are delicious.

Really cool using it as a Christmas tree! Very clever! I definitely feel the lemons getting softer and more yellow every day. May have been over the summer or last spring, but I found a bag of Meyer lemons at the grocery store. It gave me a nice idea of the color they can get. I'm sure they will be better right off the tree! Thank you for your insight as always.

 

[qwee]

I picked the green and blushed tomatoes - 3 big containers. What to do with the greenies? I dumped them out, sorted, and re-layered the green ones back in with plastic bags separating the layers. They will be stored in a colder place (around freezing or just above, maybe a little below). I'll see what happens. I'm hoping their ripening will be retarded. So I can pull them out and ripen them on the counter. I have no idea what will happen. But the store's do something like this with their tomatoes.

 

[begreen]

I picked the green and blushed tomatoes - 3 big containers. What to do with the greenies? I dumped them out, sorted, and re-layered the green ones back in with plastic bags separating the layers. They will be stored in a colder place (around freezing or just above, maybe a little below). I'll see what happens. I'm hoping their ripening will be retarded. So I can pull them out and ripen them on the counter. I have no idea what will happen. But the store's do something like this with their tomatoes.
View attachment 350037

I'll be doing the same today.

Keep an eye on them. I'm not sure if separating the layers with plastic will work. We use newspaper to allow freer ventilation. Ours are laid out in single layers in the greenhouse.

The blushers should ripen first and used as they become ready. Some of the greenies will also ripen, but some will rot. Be sure to watch for this and cull them regularly. The green tomatoes can also be cooked in different dishes.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I likewise try to do a single layer of tomatoes in a basket or cardboard flat. I'll even go so far as to turn the tomatoes upside down so that they are resting on their shoulders which tend to be firmer and ripen slower.

Earlier this month I made a double recipe of green tomato crumb cake for my mom's 90th birthday. I was generous with the tomatoes and cut down on the butter and sugar a bit. I didn't use the crumb topping at all. It was definitely a hit.

https://food52.com/recipes/88159-green-tomato-crumb-cake-recipe

Today my husband and I worked at cleaning out more rows of the garden and getting winter rye sown. We have three done and two to go. One of those two has some plants that I'd like to keep which makes it a little harder to manage as I've been putting down more paper to continue to weaken the bermuda grass. The other row still has a number of pepper plants that are going strong, so I've been leaving it till the rest of the work is managed.

 

[begreen]

Thanks for posting the recipe. Looks yummy.

I just harvested all of our Juliets. They're mostly green with maybe 25% blushing. The plant is still in nice shape with robust green leaves and no sign of blight in spite of the 37º temp last night.

 

[begreen]

Our citruses are now in the greenhouse and happy. The Satsuma orange is an overachiever this year. I’ve already thinned a dozen or more oranges from it.

 

[djlew]

Nice, oranges look good. I'll have to get a pic of my lemon I brought in. You weren't kidding though about productivity, I think I have 6 yellowing right now but maybe 4 or so are on the smaller side. Not sure if I should have thinned some.