Indian Summer continues

The unseasonably warm weather has held for the past week. Tomatoes are continuing to ripen on the vines, as are red peppers. The basil which was heavily pruned has put out lots of new growth. I may get another batch of pesto out of this.

The broccoli plants are now just about a month old and are looking good. Several nights ago I added Dill seeds to the troughs between the plants. No sign of seedlings yet. The soil has been warm and I've done a good job of keeping the soil moist.

The fennel, also a month old, is not developing as quickly as I thought it might. One of the plants got munched by slugs, although not enough to destroy the plant. Sometimes I wish I could rent a chicken.

Onions

Onion seeds went into planting troughs today. I think I may germinate some in coffee filters as a test group. I found a packet of seeds called Candy. They're supposed to be a short season onion, which is in keeping with the higher water content, sweeter onion types. I'm dubious of the packet which promises maturity in 80 days. Everything else said 100+. I'll know when the tops fall down.

Late fall planting

It's been unseasonably warm the past couple of days. I took the opportunity to work in the sun and get the seedlings into the ground.

12 bulbing fennel plants went in where the green beans had been this summer. It's a nice rich soil mix there.

18 broccoli seedlings went in to the north of the remaining basil. They'll get good sun there, and will have enough space to develop. I'm thinking I'd like to plant a fair number of garlic and onions, but where to put them?

TheRoommate wants to put in bulbs, but I'm not sure how to square that with the available sunlight and all of that. Ranunculus are my favorite, but I don't know of the corms are squirrel fodder.

dwindling harvests

Cut down most of the basil today. Will make pesto later.

The cherry tomatoes have cascaded out of their giant pots, to twin on the ground. I pinched off every new sprout that I could find. I want the last tomatoes to ripen and then be done with the things. Next year, no more than one or two plants. More of the bigger fruits would be fine.

I did get a couple more pints of cherry tomatoes. What I'll do with them is anyone's guess. I also got about 7 more red chile peppers.

First rain

We've had 18 hours of rain and no real signs of abatement. The ants are going crazy swarming out of their flooded nests. No better time to get the hose and the boric acid.

Meanwhile, many of those little broccoli seeds that I planted about a week ago have sprouted!

Paper towels are bad for germinating

Despite what any novice pothead will tell you, paper towels suck for germinating seeds. Oh sure, the little shells do seem to love the ratio of water, light and air. However, once the roots start to develop they intertwine themselves with the loose fibers in the towel. When it's time to pull the layers apart, the tiny seedling gets shredded.

Fall harvesting, cleaning & planting

Harvesting:

As per usual, the tomato plants did not get the memo suggesting that as November looms they should stop blossoming. I picked 2 dry pints of cherry tomatoes and nearly 3 gallons of red slicers, the crimson carmellos. A batch of tomato sauce made from a mix of the cherry tomatoes and slicers was very tasty.

The basil is flowering madly, but was too dry to harvest. I'll give it a gentle deep watering and pick most of it in the morning.

There are quite a few red peppers on the pepper plants. The lone pepper that was in with the cucumbers is trying to make up for lost time. It's covered in blossoms and is setting quite a bit of fruit. I'll feed it a bit today as well.

Cleaning:
Today I tore down all the forlorn corn stalks that had been decimated by squirrels. The spent sunflowers came down as well. The trumpetvine which cascades over the eastern fence was blocking a lot of sunlight to the ground, so I cut that back very aggressively.

There was quite a bit of wood sorrel choking the basil, that's now gone too. However, the backyard is generally looking like an episode from Weeds Gone Wild. I'll have to convince TheRoommate to bust out his weedburner.

Planting:

The seeds that germinated at the beginning of the month have yielded some results. I sucessfully transplanted about 6 of the fennel seedlings, but only 2 of the broccoli seedlings.

Today I'm going to direct sow broccoli into a long planter box. When the fennel seedlings get bigger they'll go into the barrel where the sweet peas had been previously. I added a few seeds to the planting box where the bigger seedlings are. Hopefully, they'll germinate.